Galaxy S8 & S8 Plus Thread

[antihelten]

Of course I see the resemblance, after you changed the entire phone design to force it to look similar. You had to change the aspect ratio, add a radius to the screen edges that weren't originally there, remove the hardware buttons, and shrink all the bezels. You can do the same thing to any semi rectangular device and make the same point.

The aspect ratio doesn't really have anything to do with the design language (unless you think the fronts of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 also have completely different design languages), and I didn't add any radius to the screen edge, I followed the glass edge that was already there on the one X, removing the capacitive buttons and shrinking the bezel are just side effects of the first (and really only significant) change I made, namely letting the screen follow the glass edge, instead of being confined to a smaller square.

And no you couldn't do the same to any semi rectangular device, because they don't have the same glass edge boundary that is so reminiscent of the GS8 screen boundary, but by all means feel free to prove me wrong and do the same with another contemporary phone, like say the GS3, the iPhone 5, the Optimus G or the Xperia T (or any other phone you please).

^ the HTC design looks to me like an old compromise where a potentially much sleeker phone had to be encased in an ugly roundish shell. The absurdity of the sharp rectangle screen surroumnded by ill-matching rounded 'cases' just looks retro and awful. (And even at the time HTC had much better designs.)

I agree that the HTC design is very much a compromise, it looks like the designer thought it would look really cool if they put in a large screen with rounded corners, but the engineers then told him that this was impossible, and as a compromise he could get a glass front shaped like what he wanted with a small square screen underneath.

It's only now, 5 years on, that the technology has advanced to the point were the designers idea can finally be implemented, as we see with the GS8.

 

[Red Storm]

Really wish they could have put a speaker on that bottom bezel.

 

[deputc26]

Really wish they could have put a speaker on that bottom bezel.

+1, this was my first thought when I saw the leaked image.

 

[gorcorps]

Shamelessly stole link from another thread:

http://bgr.com/2017/03/01/galaxy-s8-leaked-images-specs-exclusive/

 

[WelshBloke]

Shamelessly stole link from another thread:

http://bgr.com/2017/03/01/galaxy-s8-leaked-images-specs-exclusive/

That's not shamelessly stealing!

THIS is shamelessly stealing!

(Dude needs to cut his pinky nail btw!)

 

[Oyeve]

(Dude needs to cut his pinky nail btw!)

That's for blow.

 

[WelshBloke]

That's for blow.

Yikes!

 

[gorcorps]

Yikes!

Hey, everyone needs an ear cleaning finger

 

[Commodus]

Curious to see how well-received the S8 is compared to its predecessor. KGI is predicting lower sales, but I'm not so sure given that this is the first radical redesign since the S6, and it looks to be a good one at that. And while LG will have the first-mover advantage on the "nothing but screen" flagship phone category, Samsung is likely to have the first such design that the mainstream notices.

On that note: remember how a certain poster used to create threads crowing about every positive result for Samsung (and negative for Apple), acting as if Samsung would inevitably have an absolute monopoly and that it'd be the best thing ever? Not surprisingly, he's still silent after half a year. Guess the worst fiasco in the company's mobile history (which cost both market share and profits) and the CEO being arrested over bribery charges will make even the biggest Samsung cheerleader go quiet.

 

[WelshBloke]

Curious to see how well-received the S8 is compared to its predecessor. KGI is predicting lower sales, but I'm not so sure given that this is the first radical redesign since the S6, and it looks to be a good one at that. And while LG will have the first-mover advantage on the "nothing but screen" flagship phone category, Samsung is likely to have the first such design that the mainstream notices.

The thing is that Samsung are pretty much competing with themselves in the Android space. They nailed it with the S7 and I bet a lot of people on S7s are going to be happy to stay there not because the S8 would be lacklustre but because the S7 was so good.

On that note: remember how a certain poster used to create threads crowing about every positive result for Samsung (and negative for Apple), acting as if Samsung would inevitably have an absolute monopoly and that it'd be the best thing ever? Not surprisingly, he's still silent after half a year. Guess the worst fiasco in the company's mobile history (which cost both market share and profits) and the CEO being arrested over bribery charges will make even the biggest Samsung cheerleader go quiet.

Theres a saying about not becoming the thing you hate! Don't become that guy!

 

[Commodus]

The thing is that Samsung are pretty much competing with themselves in the Android space. They nailed it with the S7 and I bet a lot of people on S7s are going to be happy to stay there not because the S8 would be lacklustre but because the S7 was so good.

...

Theres a saying about not becoming the thing you hate! Don't become that guy!

You're likely right on Samsung, especially since some of its rivals are imploding. If you're an Android vendor that isn't Samsung or a big Chinese company like Huawei or BBK, you're probably struggling to stay afloat. Even companies on the mend, like LG or Sony, can't exactly brag about their performance.

And on becoming the thing I hate: sorry, I am guilty of plenty of schadenfreude here. I'd say the lesson is that you should never tie your self-worth so thoroughly to a company (not just Samsung) that you treat it like a family member, someone you have to defend at nearly any cost. Sure, it's easy to be a cheerleader when things are going well, but if the company screws up in a big way... that's the kind of embarrassment you don't come back from without eating a lot of humble pie.

Even if you're a huge fan of a company's products, it's important to stay critical, to admit when the company messes up or when a rival does something better. Your favorite brand doesn't have to do everything flawlessly -- it just has to do the things you value well enough to win your support.

 

[WelshBloke]

You're likely right on Samsung, especially since some of its rivals are imploding. If you're an Android vendor that isn't Samsung or a big Chinese company like Huawei or BBK, you're probably struggling to stay afloat. Even companies on the mend, like LG or Sony, can't exactly brag about their performance.

I'm actually supprised that the Chinese companies are so slow to break out. i assumed a while back that they would be huge by now.

And on becoming the thing I hate: sorry, I am guilty of plenty of schadenfreude here. I'd say the lesson is that you should never tie your self-worth so thoroughly to a company (not just Samsung) that you treat it like a family member, someone you have to defend at nearly any cost. Sure, it's easy to be a cheerleader when things are going well, but if the company screws up in a big way... that's the kind of embarrassment you don't come back from without eating a lot of humble pie.

Even if you're a huge fan of a company's products, it's important to stay critical, to admit when the company messes up or when a rival does something better. Your favorite brand doesn't have to do everything flawlessly -- it just has to do the things you value well enough to win your support.

Thing is that you're in danger of becoming as obsessed with him as he was with Samsung. He was a bit of a kook, move on.

 

[Commodus]

I'm actually surprised that the Chinese companies are so slow to break out. i assumed a while back that they would be huge by now.

Thing is that you're in danger of becoming as obsessed with him as he was with Samsung. He was a bit of a kook, move on.

Fair enough. Moving on from him...

When it comes to Chinese vendors, there are two main challenges: limited market reach and saturation. Many of these vendors sell primarily or even exclusively in China, so their success is directly tied to how well they do in their home turf. And the Chinese market is now big enough that there aren't that many new customers, so they mostly compete by poaching each other's customers. That was Xiaomi's problem in particular: it was doing very well when the market still had a lot of room to grow, but it's hurting somewhat now that the market is better-established.

Samsung has to worry about saturation as well, but in a different way. Its issue is less country-by-country saturation and more the same issue Apple has: converting existing owners. Like you said, the S7's success may actually backfire if it means that there are lots of users who bought a Samsung phone too recently to buy an S8. How many S5/S6 owners are out there itching to get a new Samsung device? We're going to find out in the next few months...

 

[WelshBloke]

When it comes to Chinese vendors, there are two main challenges: limited market reach and saturation. Many of these vendors sell primarily or even exclusively in China, so their success is directly tied to how well they do in their home turf. And the Chinese market is now big enough that there aren't that many new customers, so they mostly compete by poaching each other's customers. That was Xiaomi's problem in particular: it was doing very well when the market still had a lot of room to grow, but it's hurting somewhat now that the market is better-established.

There seems to be more legal and cultural problems with acceptance of Chinese phones in the West than I was expecting as well.

Samsung has to worry about saturation as well, but in a different way. Its issue is less country-by-country saturation and more the same issue Apple has: converting existing owners. Like you said, the S7's success may actually backfire if it means that there are lots of users who bought a Samsung phone too recently to buy an S8. How many S5/S6 owners are out there itching to get a new Samsung device? We're going to find out in the next few months...

The S6 was definitely flawed compared to the S7. The S5 was a different beast completely. The S6/7 are fragile pieces of jewellery compared to the S5s.

I agree that Samsung are like Apple in that they compete with themselves in their markets. Apple gets around that by having a tightly controlled hardware and software ecosystem where multiple profit streams come back to them. Samsung deals with it by having handsets that compete at every level of the market. I dont think that existing users switching is a massive problem for Samsung, Android is always going to have the majority of the market (for the foreseeable future) and Samsung are going to have to try hard if they want to lose the massive advantage they have there.

 

[Sweepr]

Exynos 8895 slightly ahead of Snapdragon 835 @ Geekbench:

https://browser.primatelabs.com/v4/cpu/2109288

As usual will be interesting to check how these two stack up.

 

[Yakk]

Interesting, but I'm more curious on power usage. The Exynos 8890 in my S7 is fantastic,

Samsung can make great ARM chips. I'm thinking they bought out the full first batch of 835 chips just to deny LG and the other competition. For the amount they actually need for the few (single?) US carriers, it doesn't make sense they bought so many.

 

[gorcorps]

http://bgr.com/2017/03/23/galaxy-s8-release-date-close-preorder-deals/

Leaks on preorder deals. Target offering $100 giftcard + free Gear VR headset, which has been pretty typical of the recent samsung phones. The VR headset is most likely a samsung offer and not store specific, so I wonder what other stores will offer. I'm torn with preordering because I'm getting more sick of my 6p every day and would love a change, but also want to wait and see if it's reliable and how the battery life is. Especially between the ATT and international versions.

 

[Yakk]

Rumors of a possible upcoming Note 8 have my attention :

http://wccftech.com/galaxy-note-8-4k-display-256gb-storage/

with my S7 I'm skipping the S8, but will instantly upgrade to a Note 8 should it be released later this year.

 

[darkswordsman17]

http://bgr.com/2017/03/23/galaxy-s8-release-date-close-preorder-deals/

Leaks on preorder deals. Target offering $100 giftcard + free Gear VR headset, which has been pretty typical of the recent samsung phones. The VR headset is most likely a samsung offer and not store specific, so I wonder what other stores will offer. I'm torn with preordering because I'm getting more sick of my 6p every day and would love a change, but also want to wait and see if it's reliable and how the battery life is. Especially between the ATT and international versions.

I'll wait. I have a hunch Samsung is going to run another buy one get one promotion. Sounds like they're expecting major sales on the S8, which I think it will do well but nowhere close to the amounts Samsung seems to think (unless they already pre-planned the buy one get one).

A big part of why I think Samsung is likely overestimating buyers for the S8 is the S7, both that it's sales were massively boosted by the buy one get one (so if they think it will sell as well without doing that), and that people who bought S7s likely are plenty happy. Then again, maybe they'll tweak the promotion so that if you turn in S7 (or iPhones of course) then you qualify for it otherwise you won't.

 

[gorcorps]

More leaks seem to have confirmed the battery capacity at 3000 mAh and 3300 for the s8 and s8+. That's not any bigger than the S7, so I'm a little worried about batt life with a larger screen.

 

[dawheat]

I'll wait. I have a hunch Samsung is going to run another buy one get one promotion. Sounds like they're expecting major sales on the S8, which I think it will do well but nowhere close to the amounts Samsung seems to think (unless they already pre-planned the buy one get one).

A big part of why I think Samsung is likely overestimating buyers for the S8 is the S7, both that it's sales were massively boosted by the buy one get one (so if they think it will sell as well without doing that), and that people who bought S7s likely are plenty happy. Then again, maybe they'll tweak the promotion so that if you turn in S7 (or iPhones of course) then you qualify for it otherwise you won't.

Announcement at 11am EST today though there seem to be no surprises left.

I actually preferred the iPhone 7 deals at launch (trade in iPhone 6, get new one free) over the BOGO deals for the S7. Best case you had a 16GB iPhone 6 lying around, worst case you bought one from swappa for $260. I actually did both for my family.

The BOGO deals required a new line opening and was spend $650 to get $650 free - similar but required a bigger initial spend.

I certainly hope both Samsung and Apple, with the carriers, do similar deals now and in the summer to satisfy the Android and iOS users in my family.

 

[Oyeve]

Watching it live now.

 

[antihelten]

More leaks seem to have confirmed the battery capacity at 3000 mAh and 3300 for the s8 and s8+. That's not any bigger than the S7, so I'm a little worried about batt life with a larger screen.

It's actually 3500 mAh for the S8+.

Either way the screen being 15% larger or so, would probably result in a 5-10% hit to on screen battery life (less than 15% since the screen isn't the only thing using power when you use your phone). This should hopefully be compensated somewhat by the fact that the phones features new 10nm SOCs.

Anyway the reveal showed a few surprises, both good and bad (for me personally anyway). I'm a bit disappointed that you apparently can use third party apps in fullscreen, but will instead always have a bar at the top and bottom due to the curved corners (since third party apps won't automatically be aware of said corners). On the positive side, I'm quite impressed with Dex, not that it will necessarily be all that useful ultimately, but at first glance it certainly doesn't look like the complete mess I was originally expecting.

 

[gorcorps]

Yeah nothing really surprising. I'm still concerned about biting early and regretting it if the note 8 turns out to be something even better, but I think I'll be happy with the regular S8 and not want anything bigger.

 

[mxnerd]

S8 with DeX docking station is going to beat every device on the market, no PC is required.