There’s no denying that Samsung had a tough year last year. Their flagship phone of 2016 attracted all the buzz and attention for all the wrong reasons: spontaneous combustion. However, the flammable Galaxy Note 7 wasn’t the only thing that shook the company. Earlier this year, the acting head of Samsung, had been arrested in connection with the corruption and influence-peddling scandal that rocked South Korea. Needless to say, the company desperately needed some good news. The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ is that good news.
“The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ usher in a new era of smartphone design and fantastic new services, opening up new ways to experience the world. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ are our testament to regaining your trust by redefining what’s possible in safety and marks a new milestone in Samsung’s smartphone legacy.”
– DJ Koh, President of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics.
As is traditional for smartphone companies to do now a days, the two variants of the smartphones have their slight differences, with the S8+ being the better, more expensive smartphone. However, they also share a lot of similarities.
The design is one of those similarities. The display is one of the biggest features in this instance due to how much space it takes. Christened the “Infinity Display”, it extends over nearly the entire front face of the phone, curving over the left and right of the smartphone. The result is a nearly bezel-less design. The corners are also curved giving a smooth, refined look overall. The Samsung S8 has a 5.8-inch 2960 x 1440 pixel display while the larger Samsung S8+ has a 6.2-inch display with the same resolution.
With the screens taking up most of the phones’ surfaces Samsung has opted to use on software buttons instead of the traditional Samsung home button. As a result, the fingerprint scanner has also been shifted to the back of the smartphone. Meanwhile, the USB-C port and the headphone jack are situated on the bottom of the phone, with the power button and volume rocker being on opposite sides. Below the volume rocker is a new button dedicated to a new software feature on the Galaxy S8 called Bixby. Bixby is Samsung’s new intelligent assistant, designed to compete with Siri and Google Assistant.
Camera wise, both the Samsung S8 and the Samsung S8+ are equipped with an advanced 8MP F1.7 Smart autofocus front camera and 12MP F1.7 Dual Pixel rear camera for the best low-light, zoom and anti-blur photos with enhanced image processing.
Under the hood, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ feature the industry’s first 10nm processor, enabling heightened speed and efficiency. It is also gigabit LTE and gigabit Wi-Fi ready with support for up to 1 Gbps so users can quickly download files, regardless of the file size. The exact processor you get depends on which region you’re in, with consumers either getting the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or Samsung’s own Exynos processor. Those processors will be backed by 4GB of RAM and users can expect to have 64GB of storage that can be expanded via microSD card.
And now we come to the feature that Samsung engineers probably worried about the most, the battery. The S8 has a 3,000mAh battery and the S8 Plus has a larger 3,500mAh battery — the same capacity that the Note 7 had. Both smartphones will support Quick Charging and wireless charging. Whether it will burst into flames is unlikely but remains to be seen.
Both smartphones are available for preorder, with the Samsung S8 starting at $750 and the S8+ starting at $850.
You can find out more about the new flagship smartphones from Samsung here.
