Samsung Galaxy S8 Review: Hands-On Reviews Note Snappy Design With No Major Camera Upgrades
Samsung has finally unveiled its latest smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, and so far, the hands-on reviews have been promising. Can the previously disgraced tech company finally rise up from the ashes of the infamous Galaxy Note 7 debacle?
The company recently held a journalist briefing in San Francisco, during which several journalists were given a chance to spend hours previewing the new Galaxy S8 and S8+. The first notable thing about the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S8 is its sleek and gorgeous design. CNET reports that the absence of the physical home button and barely-there bezel really make the S8's 5.8-inch screen stand out. The screen now takes up about 83 percent of the phone's front surface, which provides a more expansive display than the already generous Galaxy S7.
However, CNET also notes that placing the fingerprint reader too close to the rear camera is not an ideal design choice since it can lead to the smudging of the camera lens every time the user tries to unlock the phone.
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And speaking of camera, Trusted Reviews shares that the Galaxy S8 has no dual-sensor system, wide-angle lens and variable aperture. It instead features a 12-megapixel sensor behind a wide f/1.7 lens that sports the same dual-pixel tech that the S7 has.
The camera, however, now has a new multi-frame image processor, which means that it's programmed to take three shots with every snap, each time reducing the blur and producing a sharper shot.
And as for the front camera, it now has an upgraded 8-megapixel sensor with an f/1.7 aperture and autofocus, which is rare for a selfie camera to have. A secondary front camera works as an iris scanner, which Samsung claims is a much-improved version than that on the Note 7.
The Galaxy S8 runs on either Samsung Exynos 8895 for models in Europe and Asia or the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 for models in the United States. It also has a 3,000 mAh battery with wireless and fast charging capabilities, 4 GB random-access memory (RAM), 64 GB storage and the recently previewed Bixby personal assistant.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and its larger counterpart, S8+ will go on sale globally on April 28.
