blog Korean electronics giant Samsung has been relatively quiet regarding the Australian launch of its new Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet since the new hotness was revealed over the past month. And we can’t blame the company: Its previous Android tablets haven’t precisely set the Australian market on fire; despite multiple launches over the past several years, Apple’s iPad still retains the vast majority of Australia’s tablet market. However, this morning, according to Gizmodo (we recommend you click here for the full article), Samsung finally bit the bullet and revealed the Australian launch details for its answer to the iPad mini:
“Right now, only the Wi-Fi version has been announced, with a price tag of $459. The 3G model will follow, probably in mid-May, but local pricing for that hasn’t been set.”
To be honest, we can’t for the life of us understand why Samsung would charge as much as it is for the Note 8.0, when you can get one of Google’s stellar Nexus 7 tablets for as low as $229 from an online retailer such as Kogan. Hell, even the iPad mini starts a great deal cheaper — at $369 for the 16GB model. Is the Note 8.0 really worth that much more? Not in our book. We’ll hit up Samsung for a review model, however, and see how this little baby does in the real world. In the meantime, there’s a good hands-on here from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Image credit: Samsung
That’s crazy pricing. You can get their Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 for under $300.
A lot of bloggers seem to think that the Note 8 was designed as competition for the iPad mini. Personally, I think that it would have been thought about long before the mini became available.
Of course, their advertising has to address the elephant in the room that exists now that the Note 8 is here.
However, I think their target markets are quite different. Well at least the Note addresses a demographic that the mini does not: those that want real writing/drawing capability.
The Note 8 will not be the premium device — as in, all bells and whistles — the Note III will be, but is speced more modestly and directed to those who do not need the highest pixels in display or camera.
The Note I and IIs appealed to a lot of people that were hanging out for the size of display upon which some useful web browsing could be done. Most users probably don’t bother about the stylus.
The Note 8 seems to be focussed upon the stylus functionality and let all the other things like the camera and multimedia take a back seat.
It is achieving the balance that more appeals to my usage than the Notes I and II did (I have both!). It was only when the Note II finally got the stylus right for left-handers that I found that the screen wasn’t really big enough for a lot of what I wanted to write or draw. I don’t take many photos nor watch videos on them.
Of course, I always thought that the Note II should have been a true Windows 8 or RT device. The Note 8 would have been a great full Win8 device. Certainly all the other OEMS are producing uninteresting Win8 devices, and when they do include a digitiser, have done nothing like what Sansung has done with the Notes.
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