iPad Mini vs Galaxy Note 8.0

The iPad has been killing the market in terms of tablet sales for as long as we can remember and it doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon. But the Galaxy Note 8 has officially been announced in February 2013 and lets compare it with the iPad Mini to see whether it will be able to build a name for Samsung in the tablet market or not.

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1. Size – Well, not much to differentiate the two here. The Note 8’s dimensions are 210.8×135.9x8mm while the iPad mini is 200×134.7×7.2mm. Hardly any difference here. Even in terms of screen size, the Note 8 has an 8 inch screen while the mini has a 7.9 inch one. Again, just a 0.1 inch difference, hardly anything to write home about.

2. Display – This is where the Note 8 has fallen behind. It only has a TFT capacitive touch screen with 16M colours. On the other hand, the iPad mini has an industry leading LED backlit IPS LCD capacitive touch screen with 16M colours. But, the Note 8 does have a better pixel density at 189 ppi as compared to the 162 ppi of the iPad mini. With it’s bigger screen, the Note 8 supports a larger resolution as well at 800×1280 pixels whereas the iPad mini only has 768×1024 pixels. Basically, the Note 8 is a mixed bag in this category.

3. Memory & Storage – Here the Note 8 get’s it right. While the iPad mini only boasts of 16, 32 and 64 GB versions with no expandable storage, the Note 8 comes in 16 and 32 GB versions with expandable storage of up to 64 GB. Also, the Note 8 has 2 GB of RAM while the iPad mini only has a meagre 512 MB of RAM. Clearly, Samsung worked out this part of their tablet a lot better than Apple. But, the RAM on the iPad Mini doesn’t really hamper the tablet’s performance, so not much to complain about here.

4. Camera – Again, not much variation on either of the platforms. In fact, both tablets boast of a 5MP camera with 2592×1944 pixels and auto focus. The iPad mini does have some other dandy features like touch focus and face detection but really nothing that sets it apart. Both tablets also support video recording at 1080p while only the iPad mini supports video recording at 720p on the front camera. I’m guessing not many people will be buying tablets for their photo clicking ability, so as long as there is a 5MP camera on the back and a 1.3MP camera on the front, nothing else should really matter.

5. OS & Performance – This is the main reason why the iPad mini is doing so well. It runs on iOS6 which, in my opinion, is miles ahead of Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) which is on the Galaxy Note 8. In all fairness, Samsung has an update Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) but there is no news yet on whether you will be able to update the Note 8. Keeping this in mind, Samsung users will be pleased to know that the Note 8 boasts of a Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A9 processor while the iPad mini only has a Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor. This should mean that the Note 8 will handle exceptionally better than the iPad mini, but in all honesty you can’t really notice anything wrong with the iPad mini.

6. Battery – The iPad mini has a 16.3W/H Li-Po battery while the Note 8 boasts of a mammoth 4600 mAh Li-Ion battery. Android in general and Samsung in particular have always released products that have had excellent battery life and there have been a lot of reports from iPad mini users that the tablet’s battery drains out very fast. We all knew Samsung was going to win this one though didn’t we?

7. Price – The iPad mini starts at a price of INR 20,500 and goes up to a price of INR 41,000 for the 64 GB version. The official price of the Galaxy Note 8 hasn’t yet been announced though but we have heard rumours that it will be priced pretty similar to the iPad mini, in fact, maybe even a little lower.

Verdict

Well, if you are in the market for a smart tablet then you will most probably be looking at the iPad mini. But, Samsung’s new toy could be on course to overthrow Apple from the top of the tablet market. It’s just the fact that it will be running on an older version of Android that is a problem. Keeping that in mind, I guess it will all come down to the price at which Samsung release the Note 8. I for one am really looking forward to it. Finally, Samsung has brought something worthwhile to the table.