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MWC 2013: Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

Usable as a phone? Seriously?

MWC 2013: Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
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Samsung struck gold when it came up with the Galaxy Note.

Everyone laughed about the reinvention of the stylus, and the ridiculous size of the 'phablet' that nobody would be seen dead using as a phone.

But, as history has shown, Samsung had the last laugh. The Note found itself a rather large niche that seems to be growing as more and more people realise that a pen isn't such a ridiculous idea for a tablet after all.

Yet when looking at the Galaxy Note 8.0 in the flesh I can't help but feel that Samsung has perhaps lost the plot a little. Whereas the Note 10.1 was a tablet that got the S Pen support, the Note 8.0 is actually built to work as a normal mobile phone.

It's pretty obvious that it's far too big to hold comfortably or safely. And people will laugh at you. Even those that take photos or video with their iPad.

Samsung might argue that nobody has to make calls on the Galaxy Note 8.0, but with its large bezel the device is bigger than it could have been, and it looks rather dated as a result. The proportions simply don't work as well as on the smaller devices.

With such a large screen, the Note 8.0 can be split into a windowed mode, showing two different applications simultaneously.

It's already available on the Note 2 and Note 10.1, but this time around Samsung has added an enhanced version of Chat-On and Awesome Note, an integrated app that imposes no limits on how many notes, diary appointments, lists, and memos you can make.

The Note 8.0 also produced an impressive AnTuTu benchmark of 17,845, thanks to the 1.6GHz quad-core processor.

On top of all that there's a 5-megapixel camera on the rear, and a 1.3-megapixel one at the front.

Battery life is a key feature of the Note devices, and with a 4,600mAh battery inside the Note 8.0 it should still last longer than many phones with pathetically small cells.

However, taking into consideration the size difference between this and the Google Nexus 4 (the Nexus 4 has a 4.7-inch 768x1280 pixel display versus an 8-inch 800x1280 pixel display) you can see that the Galaxy Note 8.0 has a relatively large - and battery-hungry - area to light up without the benefit of more pixels to improve the experience. The screen is only 189 pixels-per-inch, which by today's standards is pretty low.


The Nexus 4 is considered large by many, but would you ever hold the Note 8.0 to your cheek?

I not sure that Samsung has managed to come up with the perfect solution for the gap between the current Note 2 and the Note 10.1, but perhaps it will once again prove that it knows the market better than anyone else.

I wouldn't bet on it, though.

Jonathan Morris
Jonathan Morris
From starting out as a games tester for Mastertronic, Virgin and Sega in the late 1980s, it may seem odd to then ditch everything to write about mobile phones that, at the time, lasted 20 minutes between charges. He always had a hunch mobiles would become quite popular, but possibly didn't realise how powerful (and, ironically, returning to 20 minutes between charges). Jonathan's job is to continue advising on the best hardware to buy, in order to enjoy games that have advanced considerably since those long days and nights testing Double Dragon on the C64.