Gadgetory

so now that we're well underway it's time to start our road test of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 we're in a luxury RV what better place to enjoy some media with a nice compact full tablet device from a little jobby 8-inch tablet we have the stylus i loaded mine up with some movies like a movie and some TV my kindle app just to kinda and as usual with these road tests we're gonna try to evaluate the design features and usability what's your first impression so it's not a one-handed tablet it's too hard all look like this and it's just a tiny bit too big to comfortably type with two hands the plastic to me is a real benefit I'm able to hold on to it it really has a great first impression when you pick it up and hold it I don't understand the raised camera it seems odd when you want to set it down I feel like I'm always setting it on the most sensitive part of the back I'm worried about scratching the lens and hurting the camera the stylus integration is really slick and when you pull it out you get both a tactile feedback and an audio feedback that you've removed the stylist I think that the pen although it's nicely designed doesn't see that you I feel like the stylus is kind of unnecessary there's nowhere to rest your hand cuz if you rest your hand right here you started doing welcome to the world of being left-handed Molly some of us have had to deal with that our entire lives thank you Galaxy Note hagan bridging the gap good apron there's steps like TVs all over this coach and this has that watch on now so in theory I should be able to fire this up and it music you can share video between the tablet and the television and the phone and that is super nice I would like to watch that for remote control setup is required which I already tried I can't go watch on app to work I can't get into control that TV and it might be because so many other things are trying to control the TV I'm not saying this wouldn't be magic if it worked this is annoying that it doesn't is supposed to be bad and it requires a Samsung Account and then once you set that up I was supposed to get a verification email that would let me enter the code to keep using the watch on app and I never got the email one of my favorite things about the Galaxy Note 8 is that right out of the box it comes loaded with some really cool apps I really like the fact that Dropbox is integrated you've got Flipboard which is really nice another one of my favorite features especially as an old-school pc guy and somebody who's had to deal with not having it on the ipad is that i can use this just like a hard drive it's got a nice little button that lets me go to my files and then i'm looking at file folders that i can just drag and drop files in when i plug it into my computer if i drop something into the video folder the video player knows to look there everything is quick easy and painless I like that a lot this ought to be a full-featured device because it's running Android jelly bean although with Samsung's TouchWiz interface on top it is plenty fast I mean you're definitely gonna get as much performance as you need for surfing it does everything that a full-fledged android phone would do and then some stuff than tablet those too so it's not lacking features department at all in terms of usability I mean the Galaxy Note 8 is an Android device so anyone who's been using Android should know how to use it I wish that it were stock Android the TouchWiz interface is very good the problem is if you get used to vanilla Android there are differences about it that will annoy you and I makes me kind of wish i had just plain jellybean if that's what you're used to I love playing video on this machine especially since I can just pop the video that I'm playing for into a smaller window and keep browsing the internet or checking my email with all the video plays in a small window it moves quick it's snappy it feels great video quality is ok it's 1280 x 800 resolution which even though that's better than the ipad mini it's still not great whoo the calendar app is i love the calendar app you can just swipe to the left from the home screen and your calendar is right there and it's so easy to read and then if you want to edit it you can either use the stylus or the touch pad I love the like circling the date that it actually is the trend that color coding all shows up it makes me look like really organized what the hell so I actually had rented a movie that i downloaded and I've been sitting here trying to start them trying to watch him so this one says expires in 30 days and I got it like eight hours ago and but when i try to play it it says the rental period has expired this is totally a waste of my time i paid for that oh my god i hate that i don't know that i can necessarily blame the tablet but google services are not working oh you know we should do what's that you should see where we are so it's got obviously got google maps on here but it also has its own navigation app oh let's compare i'm on the navigation a half okay i'm gonna type maps oh i found we're on the Barstow freeway I haven't put in las vegas yet so let me do that vegas nevada navigate getting driving directions oh look at this very nice so I've got like I love this is a screen size benefit like I have the directions on one side of an actual map on the other great that's not bad let's see how far away we are now only 65 miles away under an hour left to get to Vegas Vegas baby Vegas and then if I go show the map it goes and now we're in to sort of turn by turn navigation okay look you're simply kind of better sound effects provided by me making me jealous I want my to do that so the no date we had a pretty good time with it on the road trip yeah it's a fun device I just wish it wasn't so expensive I know that's the problem because then if something goes wrong like Google Play I can't excuse it because it's four hundred dollars even more than an ipad mini that's just that the price is the killer yeah at like to 69 or even 299 I would say this would be a by no questions asked cuz it's a lot of fun there's a lot of fun little features but it's 399 so for me it's a do not buy yeah if money isn't an issue for you you can find a lot of fun here but if it is I have to agree yeah sorry