Samsung Galaxy series is evolving itself to match user expectations and ensure customer loyalty. The Galaxy-A series seems to be catching up with the Cult leaders i.e. S8, S9 & S9+ along with the Galaxy Note 8. Resemblance of Galaxy A8 to the Galaxy S8 is striking. Both have curved display (not the infinity), tall screens, rear finger print scanners and AMOLED displays.
Galaxy A8 stands out for itself with ‘Selfie’ upgrade, a dual secondary camera setup while the rear camera is still a Lone Ranger. It definitely looks like a ‘Challenger’ going-to-be a ‘Segment Leader’. Design teams at Samsung have gone back to the drawing board with customer feedback and the end result is an awe of a phone. The phone sports dual glass on front and back and has a polished Aluminium finish. IP68 dust and water resistance, no notch but has a thin chin and rear finger print reader and expandable 32 GB / 64 GB internal memory. And! it carries a 3.5 mm jack for headphones.
BODY: The dimensions of 149.2 x 70.6 x 8.4 mm are quite similar to the Galaxy S8. Yet the Galaxy A8 at 172 grams weighs 20 grams heavier than S8. The phone has both front and rear Glass protection with Aluminium Frame. Phone has Dual SIM functionality. And is IP68 certified for both Dust and Water resistance upto 1.5 meters for upto 30 minutes. The finger print sensor has always been at front bottom in A series of phones, now it finds a place below the Rear camera of the phone in A8. The response speed on the finger print sensor is very fast.
The good thing about this phone is that none of slots are lost when you insert two SIM cards in the phone. It has a dedicated microSD card slot for memory expansion purposes.
DISPLAY: Samsung Galaxy A8 has a slightly curved AMOLED displays which is a pure viewing pleasure for the user. Screen is secured by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 tech which protects the screen from scratches and provides fall resistance. Screen size of 5.6 inches is slightly smaller than Galaxy A7 and S8. The screen-to-body ratio is maintained at ~75.6%, less as compared to majority of flagship or Top band phones launched in 2018.
Also worth noticing is that the phone does not have Notch design, rather the Top Bezel is fully packed with: earpiece, the 2 Selfie Cameras, Sensors and LED notification blinker. The ‘Always-on’ display feature is a thumbs-up feature! Also, like other Samsung flagship phones, users have the option to setup custom themes using the Samsung Themes App. The Samsung Bixby is available too. All notable me-too features are embedded into the phone.
UNDER THE HOOD: The Galaxy A8 runs on Octa-core (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A73 & 6×1.6 GHz Cortex-A53) CPU that faster than its predecessor A7, yet is long way to S8. The processor is fitted on a Exynos 7885 Octa chipset with Mali-G71 GPU. This combination is a bit confusing, having fast processor tied to a slower GPU. This feature mismatch is not going to go down well with hardcore gamers and will suit only casual gaming.
Although the A8 delivers in terms of Benchmark test for high res games and graphic intensive jobs, it is no match to the performance delivered by its superior cousins. Still, for daily grind, Apps like Facebook, Gmail, WhatsApp, Line, Office mails, worked fine without any lag.
MEMORY: The phone has 4 GB RAM, handles multi-tasking decently. It is available in two internal memory options of 32 GBand 64 GB, with separate expandable memory slot. The slot is not sacrificed in cse dual SIM arrangement is used on the phone.
CAMERA: The Camera feature is somewhat subdued in A8 and things stick to Singular Camera on the rear side of the phone. A single 16 MP (f/1.7, aperture) supported by phase detection autofocus captures crisp low noise images and has decent dynamic range too. Low light images are good too.
The stand-out feature in the Secondary Camera is the dual camera setup with 16 MP (f/1.9, aperture) and 8 MP (f/1.9, aperture) cameras. This definitely is the best selfie camera ever! Delivers excellent portrait shots. It even captures 1080p Videos with great detail.
BATTERY: The Samsung Galaxy A8 gets a Non-removable Li-Ion 3000 mAh battery, which is substantially lower than Galaxy A7 that came out during January, 2017. The phone battery barely lasts upto a day. Usage consisted of : Office and personal Mails, WhatsApp, Facebook, 1 hr talktime, 1.5 hrs HD video playback on LTE network. The fast charger is decently fast and charges the phone from 0 to 50% in about 40 mins.
SOUND: The Loud Speaker is side-mounted unlike the S8 or S9 which have bottom speakers. This characteristic is similar to J series of Samsung phones.
The phone comes in four colors: Black, Orchid Grey, Gold (Signature color of A series), Blue.
The Samsung Galaxy A8 is a head-turner, yet it is priced above its segment. The amazing display, powerful processor, and unique dual selfie cameras make up the A8 a desirable phone. However, one would have to overcome a few down-pullers before buying it : high price, slower GPU, single Rear Camera.
loading...
loading...