Samsung Galaxy S8 is Finally here!

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is one of those phones that just has to do well – it's up against some massively impressive competition in 2017 – and the good news is that this is, indeed, a very strong phone.

The amount of S8 leaks we've seen are staggering, both in their volume and accuracy, but they don't tell the whole story about a phone that's certain to be at the top (or very near the summit) of most 'best phone' lists this year
The Infinity Display is the headline feature of this handset – while it's not all screen, it's as close as can be. Samsung has also been very clever in the way it's got around the loss of the front-facing home screen button, managing to make the handset usable without requiring the mechanical key on the front of the Galaxy S8.


1. Price 
We should probably get the fact that this is the most expensive Samsung has ever made out of the way right now. The Samsung Galaxy S8 price is $724 (£689, AU$1,199).

2. Release Date 
The actual Samsung Galaxy S8 release date is April 21 in the US and April 28 in the US, with pre-orders now available.

3. Design
The look of the Samsung Galaxy S8 is what will sell it to the legions of fans clamoring for a new phone from the brand – and to a wider audience as well. While there aren't that many internal upgrades, the front of the phone is mostly just display, and it’s by far the lowest bezel-to-screen ratio we've seen on a globally-available flagship phone so far.
The 5.8-inch screen is packed tightly into the frame but it's still large at 148.90 x 68 x 8mm, and you'll struggle to reach all corners of the screen with a single thumb.
The fingerprint scanner is on the back, by the camera, and it's rather hard to use from the natural holding position for a phone in your palm. It is something you could get used to, but we're not sure why Samsung put it so close to the camera when it could have been closer to the middle of the phone.

4. Screen
The 5.8-inch Super AMOLED display is clear, bright and colorful, with a QHD resolution (and a little bit more, thanks to the screen being extended further down the chassis and now offering an 18.5:9 aspect ratio)

5. Bixby the assistant
Samsung has shocked us in a small way by announcing Bixby, its own take on an intelligent assistant, before the lanuch of the phone. The Samsung Galaxy S8 is clearly the launch vehicle for the AI service, and there's even a dedicated Bixby key on the side of the Galaxy S8 so you've always got instant access to the portal.

6. Interface 
Samsung has, once again, refined its user interface to provide its own Samsung Experience (formerly TouchWiz) skin on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. This UI is unfairly maligned by some, and the new upgrades fuse Android and Samsung's own design ethos together well. One of the most noticeable changes here is to the app tray – there isn't one on the home screen. However, swipe your finger up or down from the main display and you're taken to your hordes of apps – it's a nice way of doing things, and feels very natural.

7. Camera
In terms of the camera on the Samsung Galaxy S8, we're oddly seeing little in the way of improvement over the (admittedly impressive) snapper on the Samsung Galaxy S7 from 2016, despite promises to the contrary.

8. Battery
There's only a 3000mAh battery in the Samsung Galaxy S8, but that doesn't mean it's going to be a problem – the only issue we can see is that the longer screen that's on offer has more pixels to power, but with a CPU/GPU combination that’s more powerful than before there are some efficiencies to be offered in terms of saving the battery life.