Galaxy S8 & S8 Plus Thread

[lupi]

Not sure what i did, but now i have a profile pic next to all text messages from me, how do I kill this?

 

[gorcorps]

Not sure what i did, but now i have a profile pic next to all text messages from me, how do I kill this?

It's connected to your Samsung account. If you want to change it, just go into any conversation and click your icon (or picture, whatever you have right now) and it'll bring up your profile info that you can change. Hopefully it's self explanatory from there.

 

[lupi]

It's connected to your Samsung account. If you want to change it, just go into any conversation and click your icon (or picture, whatever you have right now) and it'll bring up your profile info that you can change. Hopefully it's self explanatory from there.

Not really, and judging from the number of similar questions this seems a common complaint. Did some trial and error and managed to get it off.

 

[Red Storm]

Got the S8+ last night. Was really debating going with the smaller S8 but I just can't resist a big screen. Beautiful phone, and a lot less bloat than I expected from Samsung. My only gripe so far is that the nav bar does not stay black like it should according to settings, but alternates between black and white depending on the app I have open.

 

[richaron]

Spent a few weeks with a S8 now. Obviously a beautiful design, and also obviously going to physically break before the usual 12/24month periods. Currently I'm running a cheap screen protector and a Spigen Liquid Air case, but having both back and front glass means it's a matter of time before there's broken glass no matter how bulky you decide to go with protection..

The complaints about the weird position of the fingerprint sensor are overblown, it shouldn't be a surprise that users can easily build muscle memory to work with a new position, and a case helps guide the finger. But the major problem is the stupid Samsung bloatware, including this Bixby nonsense.

The extra Samsung apps means that we have a duplicate "clock" app' for example, with exactly the same functionality as the regular android clock. So when I say "OK Google, set an alarm for 10pm", the google assistant might have no problems. But when I the follow up with "OK Google, cancel all alarms" the system gives me a "no alarms set" error, because there are multiple programs handling the same basic functions. Basically Samsung has reduced the functionality of Samsung branded devices by messing up the software ecosystem with their own software which is completely redundant.

My above point does not cover "Bixby", which is almost completely useless in my opinion.

 

[NutBucket]

It's only fragile if you abuse you phones.What is bad if you are someone who needs a full case with a built-in screen protector. Obviously that's impossible with the curved glass.

Is Bixby even fully functional yet? I thought the answer was no. At any rate, I don't use voice assistants so it is of little consequence to me.

So far my biggest gripe isn't phone related but carrier; Verizon blocks wifi calling on unlocked devices. Oh well.

 

[lupi]

Spent a few weeks with a S8 now. Obviously a beautiful design, and also obviously going to physically break before the usual 12/24month periods. Currently I'm running a cheap screen protector and a Spigen Liquid Air case, but having both back and front glass means it's a matter of time before there's broken glass no matter how bulky you decide to go with protection..

The complaints about the weird position of the fingerprint sensor are overblown, it shouldn't be a surprise that users can easily build muscle memory to work with a new position, and a case helps guide the finger. But the major problem is the stupid Samsung bloatware, including this Bixby nonsense.

The extra Samsung apps means that we have a duplicate "clock" app' for example, with exactly the same functionality as the regular android clock. So when I say "OK Google, set an alarm for 10pm", the google assistant might have no problems. But when I the follow up with "OK Google, cancel all alarms" the system gives me a "no alarms set" error, because there are multiple programs handling the same basic functions. Basically Samsung has reduced the functionality of Samsung branded devices by messing up the software ecosystem with their own software which is completely redundant.

My above point does not cover "Bixby", which is almost completely useless in my opinion.

I've got 2 choice for email, web browser, and photo viewer but that seems it. Have a single clock app and couldn't tell you who it belongs to.

 

[Red Storm]

One of the first things I did was remap the bixby button to act as a camera shortcut (yes I know the power button does the same, but I'm not a fan of double tapping).

 

[richaron]

It's only fragile if you abuse you phones.What is bad if you are someone who needs a full case with a built-in screen protector. Obviously that's impossible with the curved glass.

Is Bixby even fully functional yet? I thought the answer was no. At any rate, I don't use voice assistants so it is of little consequence to me.

So far my biggest gripe isn't phone related but carrier; Verizon blocks wifi calling on unlocked devices. Oh well.

Mate, the S8/S8+ is fragile because there's a large probability of either the front or back glass surfaces suffering a huge failure during a "regular" fall.

I suppose we can argue until the cows come home as to what constitutes and "regular" fall, but I suspect you will find the S8 and S8+ are much more susceptible to breakage than average.

 

[NutBucket]

Eh, my family has had a few S6/S6 Edge for years. So far I've replaced two broken screens...the back glass hasn't been an issue.

 

[Red Storm]

It's funny how I always come back to Nova launcher. Loving this massive screen. 2 and half hours of screen on time and only at 80% battery, I missed this.

 

[tsupersonic]

2.5 hours and you're at 81%? My Nexus 6P would've been dead at 1.5-2 hours 🙁 I really want a new phone, but I want to hold out at least till Note 8 announcement. I did get Amazon to agree to refund my 6P. I'm just waiting to transfer my data to a different temporary phone and send it back.

 

[Red Storm]

2.5 hours and you're at 81%? My Nexus 6P would've been dead at 1.5-2 hours 🙁 I really want a new phone, but I want to hold out at least till Note 8 announcement. I did get Amazon to agree to refund my 6P. I'm just waiting to transfer my data to a different temporary phone and send it back.

I've been fiddling with it all day. Rather than do a restore I decided to set it up fresh, so going through each and every setting took the better part of the morning. I have since streamed about 40 minutes of YouTube and 30 minutes of web browsing, so that's 3 hours and 40 minutes of screen on time and I am at 70% battery. And this is entirely on LTE, no wifi.

 

[lopri]

Battery performance is by far the most surprising element of my experience so far. (regular S8) It is the longest lasting phone by a sizable margin among the phones I have had, which includes Huawei Honor 8 and Sony Xperia Z Ultra. Depending on personal usage and situation, the ballpark is going to be 5~8 hours of SOT.

I have no complaint about this phone except the seeming fragility of its body. Great battery life, fantastic camera and amazing screen are all I desire in a smartphone. But for whatever reason this phone makes me a little nervous handling even though I have used mostly glass-bodied phones without fear.

 

[lopri]

Well, I do have one more complaint. I assumed the unlocked model would come with a clean back without the "Galaxy S8" title printed on it. I thought that was the carriers' doing seeing the phones outside the U.S. do not have that stupid logo. I was wrong, and I am not happy about it!

 

[NutBucket]

Take the back glass off and replace it with a clear panel....

 

[Red Storm]

When I got the S8+ I was excited to be back in the Android world, and I was definitely expecting an improvement in the battery life department compared to the iPhone 7 Plus I've been using, but holy crap:

Over 10 hours of screen on time! I used to be super happy with just over 5. This is incredible, super happy about my purchase now!

 

[gorcorps]

When I got the S8+ I was excited to be back in the Android world, and I was definitely expecting an improvement in the battery life department compared to the iPhone 7 Plus I've been using, but holy crap:

Over 10 hours of screen on time! I used to be super happy with just over 5. This is incredible, super happy about my purchase now!

That's very good

I never saw battery life that good, but it's been solid for me and most of my day is spent on a poor signal area. It was also better out of the box and has degraded since it was new a bit, but still good

 

[XavierMace]

Spent a few weeks with a S8 now. Obviously a beautiful design, and also obviously going to physically break before the usual 12/24month periods. Currently I'm running a cheap screen protector and a Spigen Liquid Air case, but having both back and front glass means it's a matter of time before there's broken glass no matter how bulky you decide to go with protection...

If you're consistently breaking your phones glass in 12-24 months, you're doing something wrong.

 

[richaron]

If you're consistently breaking your phones glass in 12-24 months, you're doing something wrong.

Well I do handle my phone dozens of times a day, not only for social/personal reasons but it is also integral in my work. 10,000 uses a year would be ~27 a day, which is a conservative number as far as I'm concerned.

So yes, I'd say out of 10,000 times I handle a phone there is a good chance I'll break it in a year. I'm not uncoordinated, nor am I particularly careless, I'm just being realistic. This device is more breakable than most and it only needs to fall badly once.

 

[XavierMace]

/shrug

Between my personal cell and work cell, I'm using mine far more than 30 times a day. I've never cracked a screen.

 

[dawheat]

That's very good

I never saw battery life that good, but it's been solid for me and most of my day is spent on a poor signal area. It was also better out of the box and has degraded since it was new a bit, but still good

I'd hazard the S8+ has better battery life than the standard S8 but I've never seen anything like that battery life on my + though I'm on LTE doing mostly web surfing. On a good day I might get close to 6 hrs SOT which is 2 hours better than my S7 Edge.

If you're on wifi all day and watching movies, I could see something like those results but that would be the best possible scenario.

 

[Red Storm]

I'd hazard the S8+ has better battery life than the standard S8 but I've never seen anything like that battery life on my + though I'm on LTE doing mostly web surfing. On a good day I might get close to 6 hrs SOT which is 2 hours better than my S7 Edge.

If you're on wifi all day and watching movies, I could see something like those results but that would be the best possible scenario.

Took it off the charger at 6:30 am. From then until 4pm I was on LTE only. Good signal almost the entire time so maybe that played a part?

I don't expect 10 hours of SOT to be the norm, but just seeing it go that far is amazing to me. And this is with Google Now, high accuracy location with location history on, 3 Gmail accounts syncing.

I wonder how far I could have gone with some power saving enabled...

 

[lopri]

I do believe I0 hour SOT is within the realm of possibility especially with the S8+. My S8 is at 20% with almost 7 hours of SOT at the end of the day today. The thing is, though, it appears there is a chip lottery going on due to immaturity of Samsung's 10 LPE process.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8/how-to/exynos-chip-binning-t3596434

Andrei is polling Exynos 8895 bins that are out in the wild, and the standard deviation is rather large. Also the median is skewed towards lower end in comparison to Samsung's previous chips. (The higher the bin number the lower the leakage due to lower voltage) Though the above samples are Exynos 8895, I do suspect the Snapdragon 835's situation is not much different. In short, while benefits that 10nm brings is undeniable, its early nature means the quality of chips is not as consistent as Samsung/Qualcomm hoped. My theory is that translates to battery life that are better-than-average to absurdly-good on S8/S8+.

 

[lopri]

As for the perceived fragility of the phone, I think it comes largely from the height of the phone's body. Phones are held at their bottom portion of body, and since the phone is taller there is more than usual weight to sustain above the holding hand. The phone is not exactly top-heavy, but due to its tallness it becomes like top-heavy in the hand. That seems to be the main reason why I get a little nervous carrying this phone naked. (And I have been using glass-bodied phones like forever)