Ever since Apple launched the iPad Mini, rumors of Samsung launching a rival have been rife. Confirming speculation, Samsung has announced that its booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will in fact be the place where the all-new Galaxy Note 8.0 would be debuted. The 8-inch display-fitted tablet would be revealed in February which means that it could hit markets later in the year. Even though the iPad Mini officially holds the title of being the smallest tablet PC to date, the new Galaxy tab could prove to be just the thing that eats into the Apple device’s sales figures very easily.
The smaller Galaxy tablet is expected to feature most of the offerings that its larger 10-inch display fitted big brother comes with including the 1.6GHz quad-core processor, the Super Clear LCD 1280×800 TFT display, a 1.3-megapixel front camera and a 5-megapixel rear facing camera. The tablet is expected to run using Google Android 4.2 with 2GB of RAM.
Hard drive options for the 8.0 should include 16GB and 32GB variants with expandable microSD card slot good for cards providing an extra 32GB of storage. Connectivity options for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 would be Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 4.0 and it will be interesting to see what kind of battery life the 4600mAh battery on the model would provide.
The tablet should be priced between the Google Nexus 7 and the Apple iPad Mini with the S pen stylus offered as an optional extra. If the tablet does success in attracting customers away from the 7- and 10-inch screen tablets, it could open up the market for a whole bunch of displays that vary between these display sizes. However, in the absence of any real hardware/software distinctions, pricing would play a key role in determining which tablets win hearts and which ones don’t.