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
TouchWiz Customizations & UI Performance
The Galaxy Note 8.0 ships with Android 4.1.2 by default, but layered with Samsung’s usual array of visual and functional customizations on top of it.
At its Galaxy S 4 launch event last month in NYC, Samsung announced a litany of new platform features for its new flagship phone. Using the Galaxy Note 8.0 after that announcement feels a lot like I’m getting a “lite” treatment unfortunately. That’s a major downside to launching overlapping products, unless there’s a unified feature front you’re bound to disappoint someone. I should add that it’s not that I feel like I’m missing any of those features announced for the SGS4, but it feels wrong not to have everything on a platform that just came out.
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All is not lost on the Note 8.0 however. Smart Stay, Samsung’s feature that keeps the display on if it detects you looking at it, is alive and well on the tablet. Air View gestures exist, but they are triggered by the stylus and not by hovering your finger over the display.
Samsung cooked up a few odd but potentially useful palm gestures to interact with the OS. These aren’t new to the platform, but they bear repeating for users new to Samsung’s Android customizations. Using your palm to touch the screen will pause video you’re playing. Using the side of your hand to swipe across the screen will grab a screenshot. I should add that both of these gestures are meant to be carried out softly; you’re not meant to abuse the Galaxy Note 8.0 to bend to your will.
Gestures and unique features aside, Samsung’s Android customizations are also paired with a very distinct visual and audible style. Large icons and text, bold colors and bubbly friendliness are everywhere. I get what Samsung is trying to do here, it’s all supposed to be very accessible and not intimidating. Both Apple and Samsung are using the current mobile revolution to repeat the evolution of the PC industry, but without the mistakes.
Unlike Samsung’s earlier attempts to skin Android on its tablets, the experience on the Note 8.0 is usually very smooth. This is in part due to Android 4.1.2 and partly because Exynos 4 Quad is a lot faster than Tegra 2 was back in the days of the first Galaxy Tabs. Some actions aren’t as responsive as I’d like (e.g. bringing up the task switcher has some initial hesitation), and you’ll occasionally see dropped frames when switching back to the home screen but overall the experience is pretty good.
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HanakoIkezawa - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Menu or back button. Hardware buttons and the "experience" are completely objective and chanfe from user to user. Ios devices drive me insane because I only have a menu button ans no back button, but my sister loves having only one button on her iphone. I feel lost on nexus devices because of the lack of hardware buttons but im sure some nexus owners how despise the note 8 layout.It's all matter of opinion.
antef - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
A menu button need not be in a permanent bar that uses screen real estate, it should be with the app's UI, which is what Google's guidelines indicate. It doesn't make sense for a large screen application to require a tiny button off-screen to be pressed to pull up app functionality. It's disjointed and unintuitive.Sabresiberian - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Heh I suggest that the fact that the Surface Pro is based on any Ivy Bridge Core i5 chip could be the reason it is faster at, oh, everything. :)herts_joatmon - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
I mainly want this for sketching. I had no issues when trying it out in the samsung store. I was using Sketchbook pro though not s note. Had 4 layers on there (sketch, inking, backround colour and picture colour). It seemed to work fine through out. I only spent about 15 minutes playing though...GNUminex - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
As a college student I constantly see other students struggling to annotate lecture slides or or pdfs on their tablets, and/or struggling to type on their tablets. It really confounds me why no one has set out to make hardware that comprehensively meets the productivity needs of these people and then market the device to them. Keyboards that don't physically connect to the tablets and act as a base are not practical for all situations. The transformer's dock doesn't make a sturdy base. The Surfaces don't sit well on a lap and are too expensive. The Note finally solves the writing problem with it's stylus but has no keyboard, and the more traditional tablet laptops are too big and too expensive.The0ne - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
You've been using Win8 tablets for years? How can this be?The0ne - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
You've been using Win8 tablets for years? How can this be?nerd1 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Win8 developer preview was released July 2012 as far as I remember.ezekiel68 - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
I came in interested in the Note 8. I left interested in the Nexus 10.haukionkannel - Thursday, April 18, 2013 - link
Well, I came to the same conclusion than the article writer. I would take any day Nexys 7 with a s-pen over this product if it only would be available... Better screen, longer usage time, smaller size...Hopefully we will some day see "note" version of some of those small size Nexus tablets!
I don't mind a little bit weaker CPU or GPU as long as you get better screen and longer battery time!
But not a bad product at all!