Nexus 7 & iPad Mini Killers? Galaxy Tab 3 Lite & Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 to Topple Compact Slate Leaders Apple, Google
As previously rumoured, Samsung, by way of the 2014 CES, unleased its latest barrage of tablets that obviously are designed to slay the Nexus 7 and iPad Mini. Samsung

Samsung has a new bet that it hopes will topple Apple's iPad Mini this time - the 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab Pro that the South Korean tech giant has unleashed earlier this February.

The Tab Pro 8.4 is part of the new Galaxy Tab Pro series and is the smallest sibling of the Tab Pro 10.1 and the Tab Pro 12.2. Initial reviews appear to position the compact tablet as the best so far in the array of challengers that Samsung had put together to pit against the industry-leading iPad Mini.

While the first tries either missed the mark on questions of aesthetic or component specifications, this latest attempt from Samsung seems a spot-on - melding beautiful design and powerful capabilities that the Galaxy maker hopes would merit second look from iPad users.

Below are the key Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 features that tablet lovers, iOS and Android fans alike, could easily fall for:

The perfect tablet form-factor

The Tab Pro is slightly over 8-inch while the iPad Mini 2 is 7.9-inch. While the latter is a proven winner, backed by millions of units in totals sales so far, the former hit the sweet spot when it comes to tablet portability and functionality, according to an initial assessment from Android Central.

"The 8.4-inch footprint ... is just small enough to be portable yet large enough for comfortable multimedia consumption," the tech site said, adding that the "gorgeous design," deployed with the device serves as a hefty bonus for Sammy lovers.

Retina-overwhelming display panel

In previous makes, the Galaxy Tab is dismissed for its mediocre screen attributes that are further highlighted when Apple packed Retina resolution with the second iPad Mini that boosted its screen rendering to 2048 x 1536.

But in the Tab Pro 8.4, Samsung finally decided to play the display panel game in equal terms, exceeding even the Mini with its 2650 x 1600 screen resolution with density of 359 pixels per inch (ppi).

The result is a Galaxy Tab Pro screen experience that "that will leave your head spinning," Anndrew Vacca of Android Central said in a report.

Beastly powers

Within the Tab Pro 8.4 casing is a powder keg concoction, fuelled by a quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processing that relies on a 2GB of RAM. The GPU is Adreno 330 that bursts the device's screen into life.

The strongest selling point of the compact Tab Pro is its dynamite processing power that promises users top-notch mobile computing environment - speedy, snappy and with minimal errors or lags if any at all.

Solid price mark and options

The Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is ready for take-home starting at $400, which is for the 16GB model. When fighting the exact iPad Mini variant, the former offers better value for cash as it comes with a microSD memory card expansion slot, which can read and write on maximum of 64GB of additional space.

So users are able to enjoy enough space for optimal enjoyment and productivity in the small Tab Pro while in the iPad Mini, digital files will cramp on what is left of the 16GB space that came with the iOS device.

The only major downside of the Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is that the Android KitKat 4.4 running the slate is layered with Samsung's TouchWiz and the tablet-designed skin Magazine UX. Potentially, this Samsung repackaging of Android will only serve as unnecessary bloats and could hamper the tab's overall performance, experts said.