At an event in NewYork, Samsung has launched its two premium smartphones -Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. These phones come with host of new features such as Bixby Intelligent Interface, Infinity Display, software buttons and multiple services and apps.
“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,” said DJ Koh, President of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics. “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.”
With Bixby, users can navigate through services and apps with simple voice, touch and text commands. Bixby’s Voice function will integrate with several Samsung native apps and features including Camera, Contacts, Gallery, Messages and Settings. Contextual awareness capabilities enable Bixby to offer personalized help based on what it continues to learn about the user’s interests, situation and location. Users can also shop, search for images and get details about nearby places with Bixby’s image recognition technology.
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ also incorporate Samsung Knox, a defense-grade security platform. These phone have fingerprint scanner on the back and also iris scanner and facial recognition so users can select a secure biometric authentication method.
Both the phone will ship with high-performance earphones tuned by AKG by Harman. These earphones have a comfortable hybrid canal fit for better noise cancellation and is made from anti-tangle metal-fabric material.
Samsung has also introduced the Samsung DeX dock which transforms your smartphone into a desktop by providing a secure desktop-like experience. With Samsung DeX, users can easily display and edit data from their phone.
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ will also connect to the new Gear 360 unveiled at the event, to create 4K 360-degree videos and 15MP photos. The new Gear VR comes with Controller, powered by Oculus.
The new phones are IP68 water and dust resistant.
In terms of hardware specifications, the S8 features a 5.8-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels,570ppi) Super AMOLED with Infinity display and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The S8+ flaunts 6.2-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels,529ppi, ) Super AMOLED Infinity display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. These phones are powered by Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor with Adreno 540 GPU and in some countries including India, it will have Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 9 Series 8895 processor with Mali-G71 MP20 GPU. These phones have 4GB LPDDR4 RAM with 64GB storage extendable to 256GB.
The S8 is packed with 3000mAh battery whereas the S8+ with 3500mAh battery. Both the phones come with fast Charging both on wired and wireless charging dock compatible with WPC and PMA. These phones run on Android 7.0 (Nougat).
For connectivity, these phones offer options of Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz),
Bluetooth 5.0 (LE up to 2Mbps), USB Type-C, NFC,GPS, Glonass etc.
On the camera front, these phones are mounted with 12MP Dual Pixel rear camera with LED Flash, f/1.7 aperture, OIS. They also house 8MP auto focus front-facing camera with f/1.7 aperture, 1/3.6? sensor size, 1.22µm pixel size and 80-degree wide-angle lens.
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ will be available starting April 21, and will be available in colors of Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver, Coral Blue and Maple Gold. The Galaxy S8 is priced at $750 and the Galaxy S8+ has a price tag of $850. No word so far when it will debut in India.
