Judie got a first look at the Samsung GALAXY Note 8.0 during Mobile World Congress, and I was immediately impressed from afar. I love the size of my iPad mini, but I still miss the ability to write on the screen without having to dal with all sorts of vectoring caused by other parts of my hand touching the screen. (I am, after all, left-handed, and it is an ongoing issue for many of us South Paws.)
The Samsung GALAXY Note 8.0 has the S-Pen which lets you write on the screen to take notes, edit pictures and much more. It also includes Samsung’s Air View technology. This means that the S Pen simply needs to hover over a screen in order to let you access previews of videos, pictures, emails and appointments. The specs of this latest entry into the Samsung GALAXY universe of devices are actually quite good. The Samsung GALAXY Note 8.0 has a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor and an 8 inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800. It has a five megapixel rear camera and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for video chat. It offers Wi-Fi 8/B/G/N on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. It has Bluetooth 4.0,supports Wi-Fi direct and has a digital compass and accelerometer built in. The battery capacity is 4600 mAh. The device ships with android 4.1.2 – jellybean. It has 2 GB of RAM, comes in 16 and 32 GB versions, and you can add a microSD card of up to 64 GB for added capacity.
We’ve got one in hand, so here’s our first look.
Dan,
It will be very interesting to see how you compare this to the Google Nexus. I recall you decided the Nexus wasn’t sufficient for you at the time. I am considering getting one of these, purely for the pen function. The Pen would seem to be the only major advantage (I know it has dual cameras and some other differences) over the Nexus tablet but at a much higher price tag. If this is the case, it comes down to the question of whether 400$ is worth it over the options you mentioned of using the moleskin or livescribe.
Exactly. The pen is the key differentiator here. It is a huge differentiator and one I am trying to size up. Is it worth the price? Honestly I’m still not sure but I am drawn to this device and think it could be rather helpful for my work
I feel similarly drawn to the device and will likely give in to buying it. Keep us posted.
I still find the pen to be a ‘gimmick’. Android is NOT a pen-based OS, period. So as I noted during my Galaxy Note II review, everything pen-based was layered on top, and from Samsung. I know there is some amount of third-party adoption, but ultimately I saw it as a bit of a hack.
But then again, since moving away from stylus-based devices I have been fine without writing on a screen. I would much prefer a LiveScribe and iPad Mini, which combine for about the price of the Note.
I find it very difficult to write on the smooth screen of a mobile device, as the pen just slides – there is no resistance between penpoint and surface, which is what allows the user to form letters. I tried a friend’s Galaxy Note2 and, stylus notwithstanding, did not find it better than an iphone with a third party stylus. If I am going to handwrite something, I use pen and paper.