Samsung Galaxy S8 Unlocked 64GB – US Version (Midnight Black)
- Infinity Display: a bezel-less, full-frontal, edge-to-edge screen. Default resolution is Full HD+ and can be changed to Quad HD+ (WQHD+) in Settings
- Camera resolution – Front: 8 MP AF, Rear: 12 MP OIS AF
- Memory: Internal Memory 64 GB, RAM 4GB
U.S. limited warranty. Latest Galaxy phone with Infinity Display, Duel Pixel Camera, iris scanning and Ip68-rated water and dust resistance. The phone comes with a stunning 5.8″ Quad HD+ Super AMOLED display (2960×1440) with 570 ppi and world’s first 10nm processor.
List Price: $ 724.99
Price: $ 574.99
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The Pros & Cons,
Pros:
– Android Nougat is a very smooth OS. It’s a definite upgrade from the previous versions. Just keeps getting better.
– The cameras on this phone are both amazing. Makes great photos!
– Very slick design on phone, aesthetically speaking. It looks very nice.
– Comes with a nice variety of accessories, including adapters for charging in case you want to use a micro-USB charger or want to hook up a USB cable accessory for any reason.
– Extremely good graphics on this device. Resolution is phenomenal.
– Wide range of settings for customizing your user experience and security. (Even more than the usual for an Android/Samsung device)
– Continued to allow for external storage, unlike the S6, which made me very happy.
– I haven’t put the water resistance to the test, but I’m assuming it’s as good as the last model. Glad it’s there.
– The full screen layout is very nice for movies and gaming. I adjusted to the homescreen button being part of the screen almost instantly.
Cons:
– This is an EXTREMELY fragile design, especially the back of the phone, which is also coated in the Gorilla Glass, from what I can tell. My wife dropped hers from about 10 inches, with a case on, on the 5th day of ownership. The back of the phone cracked, chipped, and spider-webed all over within just a few hours. The phone was insured through our carrier, but the cheapest solution was to send it in to Samsung for a $75 repair job (plus shipping and handling). I would strongly recommend using a reputable case and screen protector at all costs. And be sure you insure this device. Lots of the durability tests that I have seen on YouTube have exposed this design flaw as well.
– The headphones that come with the phone aren’t that great. In previous editions, they provided Samsung-brand headphones that sounded great. It looks like they’ve started using another company to produce their headphones. There is very little bass or mid-range in the sound, so if you use your headphones for music, gaming, or videos, be prepared to get a better brand.
– The new Bixby application via Samsung… I’m still trying to adjust to it. It’s Samsung’s version of Google Assistant/Siri. It’s not that it’s not a useful concept, but you don’t get much of a choice but to use it. There’s a dedicated button on the left of the phone that can not be deactivated from what I can tell. It’s right below the volume button and is easy to press unknowingly and can get annoying quickly. I hope Bixby grows on me.
– The voice command features for both Google and Bixby is weak in this edition. I have had to reprogram my voice recognition settings about 5 times already, and it still only picks up the commands about 30% of the time. Oddly enough, it works much better for the Bixby service than the Google Assistant service. (That struck me as a bit suspicious)
– The speech-to-text application in general took a step backwards with this edition. My S7 and S6 both did a wonderful job for the most part of translating my speech. This phone, however, has massive errors in its translation. It hyphenates words that don’t need to be and substitutes words incorrectly, and often. I have to speak EXTREMELY slowly and phonetically in order to get it to work. The fact that I have a Southern accent doesn’t help whatsoever. This was one of the worst drawbacks for me, personally, because I use the speech-to-text feature often with my work.
Overall: It’s a gorgeous phone with some definite upgrades but concerning drawbacks. If I were Samsung, I would put a lot of emphasis on making a more durable design on the future editions. Worth buying – just keep it well protected.
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|The Bixby button is a wart on an otherwise awesome phone. We get it,
It would be hard to give any phone 5 stars since there are always a few features you would do differently. My biggest gripes about the S8 are all of the « Samsung » idiosyncrasies. The Bixby button is a wart on an otherwise awesome phone. We get it. You want to push Bixby. But if any app on a phone is going to get a dedicated button on the side, it should be the phone app itself (duh). Hopefully Samsung will see the error of their ways and push a firmware update that allows us to assign that button to any app or function we choose. As for Bixby itself, I am not ready to fully embrace the creepiness of voice interactive AI yet, and nobody in my circle talks to their phone when there isn’t a real person on the other end. It just seems a little too… something.
Otherwise it’s a really nice phone. Lots of power. Everything runs fast. Loads of storage space, plus the SD slot leaves plenty of room for even more storage. The ability to store more than one movie on the phone is nice for those days when you want to bring some entertainment along.
The screen is nice and bright. It can be used outdoors on bright days. Screen size is just about perfect. It’s a little narrower than my previous Nexus 6, but it is still large enough to allow comfortable web browsing and movie viewing. And it isn’t so big as to be uncomfortable to slip into a pants pocket. I also like the blue filter option for reducing eye strain, and the auto brightness feature seems to select a good level for the ambient light conditions.
I use a lot of amateur radio apps on my phones, and I am very glad the headphone jack has been retained. I will need to get some USB C OTG adapters to replace my micro USB adapters but in the long run this is probably better.
I ordered this phone with the Samsung 2017 wireless charging pad and it works great. On some previous phones and tablets I’ve had, the charging port has worn out and gotten sloppy from daily use. If you plug it in 3 times a day, presumably to charge in your car and in your home, that’s well over 2000 times in 2 years (assuming you keep your phone that long).
The wireless charging feature allows you avoid all those plug/unplug cycles and save a ton of wear and tear on the USB port. And the wireless charge is still very fast.
Overall I am very pleased. It is still a bit quirky getting used to Samsung’s additions after having the last 2 phones as pure Android Nexus devices but it has definitely grown on me. For someone coming from a previous Galaxy device I imagine this is an easier transition.
Although it deserves it’s own review, I also got the Gear VR headset as part of the bundle. I will just say that the phone and headset work very well together. Resolution isn’t the best when viewing through the headset, but we have been spoiled in the last 15 years by HD technology. The resolution through the headset is easily as good or better than a 90s era CRT television. And if you are older than about 25, you have probably watched and enjoyed a lot of TV at that resolution. The phone does get a little warm when using it in the VR headset but not scary hot. It would be nice if the headset was designed to allow the phone to be used while in a protective case, but that’s not the phone’s fault.
Battery life seems to be good for off and on web browsing throughout the day. Starting around 9 am with a full charge I used the phone for 10 minutes here, 40 minutes there several times throughout the day to check news, visit forums and social media, make a few brief calls and texts, etc. 11 hours later, I still have 45% charge left using the medium power saving setting. I consider myself to be a moderate to heavy device user so this is very good battery performance.
The camera is another nice feature, but I really don’t like the annoying Bixby popup (Samsung please male it stop)! Otherwise the camera app is nice, offering some great video resolution options, and the ability to record in slow motion. A quick test today resulted in a very nice, clear slow motion video that surpasses the ability of my 4 year old Canon SX40HS bridge camera.
The biometric fingerprint scanner is also a treat. The last time I had a fingerprint scanner was on an old Toshiba laptop, and you.had to wipe.the finder across.the sensor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this scanner requires just a tap of your finger and it instantly unlocks the phone. This is convenient enough to convince me to leave it secured all the time whereas with my previous phone I didn’t bother with security features because I work from home and do not often go places where my phone might be easily stolen.
To summarize, this is a great piece of hardware that could use a little less of Samsung’s own flavor, but the few little gripes are tolerable for all of the things that make it great. I would give it 4.5 stars if I could, and 5 stars if…
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|A mostly positive and detailed review.,
After owning the phone long enough to be familiar with it, I thought I would leave a decent review outlining some of the pro’s and con’s, as well as some neutral’s. My review is as follows: (see end comments about unlocked and verizon use – this phone is 100% unlocked!)
Pro’s:
1. Very sleek design. Very nice screen and overall a great phone.
2. The camera/video recorder is AMAZING. Simple as that. I took amazing outdoor and indoor (even in low light/no light) pictures. I am genuinely impressed and was not expecting it to be so good. (See last pic. Photo on phone was taken by s8)
3. The pixel ratio/screen size. I got the s8 because I did not want a huge computer in my pocket, and it has plenty of room in it.
4. Very fast. The processor even with battery settings set to a mid level (which can be changed to your personal preference) is still fast enough to do anything you can throw at it.
5. RAM and Storage ration. Perfect. Plenty of ram to handle multi-tasking and plenty of storage to handle those 4k videos/pictures PLUS room to expand with SD storage, which is also getting much better and bigger. But 64GB entry level… eat your heart out apple.
6. Great speaker! I mean wow… this thing get’s loud. I was also not expecting such great sound. You will have no trouble hearing anything even in a loud environment. Seriously amazed here.
7. Power saving/Battery life. Simply put, the AMOLED allows for some amazing battery life and the 3000mah batter holds up well. Very well. Much better than the iPhone.
8. Fast charging. The lowest I have had the battery is about 60% and it charged in under an hour.
9. AMOLED screen. As stated in #7, it helps with battery life but other than that, it has plenty of brightness and picture clarity. I also carified in #3 that the screen size and pixel ratio were simply stunning. You will notice this if you game alot or during those 4k picture zooms and probably much more on the s8+.
10. Accessories and headphone jack. It has a headphone jack! lol. The accessories that came with the phone are great. A fast charging cable, a type-c to mini usb extension, and a usb to type-c extension as well. The headphones are simply amazing too. By far some of the best I have owned, as far as ear buds go, and you don’t have to pay for good quality here. The material of them is great and they come with extra different size earbuds.
11. Water resistance. While I have not tested it, and probably never will, it’s a great feature. I still don’t recommend dunking your phone.
12. Pocket settings. There is an option to keep the screen off while in your pocket, or something like a purse. Simple as that. If you butt dial, you probably are not navigating the settings well enough. Keep in mind, android has A LOT of settings, and it would be wise to go through them all including the basic options that samsung offers.
13. Widget size. You can actually adjust the size of every single widget, and fit more apps on the pages as well as the default home row. You can also change the lock screen apps, if you want any at all. I personally have a camera and the phone app on the lock screen, and keep all my apps on a single page, in folders, the weather, a google search bar with the mic button, and lastly a control panel for quick access to bluetooth and auto-sync buttons etc etc.. All on one page, with plenty of empty space. Half the screen is even still empty. Thank you so much for resizeable widgets.
Neutral:
1. Bixby button. The button is below the volume buttons, so nothing you can do there. However, you can disable bixby. Most reviews on here are failing to realize this and also failing to outline how. See the end of my review for simple instructions.
2. Phone Length. I’ll admit, it’s pretty long. Maybe I am just to used to an older, smaller phone, but one handed operations is going to take some getting used to. Be mindful of the edges of the screen too. Too much palm and you will be scrolling. I do not see this as a negative still, just takes some getting used to and as outlined in the pro’s section, the overall screen size is perfect.
3. Edge lighting. A bit torn on this one. It seems cool, but is pretty much useless. It’s basically a notification before the notification. So you would have to tap twice and then unlock as well. IMHO, it does look really cool, but SAMSUNG needs to give us more control over it.
4. Always on display. This can also be turned off. I find it 100% useless, but not a negative by any means. I feel it can definitely cater to some users who enjoy always being able to look at their phone. I personally disabled it and honestly looked no further into it.
5. Color settings. I have always disliked samsung’s default colors. Especially on TV’s. However, there is an option to change them to your liking. I chose the basic setting, but there is even an option to change balance which let’s you…
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