The term ‘phablet’ was coined after the unveiling of Samsung’s original Galaxy Note device was released with a whopping 5.3″ screen, dwarfing any phone screen previously released before it. Today, Samsung has redefined that again, although this pushes a lot more to the tablet side with the unveiling of its Samsung Galaxy Note 8 – an 8 inch tablet, no, an 8 inch phone, no, an 8 inch phablet to directly compete against the iPad mini and to hopefully grab a few smart phone buyers who think that 5.5″ screens are just too darn small.
The devices screen has a resolution of 1280×800 giving it a PPI of 189 which is higher than the iPad Mini’s PPI of 163 on its 7.9″ screen. It is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 4 quad core processor, has 2gb of ram, it runs on a Touchwiz skinned Android 4.1.2 and a choice between 16 and 32gb of storage space (plus an SD slot). There has been no word on the release date, price or if there will be a 4G version of the device, and I wouldn’t go holding my breath for that to be revealed at MWC this week either.
When the iPad came out nearly every anti-Apple supporter dismissed it claiming that it was just a big iPod Touch. Well this thing is literally a big Galaxy S III. I’m still stumped with where or why this device fits, but so where some people with the original iPad. Maybe Samsung is carving another category of humongous phones? Only time will tell.
