Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ First Impressions

Fariha Khan
March 30, 2017
1,313

Samsung has just officially revealed the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. While we had already go to know much thanks to the leaks, but they could not explain how the device is in person. Now since we have got our hands on the phones, here are my first impressions:

Build and Colors

The build of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ is solid just as the other flagships from Samsung. The major difference comes when it comes to colors. At the time of release, the S8 will be available in five 5 colors in the US including Coral Blue, Silver, Black, Gold and Orchid Gray. What I really loved about the colors is that each one provides a bit stronger version of that color on the metal frame in place of putting that around the display.

Design & Buttons

The new Infinity Display makes few noteworthy changes to design for Samsung for the first time after ages. Now Samsung has on-screen navigation buttons with a hip appearance. While I love that personally but some will be a bit sore over the shortage of a button and the move to place the fingerprint sensor on the rear. Samsung has included iris scanning to make up for that.

Display

Let us start with the display that Samsung has called the “Infinity Display.” Well, there are just no bezels on this device particularly along the sides. The top and bottom have been trimmed to a considerable extent and it is wonderful. But the lack of bezel didn’t actually affect my handling of the device which was the surprising part. Still I could handle it all with ease and regardless of the metal and glass sandwich build, the grip is not a problem while moving the device around in my hand.

Software

The Samsung Galaxy S8 runs on top of Android Nougat with the similar fundamental software which is there on the Galaxy S7 with Nougat. There are just some slight changes. The Samsung’s new digital assistant, Bixby, has also been added to the device. The company claims that Bixby sets itself apart from rivals such as Siri or Google Assistant, making the voice portion of the assistant alert of what is happening on the display. Unlucky, the company won’t be pushing Bixby in its complete sense at launch.

Bixby’s initial form will have a Google Now-like set of contextual cards and Bixby Vision. Bixby Vision makes use of the camera on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and can recognize objects it sees. It can get link to buy products as well.

On the whole, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are very impressive. Samsung has done a great job with these devices to what I have discovered so far. The company will open Galaxy S8 sales on April 21st.