It's being lined up as the strongest rival to date of Apple's iPad Mini and true enough the Galaxy Note 8.0 from Samsung will retail at about the same pricey level of its chief competitor, at least $US300 for the basic configuration.

The mark was based on the published price list of Bulgarian gadget retailer Tablet.bg, according to PhoneArena, placing the new Samsung slate just slight below the iPad Mini, which Apple sells starting at $US329.

But in a few months from now, Apple will likely refresh the iPad Mini and cut down its price point, leaving a bit more expensive compared to the compact tablet it aims to dislodge from the top.

When Samsung confirmed that the Note 8.0 will be introduced via the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, successive reports pointed to the likelihood that the company will attempt to undercut the iPad Mini.

Analysts predicted that the smaller Note tablet will probably come at a cheaper price to instantly make a mark in a market segment that counts Apple, Google and Amazon as the current biggies.

It appears now that Samsung does not intend to follow the Amazon model. The giant online retailer sells its line of Kindle Fire tablets at cost, banking on the premise that revenues will kick in as users get more invested in the vaunted Amazon ecosystem.

It makes sense that Samsung is not taking the path that Amazon has set, analysts said, because the company operates in an entirely different universe. One more thing, the South Korean firm seems to bank on the idea that Note brand it has created will draw the buyers into the Galaxy Note 8.0.

The hybrid gadget is so far responsible for registering tens of millions of sales for Samsung but experts noted that the good performance is concentrated on the phablet area - the original 5-inch Galaxy Note and the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2.

The duo have so far clocked close to 20 million of total unit sales and were generally acknowledged for setting off the current rush of phablets being introduced to global markets.

It is believed that in exchange for just over $300, Samsung will deliver a Galaxy Note 8.0 that will display these initial but impressive specs: a 1280 x 800 display resolution and a quad-core processor humming at a top-speed of 1.6GHz in close tandem with a generous 2GB of RAM provision.

As expected, the popular S-Pen stylus, a Note mainstay, is included with this iteration come its scheduled debut later this month.