Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Review

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• nerd1 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  Actually S note lags a lot with Ativ smart PC (clover trail) but it's way better with oneNote.

• Death666Angel - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  Display analysis: You only show the contrast ratio for the highest brightness setting. In display reviews, you at least have min/max brightness contrast ratios. That is better, but you should really have a contrast/brightness diagram with at least 11 data points (0% to 100% in 10% increments).
  
  "Unfortunately one of the hallmarks of TouchWiz is that all icons and widgets are considerably larger than they are under iOS" -> I don't see that in the picture you posted below that. It looks more cramped because it has more icons in the same space (5 horizontal on a 16:10 display vs. 4 on a 4:3 display and 6 vertical vs 4 vertical). If they are considerably larger, I should see it with my eye. But I don't. Can you provide measurements of the icons?
  
  I agree completely with your tablet size assessment. I've had a 10" Android tablet for about 10 months now. It got used a lot when it was new (as any gadget does). But then the usefulness quickly plummeted and I often found myself wanting to be able to do more with it. Especially shoddy video playback was an annoyance. Any laptop or PC I own that is 5 years old or younger plays anything I through at it smoothly through either MPC-HC or VLC. For Android, I can never be sure until I try and often, even stuff that should play fine (720p downloaded content encoded for iTunes) stutters and has async video/audio on several players. So my 11.6" notebook (Core i3-330UM) took over most travelling duties again and the tablet got used as a toilet device and a portable console for young visitors. Now I have a 11.6" Samsung Core i tablet which I love. Battery life is of course shorter, but I still get through a day of use and that's all I need. If I had to buy a new tablet today, the 7" to 8" form factor would be what I would look at. But personally, I'm looking for a ~6" phone (Note 3 perhaps?) because my 4.7" GN feels positively tiny after a year of use and going to 6" would give me great pocketability, allow me to carry it everywhere while also giving me more real estate and let me stay with 2 portable devices instead of 3. :)

• rkcth - Friday, April 19, 2013 - link

  I use a jailbroken ipad mini with VLC and it plays anything I throw at it, been watching the whole series of true blood and its awesome. The only issue I ever have is with audio syncing after pausing, I usually have to click the done button and reclick the video to get it to resync properly, but I'm pretty sure that's a bug in VLC since it only happens after pausing and playing.

• herts_joatmon - Saturday, April 20, 2013 - link

  It may just be the codex. I get the same problem on my android tablet with my true blood rips

• TareX - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  This is making me even look more forward to the Note 3... Now that's a device that should last a long time before upgrading. Sorry HTC/Sony... you've had your chance to produce a proper phablet but you haven't delivered.

• FlyBri - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  The Note 8.0 is for a niche market at this price to such an extent that I believe sales figures will be considerably lower than Samsung expects. As such, I see a price cut in the near future. I was looking forward to the Note 8.0. While the S pen is a great feature, it's not an absolute must have for me. To me, $399 is WAY too much to ask, and I think the market will reflect this with lower sales numbers. If Samsung even cut $50 off the price they'd be in much better shape...

• enealDC - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  Another Android Tablet that will be useless in a matter of months! They are great to look at and hold and consume content on, but when the novelty wears off and you have business to get to, close the tablet and fire up your laptop (I'm a Transformer Prime owner).
  The next device I get is going to be a Microsoft Surface Pro for sure!

• nerd1 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  Having used win8 tablet for years and now using galaxy tab 7.7 for my main mobile device (including phone!), I cannot disagree more.

• thesavvymage - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link

  please tell me, which windows 8 tablet have you been using for years? There are NONE that have been out for more than a year. Installing the consumer preview on something else i guess was possible a year ago

• nerd1 - Friday, April 19, 2013 - link

  W8 developer preview was available july 2011, and I've been using EP121, W500, slate 7.