For a long time now, this column has been very critical of Samsung. It has questioned their designs, argued against their gimmicky features and has also criticised their price. But most of this comes from the lack of innovation Samsung has shown us in the past few years and Samsung being one of the biggest Android smartphone manufacturers, we expected more out of them. We didn’t give the Samsung Galaxy S7 a very good review and now with the new Samsung Galaxy S8 almost entering the Nepali market, it’s time for another Galaxy flagship review.

Samsung’s innovation hasn’t been very steady in their smartphone line for the past few years, we’ve seen the same—but slightly modified— design on their

flagships and upgrades have always been slight and safe. But with the Samsung Galaxy S8, everything changes. The phone has a beautiful new design, a complete bezel-less display and top-of-the-line specifications.

Samsung has released two models of their new flagships: the S8 and the S8 Plus. While the internals for both of these models are exactly the same the only difference between the two would be the larger screen on the S8 Plus, 6.2 inches on the Plus and 5.8 inches on the standard S8. Another difference would be bigger battery capacity on the Plus which has 500mAh more than the 3000mAh on the S8. Apart from those two differences both devices come equipped with a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM and 12MP rear facing and 8MP front facing cameras. Internal storage is at a standard 64GB but a model with 128GB of internal storage and 6GB of RAM is rumoured to be released in the Asian market. Samsung uses two processors on their devices, either the Snapdragon from Qualcomm or their own homebrewed Exynos processors. The Exynos processor performs better than Snapdragon processor, so if you can get your hands on a S8 with an Exynos processor, you might be able to squeeze even more power from an already powerful device.   

But the primary appeal of the S8 lies in the beautiful bezel-less Infinity Display, as Samsung likes to call it, which sits on the front of the device. While the device still has top and bottom chins, they’re extremely thin and almost invisible. On the sides, however, the screen wraps completely around the edges, providing a seamless bezel-less experience. While we’ve seen other bezel-less phones in the market in the past, they’ve been designed with too many compromises. The loss of the top and bottom chin that houses many of the important cameras, speakers and sensors would mean radical new technology to accommodate this loss. Thus, on the S8, Samsung has not done away with the vital top and bottom chins but has rather decreased their sizes to such an extent that they blend seamlessly with the overall display. Since the top and bottom chins have turned smaller, the screen has been stretched taller to accommodate this change in design. So you get a much taller screen with the new S8s which means more screen real-estate for the user. The only downside to having a taller screen would be that none of the video-content we currently consume are built for this taller screen, which means that video content, almost always, will have black bars on the sides. Samsung does offer a feature that zooms into the video to provide a full screen experience but that still means incorrect framing. Because of the taller screen, the panels also run at a strange 1440 x 2960 resolution.

The screen is surrounded by a clean aluminium frame and a glass back panel. Using a weak glass panel on a flagship device seems strange since all flagships today come in sturdy metal bodies but since the glass back also mimics the same curve on the front, the phone feels exceptionally good in the hand. On the side, the same power and volume buttons are present with an additional hardware button below the volume rocker that calls up Samsung’s new personal assistant, Bixby. The phone also features a headphone jack and down-firing speaker on the bottom. On the back, we have the single 12MP camera and a fingerprint sensor next to it. While the single camera in an age of dual-rear cameras is a disappointment, the camera itself is pretty good. With a lower aperture of 1.7 and all the other software assisted features like face detection, improved autofocus and image stabilization, the camera on the S8 is brilliant. The fingerprint sensor, however, is oddly placed and seems to be biased against right-handed use. Taping the sensor requires a significant reach and is almost impossible to hit correctly on the first try if you’re using on with your left-hand. A cantered fingerprint sensor would probably have done a better job than the current placement.

Apart from the glitz and glamour of the hardware, Samsung has some new tricks on the software side as well. A new personal assistant, Bixby, is getting shipped with all S8 devices but, currently, it’s more of a hassle since Google’s own Assistant has turned much smarter. Unfortunately, the hardware button that is mapped to Bixby cannot be remapped. Samsung is also rolling out a new feature called Dex. When placed on a special dock, the S8’s UI turns into a complete desktop operating system with mouse and keyboard control. The hardware buttons synonymous with most Samsung devices have also been replaced with software buttons on the screen itself. The home button, however, is an always on button and also provides some cool haptic feedback when pressed. Fortunately, the navigation keys are switchable so you can easily swap the buttons with each other for a better experience.

No doubt, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is impressive. The phone looks really modern, futuristic and beautiful. While there are some design issues with the device, it is nonetheless, one of the most impressive smartphones to come out so early this year. There are rumours that even Apple is coming up with a bezel-less new iPhone and LG’s new G6 is also almost bezel-less. So, it looks like the next evolution for smartphone is heading towards a tighter screen-to-body ratio and we, as consumers, aren’t complaining about it. 

If your technological devices are giving you a hard time or if you’re just curious about certain technological questions, please drop us an email at [email protected] and we’ll try to answer your questions as best as we can.