All set to go head to head with the iPhone 7, Samsung’s Galaxy S8 has been unveiled at the ‘Unpacked 2017‘ event in New York. The smartphone sports an all glass design with a digital home button, curved 3D screen and wireless charging.
Owing to the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco the South Korean company has had to do a lot of brand rebuilding and reputation fixing. They did not just lose billions of dollars. There was a lot more at stake. Since then, the Galaxy S8 is Samsung’s first big launch.
Naturally, all eyes and ears have constantly been on its leaks and rumours. However, now that it is out, we can have a real look at what the smartphone packs.
Sporting a slim all glass body, the piece is supposedly designed to be held in a single hand. It has two size variants- the 5.8-inch display and the 6.2-inch display. The press home button has been replaced by a pressure sensitive panel at the bottom so that the phone looks like a single pane of glass.
As far as the security is concerned, the phone has a fingerprint reader right next to the rear camera, and it also has an iris scanner.
Thankfully the company did not hold on to the rumours of ditching the headphone jack (possibly because Apple had its head bitten off by the public after its outrageous move).
The Galaxy S8 has a Quad-HD ultra-wide display (2960×1440 pixels)- aspect ration 18:5:9, rather than the conventional 16:9. The UHD Alliance has described it as the world’s first “Mobile HDR Premium.”
It has a 12Mp dual-camera at the rear and an 8MP autofocus on the front. The IP68 rating assures of water resistance upto 1.5m depth for 30 minutes.
The Galaxy S8 packs a 6GB RAM and 64GB ROM that can be expanded upto 256GB via MicroSD card.
It is going to run on Android Nougat OS powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, and will have a 3,000 mAh battery.
Key Specs
| Feature | Specification |
| Display | 5.8-inch/6.2-inch |
| Battery | 3,000 mAh |
| Rear camera | 12MP dual |
| Front camera | 8MP |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 |
| OS | Android Nougat 7.1.1 |
| RAM | 6GB |
| Storage | 64GB expandable up to 256GB |
There’s a lot riding on the Galaxy S8 for Samsung. Another pitfall could be catastrophic for the company. For the sake of the general well being of the industry, we sure hope that it is not. The expected release date in India is April 21.
