Samsung Galaxy S8 review – A gypsophila of awesome attributes

Lets face it, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is one of the ‘visually’ most slippery things in life. There is an Awe in this slipperiness… its surfaces are so much visually slippery that your eyes keep slipping off it, yet you try and try again to look at it. Lets try to dig deeper into this ‘larger than life’ marketing masterpiece from Samsung.

It is curvy like its predecessors, it has an awesome unparalleled AMOLED display and its packed with ‘Lets go to war’ features. First thing you notice when you pick it up is the taller display and its delicate looks. To give you respite, the Galaxy S8 only looks delicate, it has quite a strong built with metal frame all around. Sticking with the looks part of it, the Samsung Galaxy S8 sports a curved Infinity AMOLED  Display capable of giving you 2K resolutions at 1440 x 2960 pixels and measures 5.8inches (doesn’t look so wide as it is curved at both the ends). As display covers most of this metal framed phone, it is protected by Gorilla Glass 5, best strength display protection yet. As if that was not enough, the rear panel too is protected by Gorilla Glass 5, thus making it lustrous. If not held properly in hand, the phone tends to get slippery and since it is covered in glass all over, you can’t avoid smudges and scratches (if handled very roughly). You better not drop it, it is bound to get scratches.

The larger display in length and breadth has engulfed the Home Button, and it has now gone virtual. As the button is not virtual, Samsung has tried to give it a real world feel with haptik feedback once you press the virtual button. With the home button gone missing, the fingerprint sensor went looking for its place towards the rear of the phone right next to the 12MP camera. Unlike the Google Pixel and other Chinese phones, the sensor isn’t placed under the camera, rather it is on one side of it. Perhaps ergonomic for left-handers than the right-handers. Can’t have enough of the awesome display, it packs 570ppi pixel density which is way better and deeper than the competition except LG G6 (565ppi), while others : Google Pixel (441ppi), iPhone 7 (326ppi), OnePlus 3T (401ppi).

This beauty of a phone is powered by Samsung Exynos 8895 for editions available in Europe and Asia and Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 for the USA version. Supposedly the home-made Samsung Exynos 8895 outperforms the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. Both the processors have been optimized for battery life and performance.

The Samsung Exynos 8895 is manufactured on a 10nm FinFET process and has an advanced GPU for exceptional performance with low power consumption for extended battery life. It is also optimized for fast network performance with 1Gbps download and 150 Mbps upload LTE-Advanced modem. As per Samsung, the Exynos 8895 gives out 27% higher performance and 40% lesser power consumption as compared to previous Samsung processors.

The Battery is unlike any of the previous flagship batteries, It is stronger! At 3000 mAh (non-removable) it has more juice than ever. It usually lasts a day of normal phone use, however finds it tough to hold-on under extreme use. The battery has wireless charging which is a gem of a feature. So is the Samsung Galaxy battery in its latest encasing safe? Rest assured it is as safe as S7 battery and it doesn’t heat up easily. The phone does get warmed up during charging, which for that matter is a common thing in all phones while charging. The phone is waterproof as well as dust-proof with IP68 certified body.

The phone has dimensions measuring 5.9 x 2.9 x 0.31 inches making it taller and wider than the Apple iPhone 7 and the Google Pixel. LG G6 has near similar dimensions to Galaxy S8. The phone weighs 5.5 oz or 155g which is heavier than the Google Pixel (143g), Apple iPhone 7 (138g); except LG G6 (162g) and OnePlus 3T (158g) which are in its league.

Galaxy S8 has 4GB RAM and MALI-G71 graphics processor and is supported by 64GB internal memory (expandable upto 256GB). The SIM and memory card drawer only allows a combination of two things at one time. you can either have a SIM and a memory card (microSD) or two SIMs and no memory card.

This time around, Samsung TouchWiz is as clean as possible, giving more space for stock Android 7 Nougat experience, which actually is a delight on this spec combo.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 can be used as replacement for your desktop computer, atleast for basic word processing, browsing and email activity. Using the Samsung DeX dock accessory you can connect your Galaxy S8/S8+ to a monitor, keyboard and mouse for a desktop experience powered by your phone. Any place can be turned in to a workplace.

The Galaxy S8 camera isn’t much of an upgrade over the Galaxy S7 camera. Seems like Samsung did not even consider any new topping over the previous camera version while competition has moved on to include wide-angle lens, variable appertures, dual-sensors or for that matter a dual camera to capute greater image depth. Galaxy S8 brings itself to satiety with single lens 12MP rear camera with f/1.7 lens featuring the same Dual Pixel Tech which S7 has. That being said, the S8 camera gives out crisp, colorful images with one of the brightest Low-light shots. The front 8MP is highly adequate for selfie lovers, along with its new auto-focus attribute. Unlike the usual Samsung camera review which takes up pages to cover, this one is same as S7, yet it is still one of the best cameras around.

Phone’s internal speaker gives out decent output, however audio by AKG in-ear headphones is a cherry on the cake.

Samsung Galaxy S8 is a galaxy (we don’t mean to undermine that by calling it a ‘gypsophila’ in the headline) of features in itself. The new phone will keep you glued to it with loads of new features. You are never far from being amazed by new nifty features here and there courtesy of the new Samsung Software as you go using the S8. Beauty of a phone, a top-of-the-line feature packed crouching tiger.