Samsung Galaxy S8 preview – first impressions, camera, performance

With the launch of Galaxy S6 in 2015 Samsung opened a new page in terms of its flagship smartphone lineup’s design. The next year Galaxy S7 brought some improvements and now Galaxy S8 comes with a few more changes making it more attractive than ever. And so, the new top model of the South Korean company features an edge-to-edge screen and significantly less free space above and below the screen. Additionally, the display itself takes up 83.6% of the front part. In comparison, in Galaxy S7 the screen occupied 72.1% of the front part. All this has allowed Samsung to use a 5.8-inch screen, which is slightly larger than the 5.1-inch Galaxy S7. The rear part is made of Gorilla Glass 5, while the side frame is metal once again.

If you happen to show interest, you can find current information about prices and availability of Samsung Galaxy S8 here: http://amzn.to/2rKJI4c

The hardware Home button is history and in order to avoid being missed, Samsung has made the available on-screen Home button sensitive to pressure but its role remains the same. The company has found a small space above the screen for the iris scanner which, however, seems more like an attraction than something unique and necessary. It is even more impractical for people who wear glasses or lens. The fingerprint sensor is moved to the back near the camera.

Right under the volume adjusting buttons you will find another physical button and its role is to lead you to Bixby. This is a new virtual assistant that gathers all kinds of useful information. For example, you can check for upcoming tasks, weather forecast, sports activity, news stream etc.

As we already mentioned, the display is 5.8-inch but due to the extremely thin bezels, you have the feeling that you are holding a 5.2-inch or even a 5-inch smartphone. The resolution is also slightly increased – it is now 2960 х 1440 pixels and it brings amazing image detail of 570ppi respectively. The Always-on feature is also available as well as some other useful modes but we will take a closer look at them in the upcoming review.

In Europe, Galaxy S8 will come with an Exynos 8895 mobile processor which includes four Exynos M1 cores with a clock speed of up to 2.3GHz and another four Cortex-A53 running at 1.7GHz. The RAM is 4GB, while the mobile chip also features a Mali-G71 MP20 GPU. Additionally, the internal storage is 64GB, 11.7GB of which is occupied by the operating system and pre-installed files. We are about to put the mobile chip to all our tests but for the moment we can show you its results in the Geekbench 3 (on the left) and 3DMark Ice Unlimited (on the right) benchmarks.

Of course, the operating system is the popular Android 7.0 Nougat complemented by the latest version of the TouchWiz user interface. One of the first changes that caught our attention is the way you get to the internal menu. This happens by sliding your finger from the bottom up or back. You can also use the side panel (on the right) that can also be evoked by a slide. It could include more commonly used applications or other information chosen by you.

There is no change in the battery capacity, which is 3000mAh once again, and this is slightly worrying due to the presence of the bigger screen. However, we will arrive at a conclusion only after we conduct our battery tests. The camera is 12MP again and it includes f/1.7 aperture, LED flash and optical image stabilization. You can record a 4K video. Below, you can see two sample pictures that will acquaint you with the camera capabilities and you can expect many more photos, videos and information about it in the upcoming review.


Specs sheet


Operating systemAndroid 7.0 Nougat
CPUExynos 8895 (4-core, 2.30GHz & 4-core, 1.70GHz)
RAM4GB
Internal storage64GB
GPUMail-G71
Display5.8-inch Super AMOLED capacitive multitouch screen with resolution of  2960 x 1440 pixels
ConnectivityBluetooth v5.0, A2DP, LE, aptX, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS
Cameras12MP, autofocus, LED flashlight (rear), 8MP (front)
Other features
  • Nano-SIM card slot
  • MicroSD memory card slot, supports up to 256GB
  • USB v3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector
  • loudspeaker
  • 3.5 mm audio jack
  • camera with geotagging, simultaneous 4K video and 9MP image recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, Auto HDR
  • iris scanner
  • fingerprint sensor (on the back)
  • accelerometer
  • gyroscope
  • proximity sensor
  • barometer
Battery3000 mAh
Dimensions68.1 x 148.9 x 8 mm
Weight155 grams

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