After months of rumours, leaks and teases, Samsung has finally made Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus official. The two flagship smartphones from the South Korean tech giant are designed to be the best smartphones of 2017, but whether or not they are capable is up to you to judge. It is safe to say that nothing less is expected from Samsung, after the debacle with its phablet.
The new Galaxy smartphones are nothing short of impressive on all fronts. We already knew how the phones will look like, but now we can get into details. Samsung decided to go with the metal-glass design that was present on its high-end phones since 2014. The biggest improvement over the last year’s model is a higher screen-to-body ratio with almost no side bezels and very thin top and bottom bezels at the front of the phone.
Another big change is the lack of a physical home button in the front and capacitive keys. If you thought a fingerprint scanner is under the display, we’ll have to disappoint you. Samsung ran out of time and had to put the fingerprint on the rear. To redeem, Samsung implemented two iris scanning cameras.
The Galaxy S8 features a 5.8-inch display, while the Plus variant has 6.2-inch display. Both have the same QHD resolution (1,440 x 2,960 pixels) and 18.5:9 aspect ratio.
Both phones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chipset or Samsung’s own Exynos 8895, depending on the region. We can’t comment on which is better until first owners test them through various benchmarks. The chipset is paired with 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and up to 128 GB of UFS 2.1 storage, and also support 1 Gigabit LTE, so expect impressive speeds.
Since the camera is one of the most important thing on a smartphone nowadays, Samsung made a lot of improvements in this sector. The phones are using a the same 12-megapixel camera with an f/1.7 aperture and 1.4µm pixel size, but its software got improved. The front camera has also received big improvements. The phones now feature an 8-megapixel unit with autofocus feature.
The Galaxy S8 uses a 3,000 mAh, while the Galaxy S8 Plus has a 3,500 mAh. Other thing worth mentioning is support for Bixby, about which we already talked here. To use the smart AI assistant, you just need to press the dedicated button below volume rockers.
Although the phones feature large displays, the overall dimensions aren’t that big. The Galaxy S8 measures 148.9 x 68.1 x 8 mm, 155g, while the Galaxy S8 Plus is 159.5 x 73.4 x 8.1 mm, and weighs 173g. They will come in black, gray, and silver, while gold and blue are options internationally.
Last, but not least is the pricing and availability. The Galaxy S8 is priced at $749 for the base model with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, while the Galaxy S8 Plus model starts at $849 with the same memory configuration. Both phones will go on sale next month, on April 21.
Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ specifications
- S8 – 5.8-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity display with 570ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection
- S8+ – 6.2-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity display with 529ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection
- Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 with Adreno 540 GPU / Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 9 Series 8895 processor with Mali-G71 MP20 GPU
- 4GB RAM with 64GB storage (UFS 2.1), 6GB RAM with 128GB storage (UFS 2.1), expandable memory with microSD
- Android 7.0 (Nougat)
- Dual SIM
- 12MP Dual Pixel rear camera with LED Flash, f/1.7 aperture
- 8MP auto focus front-facing camera, f/1.7 aperture
- Water and dust resistant (IP68)
- Sensors – Accelerometer, Barometer, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Hall Sensor, Heart Rate Sensor, Proximity Sensor, RGB Light Sensor, Iris Sensor, Pressure Sensor
- S8 – Dimensions: 148.9 x 68.1 x 8.0mm; Weight: 152g
- S8+ – Dimensions: 159.5 x 73.4 x 8.1mm; Weight: 173g
- 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4/5GHz), VHT80 MU-MIMO, Bluetooth v 5.0 (LE up to 2Mbps), GPS with GLONASS, USB 2.0, NFC, MST
- S8 – 3000mAh battery with fast Charging both on wired and wireless (WPC and PMA) charging
- S8+ – 3500mAh battery with fast Charging both on wired and wireless (WPC and PMA) charging
