New images of Galaxy Note 8.0 reveal deisgn similarity with Note II

Some images of Samsung's next entrant in its tablet lineup—the Galaxy Note 8.0—have popped up on Dday. Going by the pictures, you see that the tablet is set to follow a design similar to that of the Note II and the S III, with the major difference being that the Note 8.0 is bigger.

The display of the device has an aspect ratio of 16:10, and according to rumours, the resolution will be the relatively low 1280 x 800. The back camera looks like it will be a 5 megapixel shooter, and will lack a flash. Other rumoured specs include 2GB of RAM. Like other devices in the Note lineup, this one will also have an S-Pen.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 seems to be a bigger Note II

Samsung has all but confirmed that the 8-inch tablet will be unveiled at the Mobile World Conference. Samsung's Head of Mobile Communications JK Shin allegedly confirmed the device's existence to Korean news outlet iNews24 during an invitation-only dinner involving Samsung's new high-level officers and some members of the Korean press. However, no other details were provided by Shin.

The 8-inch slate is expected to be the same mysterious GT-N5100 that popped up on numerous benchmarks a few days ago. As we had reported last week, the device is set to compete with the iPad mini. That’s the same amount of pixels as the big brother Galaxy Note 10.1, so the display will likely be crisper thanks to the higher pixel density.

On the processor front, it is expected that Samsung may employ the Exynos 5 Octa processor, which it announced during CES, earlier this month. The eight-core processor is based on the ARM big.LITTLE/Cortex A-15 architecture and is designed to be a low-powered, high performance mobile processor. Other technical specifications are expected to be 2GB of RAM, 16/32GB of internal storage along with a microSD slot and a 4600 mAh battery. Besides having the usual bouquet of connectivity options like Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and A-GPS, the new Note tab will run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, will have dimensions of 211.3 x 136.3 x 7.95 mm and will weigh around 330 gms. The specifications and the screen size lead us to believe that the new Note will be in direct competition with Apple's iPad mini.

A Google translation of Korean on inews24’s site also mentions that Samsung will not unveil any major phones in Barcelona. That would mean that the Korean company will continue announcing its major phones at its own private event, like it did last May with the Galaxy S III in London. So those eagerly awaiting the follow-up to Samsung’s flagship device will have to wait longer than next month for a proper look.