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
Performance: Upgrading from a Galaxy Tab 8.9
It’s important to remember that users actually upgrade devices and aren’t in a constant state of comparing only the absolute latest to the absolute latest. Stepping into the real world for a moment, I dusted off the first sub-10” tablet that ever excited me: Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.9.
Built around NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 and driving an 8.9-inch 1280 x 800 display, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 was in many ways a not too distant relative of the Note 8.0. Many of the UI customizations we see today on the Note 8.0 can be seen in a much earlier form on the Galaxy Tab 8.9. The app drawer existed back then (although it was seriously slow to appear/animate) and the tablet eventually got the ability to display multiple apps at the same time:
Multitasking on the old Galaxy Tab 8.9
There was even an early note taking app although the old Galaxy Tab 8.9 lacked a stylus.
From a performance standpoint, it’s sort of insane to think of how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. Remember, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 came out less than 2 years ago. Back then, shipping 40nm LP hardware from TSMC was common place - we've gone through a full process node transition since. Building SoCs at 28/32nm not only gave manufacturers the ability to integrate more features (more cores, bigger GPUs), but at higher frequencies as well.
CPU Performance
The Galaxy Note 8.0 features Samsung's own Exynos 4 Quad (4412) SoC. The SoC features four ARM Cortex A9 cores running at up to 1.6GHz (1.4GHz max in the Note 10.1) fed by a 1MB L2 cache and a dual-channel LPDDR2/3 memory controller. ARM's Cortex A9 isn't exactly top shelf these days, but compared to what's in the iPad mini (2 x A9s running at 1GHz) the Note 8.0 has a substantial frequency advantage. The same is true if we look at the Note 8.0 compared to the old Galaxy Tab 8.9. The advantage there is even greater as Tegra 2 lacked NEON support and only had a single channel memory interface.
The Note 8.0 a bit faster than the Note 10.1 thanks to its higher max CPU frequency (1.6GHz vs. 1.4GHz). The comparison to the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is like night and day, the Note 8.0 is considerably quicker. The iPad mini comparison is also skewed significantly in favor of the Note 8.0. Using Apple's A5r2, the iPad mini still has a standard Cortex A9 based SoC with a much lower operating frequency than what's used in the Note. This chart alone is good reason for why Apple needs to move the mini to an A6 based design sooner rather than later.
The Note 8.0's CPU performance remains very competitive here despite being based on a fairly old CPU architecture at this point. The 8 is much faster than the iPad mini, tangibly quicker than the Nexus 7 (dual-channel memory interface, higher max CPU clocks) and in this case even faster than the iPad 4 thanks to the performance of Chrome on Android.
Our final CPU/js test echoes what we've seen elsewhere. Samsung knows how to build performance competitive hardware. The improvement over the old Galaxy Tab 8.9 remains significant.
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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