Samsung Galaxy Note 8 hands-on from MWC 2013

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was introduced a few hours ago at Mobile World Congress 2013 and you know we just had to have a hands-on preview of this massive phablet. 

That's right, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will actually let you make calls in certain markets. There's no exact timing on when this will hit the United States but I'm certain that when it does, it will land with the voice capabilities ripped out. 

As you would expect from its name, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 sports an 8-inch display with a 1200x800 resolution. It's not quite as sharp as some of the 1080p HD screens we've seen but in our brief time with it, the Galaxy Note 8's screen seemed bright and responsive. 

Inside the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, you're looking at a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. This phablet will launch with Android Jelly Bean and Samsung's custom TouchWiz user interface. 

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will also be compatible with the S Pen and this enables you to do things like annotate web pages and photos, jot down notes and interact with apps. Samsung's innovative software can be found in multiple apps on this phablet, as the pre-loaded Flipboard app will let you hover the S Pen over the app and show you a preview window. It takes a little bit of time to get used to but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty neat. 

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 does feel pretty nice in your hand and it definitely fits into the design philosophy of the Galaxy lineup, as you can see by it laying next to the Galaxy S3. Compared to the iPad mini, it's about the same overall size but I still prefer the in-hand feel of Apple's tablet. That's definitely a personal preference though and it looks like Samsung has another winner on its hands.