Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are the first major new products from Samsung after the failure Galaxy Note 7. It was already clear from pre-orders that the Galaxy S8 will become one of the best-selling smartphones of 2017, even though it is $100 (5,700 rubles) more expensive than the S7.
The Galaxy S7 Edge also has impressive capabilities, and it costs $400 (22,500 rubles). Do I need to pay $750 (42,200) for new Galaxy S8? I think so - not only because of the better screen, but also the high build quality, stylish design with powerful performance. let's consider new flagship Samsung more details.
Surface Galaxy smartphone The S8 is smooth and soft to the touch, thanks to the use of glass in the design, there is no gap between the back and front panels.
U Samsung screens Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus resolution is 2960x1440 pixels, the image is very clear. Super AMOLED display It has high brightness and color accuracy is guaranteed by the HDR Premium certificate. This best screen, which we have ever seen on smartphones. The edges of the display are rounded, with minimal bezels at the top and bottom. The screen occupies 83% of the front panel.
The diagonal of the Galaxy S8 Plus is 6.2 inches, the S8 has 5.8 inches. On big screens even convenient to use by email, but you need to get used to the frameless design - during testing of the S8 Plus, at first I constantly activated the screen when I picked up the smartphone.
The all-glass design makes Galaxy S8 smartphones slippery, fragile and prone to fingerprints. You have to keep a microfiber cloth on hand at all times for cleaning.
The power button is located on the right side of the device, while the dual volume rocker and Bixby voice assistant button are on the left. For the first time, Samsung has not added a Home button to the front panel.
The headphone jack is located at the bottom, to the left of the USB Type-C port. Also, at the bottom there is a single speaker, which has the same problem as the Google Pixel and LG G6 - it is covered with your hand when using the smartphone in landscape mode. The sound quality is good, but the iPhone 7 sounds louder.
Rear end not as impressive as the front one, and almost no different from the Galaxy S7. The camera is located next to the flash, heart rate sensor and fingerprint scanner. Both versions are thin, pleasant to the touch and have excellent build quality, although the S8 is smaller, making it easier to hold in your hand.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are powered by an Exynos 8895 processor with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory, which can be expanded thanks to a memory slot. MicroSD cards.
I got a Galaxy S8 that kept freezing, especially when opening the notification tray and recent apps section. A factory reset fixed the problem and everything worked as it should, but everyone should be prepared for this.
The games Asphalt Xtreme and FIFA Mobile never froze, although Dawn of Titans lagged at some points, but this happened rarely. Applications launch quickly and easily, and multitasking allows you to use several programs at the same time.
In the benchmark, the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus surpassed the Google Pixel in performance, and in some indicators they were better than iPhone 7Plus.
While the initial issues have passed and we've enjoyed the Galaxy S8's smooth performance, Samsung obviously won't be able to push out updates and optimize the performance of its new smartphones as quickly as Google and Apple do.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 is stylish and comfortable user interface, icons are evenly spaced and fonts are easy to read.
Absence physical button"Home" gives the smartphone more modern look. In its place is an area of the screen that, when pressed and held, will take you to the home screen from any application. The navigation icons can be swapped, placing the Back button on the left and Recent Apps on the right. This is how they are located on most Android smartphones.
There are many options for changing the interface: adjust the screen resolution, turn on and off the use of edges, change the position of the brightness slider on the notification panel, activate the LED indicator, and so on. The Galaxy S8 has many useful features to suit every taste. For example, Smart Stay allows you to keep the screen backlit only when you're looking at it.
Multitasking is better here than on any other Android phone - using the split screen, you can move application windows as you like, or launch Picture in Picture mode and place one on top of the other.
Galaxy S8 is the first smartphone to use Bluetooth 5 with 4x the range of Bluetooth 4.2 and 8x zoom bandwidth(2 times high speed data transmission). This means you can move 200 meters away (with line of sight) from your smartphone and still listen to music via Bluetooth headphones. In addition, you can now stream music to 2 different Bluetooth devices at the same time.
Samsung's facial recognition technology doesn't work 100% of the time, especially in low light, but it's still faster and more reliable than a fingerprint sensor. An iris scanner is also available on the Galaxy S8, although it's not as powerful.
The worst performer was the fingerprint sensor in new series S8. The scanner is difficult to reach on the Galaxy S8 Plus, and you won't be able to use it to control your smartphone, as is now fashionable. The Samsung Galaxy S8 sensor is located close to the camera, so users will often get confused and touch it by mistake. Samsung is aware of this issue and advises cleaning the camera more often, but this could have been avoided by simply placing the fingerprint scanner below, as is done on almost all other smartphones.
The main 12-megapixel camera hasn't changed much compared to the S7. Given enough lighting, the Galaxy S8 takes high-quality photos with accurate colors. If there is not enough light, sometimes the clarity decreases, but as a rule, even in the dark, the photos turn out to be of high quality.
Unfortunately, Samsung hasn't added anything new to the regular camera, such as a second lens. There are still several modes to choose from, including Selective Focus and Panorama. In Pro mode, you can change the shutter speed, focus and ISO.
The 8-megapixel one was more impressive front-camera, which has a lot of fun filters and masks, just like Snapchat. By rotating the camera to the sides in Wide Selfie mode, you can “stitch” pictures into one, taking a panoramic selfie.
Samsung's new digital assistant is disappointing; recognition isn't even available in the first version voice commands. The only functions available are Bixby Home, Reminder and Vision.
Home displays various information, such as your current pedometer reading, next calendar events, weather forecast, and trending Twitter posts. But, in practice, it is easier and faster to look separately at the corresponding applications, since Bixby button too slow and unreliable.
Reminders is an analogue of reminders in Google Inbox or Google Assistant. Assistant can still be used by pressing and holding the on-screen Home button.
The most useful feature- Vision. Augmented reality technology allows you to receive information about different objects in real time. For example, you can point your camera at a pair of shoes and find out how much they cost on Amazon.
Samsung promised a lot, but this moment Bixby is an unfinished service.
The Galaxy S8 Plus uses a 3,500 mAh battery, the Galaxy S8 – 3,000 mAh. By the end of the day, with intensive use (watching streaming videos, listening to music, filming videos, etc.) both smartphones will be discharged up to 25%. Under normal load, they are discharged to 40% in the evening.
Fast supported wireless charger via USB Type-C connector - new standard, to which not everyone has yet gotten used to it.
Samsung Galaxy S8 is a smartphone with high build quality, excellent screen and camera. The battery is standard, designed for 1 day of operation. The Bixby voice assistant is still terrible, but you can turn it off and use Google Assistant.
There are plenty of decent smartphones that cost less than the S8 and S8 Plus - Google Pixel, LG G6 and iPhone 7 - but none have such a high-quality display. It's worth considering buying the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus when you're targeting the most top smartphones and are willing to pay $750 (42,200 rubles) or more.
A few days before the premiere, so there was no surprise. Nevertheless, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ themselves turned out to be surprisingly good. These are the first devices from the Korean manufacturer that will cost more than the iPhone at launch.
Previously, prices were either equal or slightly lower. But now Samsung is very confident in its abilities. Galaxy is no longer just powerful and beautiful smartphone, now there is almost the same ecosystem around it as around the iPhone. Yes, Samsung doesn't have an iTunes store, but Google Music makes up for this shortcoming.
As expected, Samsung introduced two flagship smartphone- Galaxy S8 with 5.8-inch screen and Galaxy S8+ with 6.2-inch diagonal. Moreover, size (and also battery capacity) became the main difference between them. All other characteristics can now be presented in table form.
| Samsung Galaxy S8 | Samsung Galaxy S8+ | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Samsung Exynos 8895: eight cores (4 × 2.35 GHz + 4 × ARM Cortex A53, 1.9 GHz), ARM Mali-G71 graphics core or Qualcomm Snapdragon 835: eight cores (4 × Kryo, 2.35 GHz + 4 × Kryo, frequency 1.7 GHz), Adreno 540 graphics core | |
| Display | Super AMOLED, 5.9 inches, 1440 × 2960, 586 ppi | Super AMOLED, 6.2 inches, 1440 × 2960, 531 ppi |
| RAM, GB | 4/6 | 4/6 |
| Flash memory, GB | 64/128 + microSD slot | 64/128 + microSD slot |
| SIM cards | Two nano-SIMs, the second slot is combined with a memory card slot | |
| Wireless modules | Wi-Fi (802.11ac/b/g/n), Bluetooth 5.0, NFC | |
| LTE | LTE Cat.16 (up to 600 Mbps): bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 26, 38, 39, 40, 41 | |
| Camera | 12 MP, f/1.7, 26 mm equivalent, phase detection autofocus, optical stabilizer | |
| Front-camera | 8 MP, autofocus | 8 MP, autofocus |
| Fingerprint scanner | Eat | Eat |
| Connectors | 3.5 mm audio jack, USB Type-C (USB 3.1) | |
| Battery | 11.4 Wh (3000 mAh, 3.8 V) | 13.3 Wh (3500 mAh, 3.8 V) |
| Dimensions, mm | 149×68×8 | 160 × 73 × 8.1 |
| Weight, g | 155 | 160 |
| operating system | Android 7.0 Nougat with proprietary Clean UI shell |
No matter how good the previous Galaxy S was, the new flagship has surpassed them. It looks both infamous and recently introduced. The new product has in common with previous Samsung devices a screen curved on the sides, and the new LG product has in common the complete absence of controls on the front panel and an unusual aspect ratio.
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The space freed up by eliminating buttons is now taken up by the screen, and changing the aspect ratio was the only way to make this as painless as possible. The 6.2-inch Galaxy S8+ seems even more compact than the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus. True, unlike LG, Samsung did not disclose any details about how the interface will change individual applications. But the ratio of the screen area to the front surface area was stated to be 84.4%.
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The Home button, however, is still there - it's located at the bottom of the screen, and pressing it activates a slight kickback. Samsung claims that engineers and designers had to work hard to achieve this, but in my opinion, this is an ordinary screen button with tactile feedback.
The most controversial “innovation” was the fingerprint scanner, which moved from the front panel to the back. There are two subtleties here. Firstly, it is not located exactly in the middle, as is usually done, but slightly shifted to the right. And secondly, it is dangerously adjacent to the main camera lens, and although tactilely these elements are completely different - the index finger intuitively fits into the central point.
Both new smartphones, Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, will be available in five colors: black, gold, blue, pink-silver and classic silver. In Russia, perhaps not all of these shades will be presented, but only some of them. The cutest one, in my opinion, was blue, although silver also looks very good. The design of the rear panel is reminiscent of Honor 8 - under protective glass there is a fine, slightly embossed texture that creates fancy highlights thanks to the moire effect. It still looks original.
As expected, the smartphone has a built-in iris scanner, with a more modern sensor compared to the Galaxy Note 7. At the same time, a facial recognition function has also appeared. So now you can unlock the device in many ways - with your face, eyes, fingerprint, password, graphic key or a simple swipe across the screen.
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But the smartphone did not have the ability to shoot video at 1000 frames per second. Rumors about this were published on the Internet every now and then, but none of the four samples that I had the opportunity to work with offered such an opportunity. There is definitely a function for recording FullHD video at 120 frames per second, but nothing similar to the functions Sony Xperia There was no XZ Premium in the Korean flagship.
The display resolution can actually be changed. By default it is 2960 × 1440 pixels (WQHD+), but in the settings it can be reduced to 2220 × 1080 and 1480 × 720 pixels. I tried to “play” a little with the resolution and noticed that when it was lowered, the clarity of the picture noticeably decreased, although the pixel density remained quite high.
Protection of the housing from dust and moisture complies with the IP68 standard. This means that the smartphone can easily survive a dive to a depth of 1.5 meters. But the main thing is that this is still possible without visible security elements like plugs on USB port and minijack.
But the most interesting innovation was the new voice assistant Bixby. Or rather, I wouldn’t even call him an assistant, it’s new interface for everyday interaction with a smartphone. For example, you can look at the map and then say the phrase: “Take a screenshot and send it to Vasya.” The smartphone will ask you to choose one of several people with the same name in your address book, and then send him the screenshot you took with one touch. That is, switching between voice and touch control occurs smoothly.
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They also say that Brixby takes the context into account (“write to Vasya that I’m late due to traffic jams”) and uses a picture from the built-in camera. You can take a photo of a new pair of sneakers, and then Brixby will find them in popular online stores and offer to order them immediately, paying via Samsung Pay. Very cool, but it is not yet entirely clear how all this will work in Russian realities.
Sales of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will start on April 21, but the new flagships will arrive in Russia a week later, on April 28. The classic model will cost 54,990 rubles, and S8+ - 59,990 rubles. You can pre-order now and in this case you will also receive a camera Samsung Gear 360. Any Galaxy S8 will come with wired headphones AKG is a natural consequence of the recent acquisition of Harman. Perhaps now all expensive Samsung devices will come with high-quality headphones.
The Galaxy S8 has many competitors, but compared to any of them new Samsung looks very cool. The only thing that beats the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is its ability to record slow-motion video. Apple iPhone 7 Plus is a big loser from a technical point of view, but captivates with its convenience operating system And dual camera with fashionable portrait mode. Well, the LG G6 is limited only by external similarities.
It seems that of the new flagships, not only will have a non-standard screen. This feature is also relevant for the Samsung Galaxy S8, which has already been confirmed by another photo of the smartphone. It shows all three possible option permissions, available to the user. Maximum - QHD+ or 2960x1440 pixels, but to save energy you can also choose HD+ (1480x720) or FHD+ (2220x1080).
This suggests that the display aspect ratio will be non-standard. Samsung, like LG, decided to move away from the usual 16:9 widescreen type. The Galaxy S8 display will be more elongated, which seems to be the trend this year.
For comparison, the LG G6 has a display resolution of 2880x1440 pixels, which is an 18:9 ratio, while the Galaxy S8 has a 2960x1440 pixel resolution. 18,5:9 . This format was repeatedly mentioned in insiders, but it was only now possible to confirm it.
Along with a photo of the display, photos of the packaging were leaked online. Galaxy flagship S8 Plus with 64 GB of internal memory. The box is made in the traditional Samsung style. You can’t draw any special conclusions based on it. Everything is as usual.
Let's supplement these insights with a fresh render from Evan Blass, who finally demonstrated all three debut color options of the smartphone. These are purple, black and silver. Such images no longer raise doubts.
And the S8 Plus has many interesting features. One of them is the non-standard display aspect ratio. Many may think that in this regard the LG G6 looks no less interesting, but this is not the case. The guys from Samsung went further, because if in the case of the G6 we're talking about About the 18:9 ratio, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has an 18.5:9 display aspect ratio, in other words, the device is even longer than its competitor.
This is done to make it convenient for users to hold the device with large diagonal with one hand. Considering the almost complete absence of frames, such a step is completely justified and the result will be noticeable. The display in S8 occupies 84.26% of the front panel.
Our colleagues from phonearena carried out some calculations and came to the following conclusion. If the Galaxy S8 had a standard display aspect ratio (16:9), the diagonal of the device would be 5.57 inches. In other words, the S8 would be identical in this regard Galaxy parameter S7 edge. The display diagonal of the Galaxy S8 Plus at a normal ratio would be 5.95 inches.
16:9 aspect ratio videos running on the Galaxy S8 will look like this:
Due to AMOLED technology, the black frames on the sides will not be visible and when watching a movie they will simply merge with the frames of the device. Moreover, these black frames make up 13.5% of the entire display area. In addition, the problem can be solved by scaling the image. However, we note that almost all new films have an aspect ratio of 18:9, not 16:9.
And this is what the Galaxy S8 would look like with a 5.5-inch diagonal - slightly wider and significantly shorter. However, let's face it, the regular S8 with a diagonal of 5.77 inches looks much more interesting and modern. What do our readers think about the non-standard aspect ratio? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of this ratio?
With the new flagships, Samsung is giving the option to change the phone's screen resolution so you can save battery by avoiding the demanding WQHD at all times.
There are three available settings Screen options for Samsung are HD+ (1480 x 730), FHD+ (2220 x 1080) and WQHD+ (2960 x 1440) – but your smartphone will default to the average FHD setting.
You can easily change the screen resolution up or down, depending on what's important to you.
You will be able to lower the resolution to the lowest HD+ setting to increase the time battery life your smartphone, or if you want to get everything on your smartphone's panels that are especially useful for working with Gear VR, you can set the resolution to maximum.
On which phones can you change the resolution?
It's relative new feature For Samsung devices, it came with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. If you have a Samsung or , you'll find the same feature available when you update to Android 7.0 Nougat.
Despite the exit Android updates 7, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus do not offer this feature.
How to change screen resolution?
To change the screen resolution to Samsung smartphone, you'll have to head to the Settings app and go to the Screen or Display section.
Your options for the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus include HD+ (1480 x 730), FHD+ (2220 x 720), FHD (1920 x 1080) and WQHD (2560 x 1440), while the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge offer HD (1280 x 720), FHD (1920 x 1080) and WQHD (2560 x 1440).
Once you decide which resolution you want to use, simply click on the "Apply" button at the top of the page and you will see the screen in the new resolution.
You can change the resolution at any time if you want to return to the previous settings later to get the best looking picture or save battery power.
