Samsung’s latest flagship devices are finally here! After so many leaks and speculations, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the S8+ are official and they look gorgeous, but if you’re thinking of upgrading, here are five features/things that really matter.
Design:
The new Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 + both have curved edges with ‘edge’ functions just as seen on the S7 edge, however, what really stands out is the zero bezel design from edge-to-edge that Samsung calls infinity display. It’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye and instead of the usual 16:9 aspect ratio, Samsung has opted for an 18.9:5 aspect ratio which means when you’re watching movies, it fills up the screen.
Samsung describes the new design as a unified front with black bezels – no matter which colour you opt for, you get the black bezels top and bottom, with symmetrical sides. The S8 is 5.8inch in size with 570 PPI while the S8+ is bigger at 6.2inch with lower pixel density at 529PPI. Both displays are Quad HD + and it just displays colours really well thanks to Samsung’s Super AMOLED display tech.
In Europe, you will be able to pick up the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ in Midnight black, Artic silver and Orchid grey. Let’s not forget to mention that you will also be getting mobile HDR which Samsung said it’s the world’s first, although Sony also announced a 4K HDR display earlier this year at MWC.
Overall the S8 feels natural in hand, looks beautiful and with no home button, Samsung has pushed boundaries yet again, making a device with a huge display real estate, great for consuming media and for a better user experience. There’s also an Iris Scanner now; it means you can unlock your phone just by looking at your phone and it’s super fast.
Performance
The Galaxy S8 and the S8+ are both powerhouses! I’m not just saying this either based on specifications, in which if you really care, they both come with the latest octa-core chipsets from Samsung Exynos and Qualcomm, so depending on where you’re buying from, you’ll get either Exynos or Snapdragon processor in your device.
One thing that some may not like or could arguably not matter at all for performance is the 4GB RAM used; the cheaper OnePlus3T has 6GB of RAM so it begs the question, why didn’t Samsung go bigger?
Having said that, though, it didn’t seem to matter because the 10nm processor used is one hell of a powerful processor chip, capable of running multiple applications with no hiccup. Samsung showed off how powerful it is with a docking station called Samsung DeX which allows you to dock your phone, connect it to a monitor and use it as a fully working desktop computer.
Multitasking has also improved with a new UI that allows you to select any area you want to pin your app to; select apps and pin to the top for example. With Android 7.0 present, a lot of its native features are available and there’s increase in performance. With the chipset used, Samsung mentioned that it offers a 10% increase in processing power and 20% increase in GPU performance.
For storage options, Samsung will only offer a 64GB version, taking away the need to be deciding which size you need to buy. You can expand this with a microSD card by up to another 256GB which is more than enough. One thing the S8+ has over the S8 is battery capacity, the S8+ comes with 500 more mAh at 3,500mAh.
Bixby
Samsung’s new AI assistant is impressive, I believe a lot of people will use this more than they would use Google’s own assistant or Siri. What really sets it apart is not just its capability to answer your questions but with a push of a button, you eliminate the need to say “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri” before you can activate it.
In fact, you can control just about anything you can do with your hands on the phone by just using your voice; it connects visually in that you can use it to search images, location, and Bixby vision is ready whenever you need it – you can even scan a bottle of wine to see where you can purchase one from, using Bixby.
Camera
The front facing cameras saw and increase in MP size from its predecessor with 8MP F1.7 aperture cameras and for the main cameras, you get a 12MP + F1.7. We also know the S7 and S7edge to have excellent cameras so no doubt this one will perform well too.
What’s also new here is the use of tech Samsung calls Multiframe Image Processing. MIP will take three shots every time you tap the shutter button and two of those shots will ensure the picture taken is not blurry.
Core Galaxy Experience
Some of the core Galaxy experiences you have come to like are not going anywhere. As mentioned before, you have ‘edge’ features to access your reminders, schedule, contacts etc. IP68 water and dust resistant are still there, wireless charging and of course the option to expand your device storage, and finally, Always-on display is present too – hallelujah!
So when and where can you get your hands on a device?
UK pre-orders will open from the 29th March until the 19th April on Samsung.com/uk, select operators and retailers – pre-order customers will receive their devices from 20th April, subject to stock availability.
Officially, you will be able to pick up the Samsung Galaxy S8 at launch on the 28th April in UK and Europe too if you didn’t pre-order. In the UK, the Galaxy S8 will retail at £689 and the Galaxy S8+ will retail at £779 with two colours variants coming to the UK; Midnight Black and Orchid Grey, the third colour, Arctic Silver’s availability, will be announced later.
I write about all things tech!