Samsung is everywhere smartphones, tablets, Cameras, Laptops, even home and kitchen appliances. You can’t deny it, but you can embrace it. They are out to saturate the market and are doing a pretty darn good job of it with quality high end products. If you already own a Samsung Galaxy product, the Note 8 will seem comfortably familiar to you. The Galaxy Note 8 tablet brings you some of the same great functionality that the other Galaxy family members share. It’s an excellent device for both play and productivity.
Size, Weight and Design
Most obvious is the size. I actually enjoy the 8-inch form factor the Note 8 tablet, is reasonably comfortable to hold. The Note 8 carries some weight with it at 345g for the WiFi/3G/LTE version and sheds 4 grams with the WiFi only version. Pound for pound it feels slightly heavier than the Galaxy Note 10.1.
The Note 8 measures 8.3″W 5.35″ H x D 0.31″. Still, after some prolonged usage, it weighed a little heavy on the hands but this may appeal to you since it makes the Note 8 feel well constructed. There are varying opinions on the plastic housing, but if it were made of metal it might be too heavy to hold for long. The surface is tactilly pleasant to hold and doesn’t want to slip out of my hands.
The two speakers are set on either end of the bottom edge so if you’re holding it landscape, you will need to make sure not to cover the speakers. All controls are aligned along the right edge of the device leaving only the MicroSD card slot to reside on the opposite side making you less likely to click the Note 8 off when moving from landscape to portrait.
The capacitive buttons or hotspots as I like to refer to them have been thoughtfully placed inward closer to the physical home button allowing you to keep your hand centered in landscape and within thumbs reach when in portrait view.
Hardware Specs and Performance
The Note 8 operates smoothly. It’s snappy and responsive in our testing. Comes equipped with an Exynos 1.6Ghz Quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, Micro SD Slot expandable to 32GB and an 8″ WXGA screen at 1280×800 with 189 ppi, WiFi only with Stylus or S Pen. The S Pen tucks neatly away into the bottom right corner of the Note 8.
There’s also a rear firing 5 megapixel camera that shoots 1080p and a front firing 1.3MP camera that can shooot in 720p for video conferencing etc. Additionally the Note 8 comes equipped with IR panel to use your device as a TV remote and an accelerometer sensor. At this time the Note 8 supports Quad-band EDGE/Tri-band UMTS/3G/4GLTE/4GHSPA+ and WiFi a/b/g/n networks if you’re an AT&T customer or WiFi only.
The Camera’s on the Note 8 are less than desirable and do not exhibit the same performance results you will find on the S3, S4 or Note II. The camera has no onboard flash and should be used mainly for note taking and reference style photos or casual videos. I am not sure I would be lugging around a tablet of any size to use as a camera anyway, it just seems like peeing in the wind to me.
Battery Life
Battery performance is pretty good at up to 10 hours of use or 17 hours of standby. Samsung provides you with a 5v / 2.0 amp recharger cord to help charge that 4,600mAh battery. The charge time is a bit slow but the real world usage time seems acceptable vs the charge time.
When stacked against other tablets, the Note 8 seems to draw more power than some, probably due to the TouchWiz UI, Multitasking and other functionality, so to conserve power it’s good practice to shut down unnecessary processes that you will not be needing such as Bluetooth if you don’t need it, utilizing a WiFi network as much as possible and killing background tasks that may have been left running for optimal performance.
Features and Functionality
The Galaxy Note 8 brings with it their Touchwiz UI layer functionality from the rest of the Galaxy class products such as Multi Window, Group Play, Air View, Pop-up Play, S Note, Reading Mode and more.
Multi Window comes in handy on the Note 8 vs on the S4 since I personally don’t get into anything too complex on a smartphone unless I have to, where as the Note 8’s real estate allows me to be able to feel less cramped when trying to view two applications at once, it makes the real world use of these features more enticing and nice to have when you’re on the move, not to mention a great boasting conversation piece. At this time, unfortunately you cannot use any app you’d like in the Multi Window environment only the predetermined ones which I am sure will change as firmware updates are rolled out.
Group Play allows you to share your document view from PDF files and PowerPoint slideshows, photos, or even broadcast your music and video files to other Galaxy users on the same WiFi network. I’m not sure how often I will have 4 friends who have a Galaxy device that I can broadcast music to, or in a work environment where I can display a PowerPoint slideshow but it’s still a cool feature that I have to admit I find excuses to try and use.
With a native apps like Polaris Office, S Note, S Planner… the Note 8 is not only a device for play but for productivity as well and the form factor allows me to revisit the idea of using a PDA device for work related or personal tasks. While I don’t typically use a stylus, the option to use it is certainly welcome. The S Pen and Wacom based tablet technology is great for note taking, adding comments to images or diagrams and drawing… While the S Pen stylus is a bit thin to hold, it has a very natural feel to it performance wise when used on the tablet. The S Pen was designed with 1,204 degrees of pressure sensitivity levels to give you a more natural feel. If you have ever used a Wacom drawing tablet, the feel is in alignment.
The Price
The price is competitive but the Note 8 was originally released in a WiFi only version. The Note 8 is now available in a WiFi with Cellular data version on AT&T for the same $399.00. The 16GB WiFi only iPad Mini prices at $329.00 and the 16GB WiFi with Cellular data version is $459.00 so comparatively the price isn’t so bad. $399.00 flat or $399.00 with a two year contract and whatever monthly data plan you choose to purchase. AT&T is also offering the Note 8 for $199.00 if you pick up a Galaxy Note 2, S4 or S4 Active in tandem.
Conclusion
Our user experience has been a very pleasant one. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is able to comfortably handle most things real world situations you can throw at it and continued to operate smoothly throughout our daily common tasks. It offers competitive pricing, excellent performance overall and is agile enough to take with you and use it as your own electronic clipboard PDA/Entertainment/Productivity device in everyday life.
Available from samsung.com and ATTwireless.com for $399.00
– Photos by Ronald Lee
