[Galaxy Note 8.0 (Tablet) General] hertsjoatmon:
I thought I'd start a thread to talk about my research in to this tablet and the conclusions and decisions i have taken in choosing it, setting it up and the mods i choose to incorporate or leave out. Dont know if it will help other people in choosing to buy one of these or not or if it will help others into expanding the capabilities of their stock unit, but I appreciate the feedback I've been getting on the individual threads I've been looking at.

Why I chose the Note 8.0

Since tablets first started becoming mass market items, I always had a problem with the 10 inch format that is most popular. I myself own a 10 inch tablet (an ASUS Transformer) and while I enjoy using it at home, I find it too bulky to take out with me yet too small to replace my laptop for any serious tasks. Having played with many tablets in stores over the years I soon decided that the 8-9inch form factor was one that was most ideal. 7inches was too small and too close to a mobile phone for my liking. Going up 1 inch adds about 25% more screen real estate and this is significant for me. Saying that, I never found a tablet in that size range that was up to standard in terms of tech spec. They always seems over priced, underpowered or were missing an important feature for my liking. The original note phone came out. I loved the idea and benefit that the spen brought to the table but thought it was too small to be useful for any serious input.

On an average day I will carry a camera, my phone, a note pad, my 10 inch tablet and sometimes a sketchbook as well. While I feel the 8.0 is a little overpriced (not alot overpriced like many reviews seem to lable it) the benefit of the spen allows me to ditch the notepad and sketchbook as well as the 10 inch tablet. This is huge for me as although the other items arent heavy, a whole day carrying my bag can start to take its toll on my shoulder.

Initial thoughts

My tablet arrived in my hands late last night so I havent had much time to spend with it. I love the responsiveness of the spen although I'm not used to the pressure sensitivity of it yet for drawing applications.

I'm a little overwhelmed by the additional apps, functions and settings added to the OS by Samsung at the moment. There seems to be a lot to go through and at least a few things that I have no use of. After I've spent a few days with it, I will talk about what I have enabled and disabled and why but in the mean time I expect to start at least one thread asking a few questions.

Waiting on my microSD card to arrive before I attempt to root it.

A few days in

Rooted the tablet using the method in the link in the mods section bellow. The process was smooth although I no longer am able to access Readers Huib as it displays "Rooting detected"

Installed SetCPU, Trickster, Greenify and FolderMount.

Installed 18GB of games with the assistance of my 64GB microSD and FolderMount.

Set 2 underclocking profiles using setCPU (screen off and battery <= 15%). Dont think ill overclock (at least not at the moment anyway) as everything seems to be running smooth as it is.

Set a few apps to hibernate with Greenify but will build up the list as i notice more apps unncessarily running in the background.

Not really sure if ill get much use out of Trickster yet.

Not had any issues with battery life, but I tend to disable anything I dont need at the time. went the whole weekend with out needing to charge with my current set up and regular use.

Will put up pictures to show my set up when I'm next home and remember (I mostly use forums at work...).

A few weeks in

Had a bit of an extended play now and can report back some more information. I havent used it for drawing as much as I had intended so far as i've been getting carried away with the amount of games that I can store on the device. The overall experience has been extremely positive. I have found that ive not really used the "S series" apps at all. I have S calendar on there but think i preffer google callender. I've been using Awesome note to take most of my notes although I havent figured out how to sync it with evernote yet. Thats the main reason I'm using that app. Im using LayerPaint as my main drawing app. So im only using S note when Im really in a hurry and need to jot something down.

For gaming I'm finding it a pleasure to use. The screen is extremely responsive and i have had little in the way of stuttering issues. The one thing I will say is that a section of the screen gets uncomfortably warm when playing a CPU/GPU intensive game. The CPU shows a temp of 40 degrees but the screen feels warmer than that making me think it may be the GPU thats getting hot. I've not had the chance to explore this further, but it is putting my off wanting to overclock them.

The GPS signal is great and im finding having an 8 inch satnav (with navfree) a really good companion in the car. The battery life is draining about about 20% per hour as a rough estimate through my initial tests with it. volume 60%. screen 60%. GPS on. All other conections off. Power saving mode enabled (not sure this makes much difference for me. Set CPU locks the CPU at my preffered settings, so this is just reducing the refresh rate and lowing the brightness slightly).

A month in

Switched from setCPU to TricksterMod. Although you cant set up specific scenarios with it, there are guvernors that do what I intended with scenarios anyway (luzactiveQ limits the CPU when the screen is off). I overclocked and undervolted both the GPU and CPU and have been pretty stable on my current settings (in the summary section bellow). It seems to be running cooler now as well and I'm no longer getting a hot patch on the left hand side of the screen. Got a new case based on the recomendations on this forum and a few more apps. Art Flow - recommend, although I'm still stuck on LayerPaint. Reviewing a few art reference apps I noticed on FaeMinx's post your homescreen post.

Accessories

Case

I decided to try a cheap case to start me off. Reported issues with magnetized cases on older notes has me spooked (see this thread http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2288809). I liked the idea of the "Hidden Note" (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2254176) but I think its a little overkill for me.

I'm starting off with this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mulbess-Lea...TF8&colid=2SV9ALFBCBWRE&coliid=I21F5LS9DX0EES cheap and cheerful, plus the slight lip on the bezel it has will help prevent me accidentally triggering the capacitve buttons on the bottom of the tablet while holding it in landscape. This seems to be working. There are magnets in place to hold it closed. Im not sure how I feel about this...

Now got the Poetic Revolution case. Its a little pricey but not compared to the official one, but it does everything i wanted in a case. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2311243

Additional Spen

Bought the 8pi pen a few weeks ago once I had decided I wanted a note. It works very well with the tablet from my initial tests. I plan on doing a lot of digital art on this device.

Want to get a few days of usage under my belt before I decide if I want to do this or not though http://phandroid.com/2012/12/05/how-to-adjust-s-pen/ (adjust spen sensitivity)

microSD card

Due to the small amount of internal storage i decided a large microSD card is a must and will use an app or combination of apps to either move apps or app data onto it to allow me to install more than would otherwise be avialable. Ordered a Scandisk 64GB class 10 card.

Screen Protector.

Currently undecided whether I will use one or not. The case I have should keep the screen protected in transit and I cant see myself doing any damage to it with the sylus. The Revolution comes with a screen protector built in. If it starts to annoy me, I'll just pop it out.

Car Mount.

As this device has GPS I figure I'll take full advantage and use it as my Satnav (Nav Free) / in car entertainment system. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BXFLYTW/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Mods

Root - A must for me to be able to take advantage of the microSD card. used this method http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2251033 was a smooth process.

ROM - undecided. waiting to try out touchwiz to see if I like its features and to see what I can disable / uninstall if necesary to boost performance if i find a feature of no benefit

Kernel - Flashed Civs kernal. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2272917 Really pleased with it. allowed me to both undervolt and overclock the CPU and GPU and not had any performance issues.

CPU

100 - 1704

lulzactiveq (a modified interactive but also with the benefit of limiting the cpu when the screen is off). also set ignore_nice_load to 1. so that nice to have processes are now no longer run. only the higher priority ones are.

row

uv -75

GPU settings on

160 - 837500

350 - 912500

440 - 962500

533 - 1025000

1 up - 90

2 down - 41

2 up - 90

3 down - 70

3 up - 90

4 down - 73

System Apps

Trickster - Was using setCPU but foudn the additional functionality of Trickster to be useful. Specificy with the GPU tweeks.

FolderMount - I dont want to swap the internal and external memory as I plan on still being able to hot swap SD cards if I wish to review some of the photos I've take. I hope that by only moving the app data and not the app itself, I should have no issues doing this.

Auto Airoplane Mode - switches all connections off when the screen is off

Greenify - identify apps that open in the background looking for updates and dissabling that ability in order to preserve battery. I only want some apps to update if I open them.

Other Useful Apps

Titanium Backup

ES File Explorer

DiskUsage - true view of storage space in a easily understood layout. Helps identify wasted space and erase unused files.

Apps for use with Stylus (creative)

Sketchbook Pro - still learning how to use this

LayerPaint - simple lay out, but powerful tool. My favourite at the moment. The fadein/out pen is especially good for line art.

ArtFlow - relatively new app, but good support and growing features.

Lecture Notes - Better than S Note according to sources on here. Not tried it yet

Art reference tools

Handy

Pose Tool

All comments, feedback and suggestions welcome. I've had some great feed back so far on here but would like to have my entire set up in one thread so that people can make advice for me in complete context. Any performace enhancing or battery saving tips appreciated.

Special thanks to [MENTION=1759218]FaeMinx[/MENTION] for your general art app help and discussion and [MENTION=3986004]civato[/MENTION] for your general support to the comunity. Others have been helpful as well and hopefully I've clicked thanks where appropriate, but these two have been particularly helpful to me.