Samsung has finally managed to leave its smartphone rivals far behind in the design segment. With the new Galaxy S8 flagships, the Korean tech giant has shown the world its prowess with respect to how smartphone technology can be powerful, and yet remain beautiful. Yes, the Samsung Galaxy S8 flagships are beautiful beasts. However, although they look pretty delicate, they are significantly tough. The S8 does show a great blend of beauty and power, and the Korean giant is showing the world a glimpse of how next generation smartphones could evolve.
If the Galaxy S7 was stunning in design then we're not exactly sure how to describe the Galaxy S8 apart from that it’s on another level. It makes its predecessor, and other phones, look rather dated.
Samsung has brought its edge screen technology to both phones this year so you don't need to buy the larger Galaxy S8 Plusto get the full experience. This not only looks great but has a big advantage when it comes to keeping the size of the phone from getting out of control.
Design and build : -
The S8 is pretty much the same width, thickness and weight compared to its predecessor. It's just a few millimetres taller but jumps from 5.1- to 5.8in when it comes to screen size. So what would typically be an unwieldy device feels barely any different in the hand.
It's a really impressive piece of craftsmanship largely down to significantly reducing the bezels at the top and bottom. A screen-to-body ratio of over 83 percent is impressive stuff.
The physical home button and accompanying capacitive keys are gone to achieve this. Now you have on-screen navigation and a pressure sensitive home button built into the display – we'll talk about this more later.The fingerprint scanner is now on the back but quite awkwardly next to the camera rather than below it. Right-handed users are likely to smudge the camera when using it. This is our main bugbear in terms of the design and it should really be below the camera, despite creating an unsymmetrical look.
A lot of users will be pleased to hear that Samsung has retained the headphone jack on the bottom. The Galaxy S8 is made from a lot of glass once again so it’s a little slippery but has a Gorilla Glass 5 back to resist damage. You'll probably want to get a case to protect this expensive slab of metal and glass, though, which is a shame considering the outstanding design.
As you'd expect the Galaxy S8 is fully dust and waterproof like its predecessor so has an IP68 rating. That extra button you see on the left side of the phone is to quickly launch Bixby, Samsung's artificial intelligence assistance – see the software section for more on this.
There are five colours to choose from but in the UK we'll get three at launch: Midnight Black, Orchid Grey and Arctic Silver (the latter with arrive at at later date). Samsung may well bring the blue and gold options at the later date but we'll have to wait and see
Featurs and hardware :
Compared to the Galaxy S7, the new Galaxy S8 isn’t dramatically different when it comes to the specs and hardware on offer. That's partly because the S7 ticked a lot of boxes but there are new components with the screen being the most obvious and impactful change.
Infinity Display
As mentioned in the design section, Samsung has impressively jumped from 5.1- to 5.8in when it comes to screen size. This is despite the phone only being a little taller in shape. If that's not big enough, the Galaxy S8 Plus is a whopping 6.2in.
Like the LG G6, the Galaxy S8's display had rounded corners which look great, matching the curvature of the phone's metal frame. Samsung has also opted for a similar aspect ratio of 18.5:9 meaning the screen is very tall (or wide in landscape). Samsung calls it the 'Infinity Display'. Read: Galaxy S8 vs LG G6.
You can fit more on the screen, of course, and the aspect ratio suits content like videos m inuch better so you can, depending on the source content, watch videos without annoying black bars. Depending on what you're viewing, the viewing area is up to 36 percent bigger.
The phone sticks to Samsung's preferred SuperAMOLED display technology ensuring great contrast and colours. The Galaxy S8 screen resolution is WQHD+, 2960x1440 in this case because the screen is so tall. A pixel density of 570ppi is enough for anyone.
It's worth noting that it defaults to Full HD+ (2220x1080) but you can change it in the settings if you wish. The lower resolution improves graphics performance and also aids battery life without a noticeable drop in quality. If you want, you can also drop it down to 1480x720.
Specs aside, the Galaxy S8 also now has the well-known edge screen as standard so there's no need to buy the edge version any longer (like the Galaxy S7 edge). The curve is more subtle than previous edge devices, though, so you just have the edge panels rather than any other additional functionality.
There are some new features to make the screen easier to use one-handed which we'll cover in the software section, and the display is always-on should you want it to be.
One last thing to mention about the screen is that it has Mobile HDR Premium certification by the UHD alliance. The ability to display HDR content sounds good but you'll only get it with certain titles on Amazon Prime Video. More partners will be announced.
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