Samsung is taking its battle for market dominance with Apple to the next level as it brings the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet, a competitor to iPad mini, to the U.S. market this Thursday.
Samsung says that the tablet will only be available in a Wi-Fi version priced at $399. The Note 8, as it's informally known, comes with 16 gigabytes of storage.
The Samsung tablet will be available directly from Samsung as well as from all major retailers including Amazon, Staples and Best Buy. Note 8 is one of two major mobile products released by Samsung this month following the Galaxy S4.
The device resembles an oversized Galaxy S3 smartphone but carries all the features of a tablet including an 8-inch display at 1280x800 resolution, a 1.6GHz Quad Core processor and 2GB of RAM plus 16GB of internal storage. The storage can be augmented to 80GB via a 64GB micro SD card. The tablet has the now ubiquitous Samsung S-Pen stylus support. The tablet runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz on top of it. The Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with a 5-megapixel rear camera and 1.3-megapixel front camera.
The tablet will be preloaded with content, estimated at around $200, like 50 GB of Dropbox storage for 24 months and one month of unlimited Music Hub streaming etc. Customer will also receive a limited $25 Google Play voucher as they register the device. Note 8 will also feature Samsung's WatchON service, which acts as a digital TV guide.
