There are a whole bunch of speculation and rumors about Apple’s 2017 release, with leaked specifications and design features that the new smartphone will house, especially as it is Apple’s celebratory year, and that is great and exciting for lovers of the iPhone, but for me it has to be the Samsung Galaxy S8 that presently tops the table of all things beautiful.
The smartphone is now firmly ingrained in our popular culture with some instances of smartphone cases being more expensive than the piece of kit itself, showing how important a fashion accessory it has become. We even have words like ‘phubbing’ (or phone snubbing) that have entered our language. In fact phubbing is up there with money issues and children as one of the main reasons for relationships breaking down!
But you could be forgiven for going quiet when seeing the Galaxy S8 for the first time as it could be the best looking phone you have ever seen.
To be honest manufacturers have been looking to develop a phone that is sleek and smooth, and that is exactly what the Samsung Galaxy 8 is.
It really does look like a single piece of glass. There are no physical buttons or exterior casing, instead you are presented with a state of the art, gleaming, border-less display which is a joy to behold. Tactile and perfect you won’t want to put this baby down.
It’s all been about the practical limitations that have made a device like the Galaxy S8 difficult to produce. Even the iPhones 7 display only takes up two thirds of the surface area, and that is another reason why iPhone users are eagerly anticipating this years model in hope that the wasted space is put to good use.
But back to the beautiful Galaxy S8 which is probably the closest we are going to get to the vision of an all-screen phone, but all good things have a downside, and in this case it is the price of the device.
Costing £689 and rising it’s a lot of money and this phone really does need to impress users especially after the recent exploding Samsung phones. The company needs to recoup its solid reputation.
So we have what Samsung are calling the ‘infinity screen,’ with the corners of this taller screen being rounded. The screens aspect ratio has been stretched out to 18.5:9 which is great for when you are scrolling through Facebook. You also have the option of a letter-boxed view when watching Netflix or YouTube videos.
The display you get with this smartphone is wonderful and Samsung have said it is the first to be certified as ‘Mobile HDR Premium,’ which is all good news for the user.
With the home button contained within the screen, and the other Android buttons are now part of the touchscreen. The fingerprint sensor has been moved to the rear of the device and is situated a little too close to the camera for my liking but that is a nitpick as you will soon get used to it.
You also have options if you do not want to use the fingerprint scanner as the S8 also houses the iris recognition, and facial recognition too. Both are simple to set up but you do have to angle them right t your face in order for them to work.
With a 12MP sensor on the back and an 8MP on the front the camera is pretty good with a multi frame image processing option which means you can take three pictures at once which will be joined together to create the best one. With its snapchat lenses and a pro mode that lets you adjust options you can come up with some pretty odd images.
Specs for the S8
Screen Size: S8 – 5.8 inches
Dimensions: 148.9 x 8mm 155g
Camera: 12Mp main, 8MP front
Storage: 64GB + microSD
Software: Android 7.0
Release date: April 28th or April 20th for pre-orders
Price: £689
The overuse of bloatware, those unnecessary feature and unwanted apps that were cleaned up on the Note 7 has been carried over to the S8 with no evidence of performance being adversely affected. The phone is exceptional fast and has that zippy feeling when playing games or browsing online. I found that pages loaded quickly and opened up seamlessly, and the infinity screen just made the whole experience even more enjoyable.
