Samsung Galaxy S8

Samsung Galaxy S8 looks amazing, but Bixby assistant is a wild card (hands-on) 

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is simply gorgeous. Gone is the S7's flat screen, and in its place is a tall, narrow drink of water with two curved sides. This is a phone that felt at home in my hands when I went hands-on with it for several hours at a journalist briefing in San Francisco. Better even than the LG G6, which has similar proportions but no curved screen, and sleeker than the iPhone 7 Plus, which puts a smaller screen on taller, wider body. For the first time, every major Samsung phone is an "Edge" model, with the Edge and Note's curve-screen software and all.

But elegant as it is in metal and glass, the S8 (and larger S8 Plus) is also the first marquee Samsung phone in a long time that leaves me with uneasy doubts. And those doubts have nothing to do with the disastrous Galaxy Note 7 and everything to do with a couple out-of-place choices and a work-in-progress digital assistant called Bixby, which we also spent some hands-on time with.

Good stuff first. Samsung's redesign makes the S8's 5.8-inch screen absolutely pop. There's no more physical home button, and barely a bezel. That means the screen takes up roughly 83 percent of the phone's face for tapping and viewing. If the S7's display felt generous before, this is positively expansive.

Then there's Bixby, Samsung's answer to Apple's Siri, Google's Assistant and Amazon's Alexa. The three-in-one feature is a mishmash of voice assistant, Google Now cards and Google Goggles optical recognition. It's confusing, limited and, at this admittedly embryonic stage, very incomplete. (More below.) Samsung is asking for patience. This is up in the air right now, but there's a chance that Bixby may not come preloaded on the S8. It might be that you see a prompt to update the software as you set up the phone, but Samsung will give us more details closer to launch. New Bixby capabilities will roll out over time.

I really enjoyed my hands-on time with the S8 and S8 Plus so far. But even at this early stage -- with full testing to come -- it feels like Samsung's holding back. That makes sense. The company had to clean up the mess of its exploding Galaxy Note 7, and scramble to make sure that the S8 won't do the same. And after Samsung mobile chief DJ Koh promised CNET an "innovative" Note 8, I expect refinements to the design, Bixby assistant and the camera tech to make their way onto that phone.
For now, I'm cautiously optimistic about the S8 as an all-rounder that helps Samsung recover from its charred reputation. But it'll be our real-world tests on the final review unit in April that will show how close Samsung has truly come.

Pricing and availability

You can preorder the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus on March 30. The phone will sell globally, starting April 21 in the US and other major regions. In the UK, the S8 has been priced at £689. In Australia, it will cost AU$1,199.

You also get a pair of AKG earbuds in the box, valued at $99 (Samsung finalized its sale of AKG parent company Harman last month). Everyone who buys a new S8 will receive Samsung Rewards Platinum level with bonus points, if they register for the program by May 14.
If you preorder the S8, you get:

• Gear VR (2017) and Controller
• Oculus game pack

A limited edition bundle for an extra $99 gets you:

• AKG over-ear Bluetooth headphones (as well as the earbuds)
• 256GB memory card

The deal with Bixby

Bixby is a little tougher to explain. It's a three-parter that combines elements of voice commands with Google Now-style cards and image recognition. And Samsung has named each part.
Bixby Voice is the Siri/Google Voice Search/Amazon Alexa component that you speak commands to. But it'll be limited at launch. You can ask it to toggle your Wi-Fi settings, share a photo with someone and perform other phone-centric tasks, but you can't launch an internet search, like looking up the weather or asking when your favorite restaurant's going to close.
You start it by pressing and holding the Bixby button beneath the volume keys (like a walkie-talkie), or with a wake word -- Samsung will provide more details closer to the S8's sale date.
The specter of the Note 7's exploding battery hovers over the S8. The truth is, we can't be 100 percent sure that Samsung made a safer battery until the final units are incident-free. But what we do know is that Samsung has instituted an eight-point battery test that it used on the S8 and S8 Plus, and on all phones going forward. My colleague Shara Tibken toured a Korean battery facility to see how it's done.
In addition, Samsung also claims that the S8 battery is about long-term performance rather than a short-term benchmarking burst. It's expected to hold a longer charge after 6 months, a year and two years compared to the S7.


"Where most batteries hold about 80 percent of their charge after two years, this battery should be capable of 95 percent of its original capacity," said Oh Boo-keun, vice president of Samsung's mobile R&D team.
The S8 and last year's S7 both have 3,000mAh batteries, while the S8 Plus drops a tick from the S7 Edge: from 3,600mAh to the 3,500mAh you get today. (By comparison, 2016's S7 Active has a 4,000mAh battery.) If what Samsung says pans out, the raw numbers are much less important than the battery's performance as time goes on.

Important hardware features

• Water-resistance rating: IP68 (up to 3 feet or 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes)
• Wireless charging (you buy a separate dock)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor or Samsung Exynos 8895 (varies by region)
• Gigabit-class LTE (for when networks start supporting 5G speeds)
• Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 support (not 3.0; Samsung says its own fast-charging solution is just as fast)
• 64GB storage, microSD expansion to 2TB (you can buy 256GB cards today)
• Haptic home button is always active even with the screen off
• Colors: midnight black, arctic silver, orchid gray, maple gold, coral blue (varies by region)

Software changes from Galaxy S7

• Android Nougat 7.0
• Press and hold virtual home button for Google Assistant
• Swipe up for app tray
• Cleaner interface
• Customizable Edge display works like shortcuts
• Samsung Connect app works with SmartThings to let you control smart home appliances remotely

New camera tricks

• Double-press power button to launch (worked well)
• Autofocus on front-facing camera (8 megapixels)
• Easy-access filters and image decorations
• Floating shutter button (optional)

Unlocking the phone with your face

• This is not the same as iris scanning, which is a biometric tool you can use for mobile payments (you can't use face unlock for this)
• It's fast and it worked in my demo, even in indoor lighting
• You have to hold the phone level with your eyes; you can't unlock by looking down into the phone
• I couldn't trick it with a life-size color photo of my face
• Samsung says this is more convenient than it is secure. "If you need strong [security] technology, you can use the iris or fingerprint," said Kim Gae-youn, vice president of Samsung's smartphone product planning and product manager for the Galaxy S8.

Make the S8 your 'computer'

• The Samsung DeX is a standalone dock that displays your phone apps and media on a monitor
• You have to buy it separately
• You'll also need a monitor, keyboard and mouse in addition to the dock and cables
• It worked well in my demo, so I'm hopeful it won't experience the lag of Microsoft's Display Dock for the Lumia 950
• Samsung envisions road warriors using it with Microsoft Office, Photoshop and business tools such as Citrix and VMWare

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus specs versus the competition

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