Samsung will be unveiling an 8-inch version of the Galaxy Note tablet at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February. And the confirmation for its existence is said to come from the lips of Samsung president JK Shin himself.

Korean news site iNews24 writes that, during a meeting at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Seoul, Shin revealed company plans for the release of a tablet many believe to be the much-rumoured Samsung Galaxy Note 7.7.

"The 8-inch Galaxy Note will be released from MWC," he is reported to have said. And while it's strange that anyone from Samsung would spill the beans before a big launch event, let alone the boss, the suggestion doesn't come as a massive surprise.

We have seen a mysterious GT-N5100 pop up on online benchmark tests recently, prompting those in the know to surmise that a Galaxy Note 7.7 was on the way. The tests state that the device will have a 1280 x 720 resolution and sport an ARM Mali-400 MP graphics processor, so will definitely be a smaller cousin to the Note 10.1 in more than one way.

We'll find out for sure at Mobile World Congress - from which Pocket-lint will be reporting live.