Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 17, 2013 11:29 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Samsung
- Android
- Mobile
- Galaxy Note 8.0
NAND Performance
Given one of my obsessions over the past 5 years, focusing on NAND performance in modern smartphones and tablets is an obvious fit. For these tests we turn to Androbench, using a modified version of the default performance settings. By upping the read/write buffer to 100MB we get more repeatable results, which is always nice to have. Just as in our PC SSD reviews, we focus on large block sequential read/write performance as well as small file random access. For Windows 8 tablets, we use Crystal Disk Mark as a rough comparison point. Note that we are looking at peak performance here and not sustained write speeds. I don't even want to know how slow these things will get if exposed to prolonged random writes. I've toyed with worst case performance on modern iOS and Android mobile devices and it's not pretty. For now, just try not to fill these things up.
The Galaxy Note 8.0's peak sequential performance is ok, the Nexus 10 does far better. Random IO performance however is great (for an ARM based tablet). The latter is very important for IO heavy multitasking workloads, which could be why we're seeing a mild focus on it here. Random write performance is still lower than I'd like to see (realistically we need to be about an order of magnitude better than where we are for real IO intensive multitasking), but the Note 8.0 at least ends up near the top of these charts.
If you look at the Note 10.1's performance you'll notice a big difference in random IO performance. It's entirely possible that Samsung is using a better controller/firmware combination in the Note 8.0, or it could be that my review sample happened to source a better eMMC solution. NAND based storage is typically treated like a commodity by most OEMs, so I wouldn't be too surprised to see wide variation in performance depending on how well you do in the eMMC lottery.
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Ashley1989 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Hi, I'm awaiting for the launch of this machine in India, expected somewhere in the end of April. I'm inclined towards its sleek design and its task switcher feature. Its available on S3 too if you update your software. Can't wait to install One browser to it, download and surf at lightening speed. Its gonna be a deadly combo.superflex - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
No Editors Choice award?Enjoy the wrath of the Samsung Fanbois.
herts_joatmon - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
This is the first review i've read to date on this that talks about the s-pen as a drawing tool and compares it to a similar product (the surface in this case). The main reason I wanted this was to use as a mobile sketchpad. I have concerns now having read that its not upto the standard of the surface pro. Saying that, I cant afford the Surface pro so I may have no other choice than this. Was it the pen itself that was the issue? Have your tried it with other Wacom pens? I've already gone out and bought the seperate s pen with erraser for the improved ergonomics and functionality assuming it would be a better experience than the standard pen supplied.Arbie - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
This is a real prospect for me. The screen size is just large enough to enjoy videos, while still being portable.What I really appreciate is the SD card slot. On a device so capable of media playback, it's a no-brainer to include a tiny, low-cost way of instantly swapping libraries of content in and out. The size of the internal storage is irrelevant to this - nothing beats micro/SD for loading and unloading media sets. The companies that omit SD in order to force higher prices for internal storage (!) will never get my business.
nerd1 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Still some company is charging $100 for extra 16GB while you can get 32GB card at $20.antef - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
lol, a menu button on a tablet??? Users will probably never even notice it's there. Imagine such a thing on an iPad or Nexus 10.Samsung just doesn't get it.
nerd1 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
It actually helps a lot to have external buttons on tablet, as it won't eat up screen real estate.I hate permanent on-screen buttons.
Calista - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Fully agree, have always found the onscreen buttons of HC and ICS a bit akward, to easy to hit by mistake. But I guess real buttons would hinder the idea that the tablet should be able to be turned any way the user please. Unfortunately it still won't work that way since we always have the power and volume button and the speakers in fixed positions.antef - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
The problem with real buttons is flexibility. If you include a hardware menu key (Samsung), it creates a bad, disjointed UI experience and a button that sometimes does nothing depending on the app you're in. An app's functionality should be fully contained with the app's UI and a button off-screen to pull up some functions is not smart design. It's also completely inconsistent ith 10" tablets and thus hard for new users to learn which is why Google axed it. However, if you don't include a hardware menu key (HTC), you're stuck with a full-row black menu bar for legacy apps that expect an off-screen menu key. On-screen keys eliminate this issue and let you have the best of both worlds.HanakoIkezawa - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Im sorry but I fail to see how having dedicated buttons off screen create a broken experience in any way, shape or form. I for one cannot stand having wasted pixels on screen or having no dedicated