Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have had the Galaxy Note 8.0 for a week now and decided to share my thoughts. I come from a heavy iOS/OSX background owning Ipad3,ipad Mini and Macbook air. This is my first Android tablet . I also own a Sony Xperia Ray android phone but use it mainly as phone. I also bought Xperia Tablet Z recently and had to return due to build issues after few weeks .. I won't get into specs or detailed reviews ( there are quite a few good ones out there) but will list out why i chose Galaxy Note 8.0 Build : Everyone is complaining about the plastic build of Galaxy note 8. It is actually very solid and has no squeaks. The backplate gives a little when you push it. However most will use a case to put their tablets so this is a non issue. the white plastic looks classy. Also as this is plastic the Wifi and bluetooth connections are solid. I get min 4 bars even in bedroom with router in living room. Compared this to ipad mini barely went upto 2 bars. Sony Xperia Tablet z was terrible ..It dropped connections so often it was unusable . However not a big fan of where power button and vol buttons are . I would have preferred power button on top and vol button on left so when i hold tablet they don't get pressed accidentally as this tablet is designed to be held in portrait mode. Also love the physical home button ( I think this because of habit i guess all Apple devices have them :) ). This tablet also weighs as much the ipad mini and Xperia tablet Z so it is very lightweight and easy to hold in one hand for long hrs. Display : Even though the display is 1280x800 the display is very crisp. Movies and pictures look really great and text looks real good at decent reading distance. The display is way better than Ipad Mini but little bit lower than Xperia tablet Z which is 1080P. However i prefer the Galaxy note 8.0 display as it is easy on eyes. The colors popped so much on Xperia tablet Z it hurt my eyes. Small text ( try msn.com website) looks bit bad when you look closely . But you would never use tablet close to eyes anyways. Battery life : I get about 2-3 days on single charge with moderate use browsing internet, watching YouTube, some games etc. Mind you I keep brightness to 25% , Bluetooth and GPS off , app notifications off. This decent but not as good as iPad mini. SDXC card extension : This was the biggest sell for me. I bought a Sandisk 64 GB class 10 SD card and put about 40 movies on it and my books and i am all set for long trips. None of the ipads have the feature. Non Propriety port: The charge port is micro USB. So with my universal USB charger i just need to carry one cable that will allow me to charge my MP3 player, my tablet, my cell phone and my portable amp as all use micro usb port. Reduced the clutter of cables i need to carry when i travel Form factor : I was a big fan of Ipad mini for its form factor. I tried to use 10.1 inch tablet ( Sony Xperia Tablet Z) even though light became cumbersome after holding in hand for more than 30 mins. The 7 inch is too small , 10.1 inch too big , 8 inches just perfect for both reading books and watching movies. However i do prefer the 4:3 format of Ipad mini Vs 16:9 format of Android tablets. Multi tasking : This is brilliant feature and this device allows to have two applications next to each other . This is good when you want to take notes and when browsing a website or a doc . Also the performance is so good there is zero lag even with 6 applications open in background. Ipad doesn't have true multi tasking and there was lag on Sony Xperia tablet Z even though it is high powered device. However that may be due to Sony's bad skinning of jelly bean Performance/Touch Wiz : Samsung has heavily skinned jelly bean with touch wiz. However there is no lag as this tablet has gobs of power . The 2 GB RAM and quad core processor keep this humming along. I had sometimes 6 applications running in background which were cpu heavy but no lag or abrupt app closures. With Ipad mini apps sometime closed abruptly due to aggressive memory management. iOS is one of the best tuned OS and uses the HW properly . Android still needs horse power to run smoothly. Speakers : They are placed in the same way it is on ipad mini. I like that because when i watch movies in landscape mode the sound is more rounded as my palms cup them. The are loud but not quite as loud as Ipad mini but way better than the ones on sony Xperia Tablet Z. The sound is loud enough to hear in a noisy env. I will not use the tablet for music as i have a very good Sony mp3 player with amp .. So the speakers are only for you tube videos or movies . Mostly i will use headphones anyways IR blaster : IMO this is just a gimmick. The Watch on and Peel work for me only if i point my tablet at proper angle to the device it is controlling. The app has so little features. The one implemented on Sony Xperia Tablet Z is awesome. It recognized all my HT components complex menu options and controlled them without me having to point the tablet accurately at the device . However i am hoping someone will come up with an awesome remote app S Pen : This feature is new to me so i am completely fascinated by the tech. It recognizes my handwriting well and i am using it regularly for my meetings ( Handwriting to text mode) . Need to play lot more with it but love the ability to do this . Not many tablets have this Price : I think it is reasonably priced ( I bought mine for $379) for features and functions it provides. people don't seem to mind exorbitant prices apple charges for their devices because they are cool :) . Spen , SDXC extension, touchwiz all makes this tablet worth every penny Ecosystem and OS : Android OS is not as polished as iOS even in its current Jelly bean format . However it is more fluid than ICS. As to apps there are quite a few now in play store that are designed for tablets. Luckily for me all the apps i use i found them in play store . Also android is more open . So it allows me to manage my files the way i want and also root the device if i choose to. It is open to other ecosystems like Amazon market place so i am not tied down to a single ecosystem. This is huge benefit as i was tired of Apple restricting everything to iTunes Cameras: I will use them only for skype so no issue with the ones on the tablet. Will never use the back camera for taking pics so it doesn't matter to me what quality pics it takes. however what ever pics i took for testing were decent Things i didn't like : The backbutton and multitask button are so sensitive that when watching movies i have accidentally swiped them and it went back to home page. there is no easy way to disable this . Also not a fan of the location of power button or vol rocker. However the samsung galaxy book cover case is alleviating this a bit .. Overall it is a very solid tablet filled with ton of features and at reasonable price(IMO) on a very flexible and open ecosystem . You just can't beat that. Also it is way better than iPad mini (IMO)..