Less than 24 hours after it's global launch happened in New York, I was there at the Philippine launch of Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ and the day will not be complete for me for some hands-on
Coz it has the same form factor, I decided to combine my first impressions of these flagship phablets from Samsung
On the 5.8 inch phablet, it was really smaller for that display size compared to main driver during that coverage which is OPPO F1 Plus with 5.5 inch display. On comparison to S7 and S7 Edge, it only had a few centimeters taller but the additional 0.7 inch was worth it and it was still good on my one-hand navigation
Front: 5.8 inch (for Galaxy S8) and 6.2 inch for Galay S8+) 2960 x 1440 Super AMOLED display with always-on display and Gorilla Glass 5, 8 MP AF front camera, Iris scanner
Back: 12 MP AF rear camera with flash, fingerprint reader, Samsung branding
Internals: 2.3 GHz Exynos 8895 octa-core processor with Mali G71 GPU, Samsung Experience 8.1 based on Android 7.0 Nougat, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB ROM, micro SD up to 256 GB, Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi, GPS with GLONASS, NFC, IP68 certification, 3,000 mAh battery (for Galaxy S8) 3,500 mAh battery (for Galaxy S8+)
The chin part has all with USB Type C, speaker and 3.5 mm. audio jack is still there. The top part has the nano SIM and micro SD in one tray and noise cancelling microphone
There's something new at the left side as you can see the volume rocker and the new Samsung Bixbu button which complements on what you are doing like looking for the name on that picture, to a number of tasks to go. The right view has the SIM card and micro SD slot tray and power/unloc k button
A look on it's app drawer, phone and messaging apps and the Samsung Experience 8.1 embedded on the phone based on Android 7.0 Nougat
You can customize the pulldown menu. On battery management, it has four available power settings to suit you.
Glimpse of their always-on display, display resolution adjustment from HD (720 x 1440) to Quad HD+ (1440 x 2960)
On the benchmarks, have a look on the Antutu scores made both on performance mode. Eight out of 9 working sensors were there on those phablets. Speaking on Antutu, (me for S8 and Haykal of Geekschicksten for the S8+) made those scores on performance mode. I had a guess that the score might be a bit lower than this as the said benchmark did not have a support yet for 18.5:9 screen ratio and it took the test in the standard 16:9 aspect ratio
And here are the pics. HDR disabled and beauty mode at 0 (as there is no auto mode on both of their 8 MP front camera). Like in Galaxy S7, the camera impressed so far based on these outputs. Thanks to AIDA 64 benchmark app, I found out that both phablets have the Samsung-based sensor inside (rear camera ID is SLSI_S5K2L2_FIMC_IS and SLSI_S5K3H1_FIMC_IS for the front cam )
Samsung Galaxy S8 12 MP main camera sample
Samsung Galaxy S8+ 8 MP secondary camera sample
Samsung Galaxy S8+ 12 MP main camera sample
Samsung Galaxy S8+ 8 MP secondary camera sample
The price of Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ here in the Philippines will be at Php 39,990 and Php 44,990 respectively. It will be available for pre-order starting this April 17 to 29 in Lazada, Abenson, Globe, Smart and authorized Samsung dealers. It comes with a free wireless speaker in a bottle-like design worth Php 5,099. Available colors for PH market will be midnight black, maple gold and orchid gray. When you already have the Galaxy S8, you cn gain access to exclusive priviledges like airport lounge access, free coffeee from their partner (TBC) and others.
