Samsung Galaxy S8 Review

The 3-Minute Samsung Galaxy S8 Review

The almost perfect smartphone for Android lovers.

By James Eisner | July 4, 2017

Image Credit: CC image courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns on Flickr.

The Specifics:

Features & Design: 4.5/5 ● Performance: 5/5 ● Value: 4.5/5

The Best:

With a beautiful design that is highlighted by a vivid curved display, the Samsung Galaxy S8 boasts awesome performance alongside some great features like water resistance and wireless charging.

The Bugs:

The Galaxy S8 suffers from the awful placement of its fingerprint scanner, a less than useful (so far) virtual assistant called Bixby, and a screen that isn't compatible with all apps (just yet).

Is it for you?

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is a premium smartphone and its price tag reflects that. If you’re in the market for a top-of-the-line smartphone, the Galaxy S8’s stunning display, excellent performance, and beautiful design make it a worthwhile buy despite the poor placement of the fingerprint reader.

“Watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones on your way to work has never been so immersive.”

Meet the Samsung Galaxy S8

After the explosive issues surrounding Samsung’s previous smartphone release, the Galaxy Note 7, the company needed their next phone to be nearly perfect. They succeeded. The Samsung Galaxy S8 is a fast, beautiful next-generation smartphone. Building on the success of the previous generation’s curved Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung took a risk and went all in on curved displays. The new Galaxy S8 is only available with a curved 5.8 inch AMOLED display and it looks incredible. It’s safe to say that their risk paid off.

Image Credit: CC image courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns on Flickr.

What we like

There’s a lot to like about the Samsung Galaxy S8. The most noticeable feature is its display. It’s beautiful. To increase the size of the screen, Samsung removed the bezels. A bigger screen combined with a curved infinity display means that you have lots of screen to play with. The screen doesn’t disappoint. The picture is bright and the colours are vivid. Watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones on your way to work has never been so immersive. The mircoSD slot allows you to add up to 256GB to the phone’s storage. That means that you can easily bring your collection of TV series with you on your daily commute. On top of that, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is one of the most powerful smartphones on the market. You can seamlessly move between multiple chats on different apps without any lag. Like its predecessors, the Galaxy S8 also features a water-resistant design and a convenient wireless charging option.

What we don’t like

One of the biggest issues with the Samsung Galaxy S8 is the fingerprint scanner. After removing the bezels, Samsung needed a new place to put the fingerprint reader. Their choice was… odd. They placed the scanner right beside the camera on the back of the phone. The first problem is that many users’ fingers won’t be able to reach the scanner unless they hold their phone awkwardly. Secondly, even if you can reach it, it’s far too easy to miss the scanner and smudge the camera lens instead. Samsung also introduced Bixby, its answer to Siri, on the Galaxy S8. However, Bixby is a work in progress. At launch, it didn’t have voice recognition capabilities and was generally outperformed by Google Now and Google Assistant. Another frustration is that, due to the larger screen size, some apps won’t cover the full screen. This leaves small but annoying black bars on the edge of the display when you use incompatible apps. 

Image Credit: CC image courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns on Flickr.

Should you buy it?

The Samsung Galaxy S8 has firmly positioned itself as one of the top phones of 2017. Unsurprisingly, a smartphone that includes all of the features like those found in the Galaxy S8 won’t come cheap. If you’re not keeping to a budget, the head-turning display and blazing performance make the Samsung Galaxy S8 a worthwhile buy. Keep in mind that, unless you have large hands, the fingerprint scanner will probably not be the most user-friendly. Even so, the Galaxy S8 is nearly perfect in every other way. For Galaxy S7 users, the performance increase isn’t enough to warrant an immediate upgrade, but we can’t blame you if you want to get your hands on it.

Check out the product video:

About the Author / James Eisner

James Eisner is a lifelong nerd who loves (and spends too much time reading about) all things tech.