Galaxy S8: More screen and elegance, but a hefty price tag

NEW YORK — Samsung's new Galaxy S8 phone is stunning. But its $100 price hike is hard to swallow.

That's how much extra you'll shell out for the S8, which starts shipping Friday for about $750 — $100 more than the iPhone 7 and last year's Galaxy S7 when it launched. A larger sibling, the S8 Plus, goes for about $850.

True, the S8 phones come with several refinements that, totaled up, are indeed worth more than $100. But it's hard to recommend an all-frills phone when many cheaper phones do just fine. The S8 is for those who want elegance — and are willing to pay for it.

SCREENS TO THE EDGES

After spontaneous fires that forced the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 , Samsung is playing it safe on the battery and subjecting the S8 to tighter inspections.

Instead, it's pushing the boundaries — so to speak — on the phone's display. Samsung minimized the phone frame and got rid of a physical home button to free up space for an "infinity display," a screen that seems to flow right into the phone's curved left and right sides.


The 5.8-inch S8 and the 6.2-inch S8 Plus both have nearly 15 percent more display space than last year's comparable models. But the phones themselves aren't wider. In fact, the phones feel more comfortable thanks to sides that curve around to the back; last year's curved S7 Edge model feels boxy by comparison.

The bigger screen fits more lines of text, but doesn't necessarily make video more immersive. While video on YouTube and Facebook gets automatically adjusted to fill the space, Netflix and Hulu movies just leave wasted black space on all four sides. You can tinker with that manually — but for $100, you shouldn't have to.

ALL ABOUT THE BATTERY

The S8 and S8 Plus have more physical space inside, but Samsung used it to give the battery more breathing room while keeping its capacity roughly the same as last year.

Though a larger display drains the battery faster, my tests of streaming video found that the new phones consumed power more slowly than last year's models. And even with constant use — taking photos, watching video and playing music and podcasts — the new phones still made it to bedtime with power to spare. Samsung credits software and chip improvements.

UNLOCKING THE PHONES

Like the doomed Note 7, the S8 has an iris scanner to let you a href='https://apnews.com/3344f360808d48f8b3fd683633855fea/Samsung's-new-jumbo-phone-unlocks-with-iris-scanner'unlock the phone by looking at it/a — at least in theory. But you have to swipe the screen first and position it from your face at just the right distance.

I'm sure Samsung, a South Korean company, meant no offense, yet I was ticked off when the phone instructed me, an Asian-American, to "open eyes fully." Oh, and the scanner doesn't work if you're wearing glasses.

The fingerprint scanner was faster and more convenient for unlocking the phone. But you have to be careful not to smudge the adjacent camera lens by mistake now that the scanner has been moved to the back.

FIRE THE ASSISTANT

Samsung is introducing a digital assistant called Bixby, but voice features intended to rival Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri aren't ready yet. A reminder feature works, but seems paralyzed without voice dictations. Bixby will highlight appointments, trending stories and app suggestions, much as existing features on iPhones and other Android phones already offer.

One promising feature aims to provide translations and product information using the phone's camera. It's like the Firefly feature on Amazon's derided Fire phone , and it makes the same types of dumb mistakes — it identified a can of Diet Coke as four other sodas instead. And the translation tools were incomplete at grabbing passages and failed to automatically detect the language you're translating from.

CALCULATING THE VALUE

Samsung throws in a pair of AKG premium headphones, valued at about $100. My ears weren't good enough to discern a difference, but it's nice to get headphones when many phone makers have stopped including them. The phone also comes with 64 gigabytes of storage, which frequently jacks up the price of other phones by $100. Those curved edges? Those also previously cost an extra $100.

The S8 seems like a bargain for only $100 over the S7 at launch.

But do you really need these goodies? The main camera on the S8 is about the same as last year's, so you can still get amazing photos with the S7 . (You can pick one up these days for as little as $576.)

There's speculation that Apple will come out with a pricier, feature-rich iPhone for its 10th anniversary this year — but it's expected to update the existing iPhone 7 line as well. Those who can't live with yesterday's technology won't be disappointed with the S8. But for everyone else, Samsung could have also offered a lower-priced alternative with fewer goodies.

source: philstar.com

Samsung launches Galaxy S8 and dreams of recovery from Note 7

SEOUL/NEW YORK — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled its Galaxy S8 flagship smartphone as it battles to regain the market leadership it lost to Apple Inc after the embarrassing withdrawal of the fire-prone Note 7s.

Boasting some of the largest wrap-around screens ever made, the long-awaited S8 is the South Korean technology company’s first new premium phone since its September recall of all Galaxy Note 7 smartphones equipped with fire-prone batteries. Samsung halted their sales in 10 markets, and the phones were banned from aircraft in the United States, denting a revival of the firm’s mobile business.

Two versions of the Galaxy S8, code-named Dream internally, were launched at a media event in New York on Wednesday, with 6.2-inch (15.75 cm) and 5.8-inch curved screens – the largest to date for Samsung’s premium smartphones. They will go on sale on April 21.

“We must be bold enough to step into the unknown and humble enough to learn from our mistakes,” D.J. Koh, the company’s mobile chief, said at the event after acknowledging that it had been a challenging year for Samsung.

U.S. carriers T-Mobile US Inc and Verizon Communications Inc announced retail pricing for the smaller S8 around $700. The larger phone will sell for $840 at Verizon and $850 at T-Mobile.

The S8 features Samsung’s new artificial intelligence service, Bixby, with functions including a voice-commanded assistant system similar to Apple’s Siri. There is also a new facial recognition application that lets users unlock their phones by looking at them.

Samsung is hoping the design update and the new features, focussed on making life easier for consumers, will be enough to revive sales in a year Apple is expected to introduce major changes to its iPhones, including the very curved screens that have become staples of the Galaxy brand.

Samsung Electronics shares edge up after unveiling Galaxy S8

The S8 is also crucial for Samsung’s image as a maker of reliable mobile devices. The self-combusting Galaxy Note 7s had to be scrapped in October just two months after their launch, and the recall was particularly damaging, investors and analysts say.

“The Galaxy S8 is the most important phone for Samsung in a decade and every aspect will be under the microscope following the Note 7 recall,” said Ben Wood, a veteran smartphone industry analyst with UK-based CCS Insight.

source: interaksyon.com

After Note 7 report, Samsung may delay launch of new Galaxy S8

SEOUL — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd indicated on Monday that its latest flagship Galaxy S smartphone could be delayed as it pledged to enhance product safety following an investigation into the cause of fires in its premium Note 7 devices.

Wrapping up its months-long probe, the world’s top smartphone maker said faulty batteries from two suppliers were to blame for a product failure that wiped $5.3 billion (4.3 billion pounds) off its operating profit.

Samsung mobile chief Koh Dong-jin said procedures had been put in place to avoid a repeat of the fires as the South Korean firm prepares to launch the Galaxy S8, its first premium handset since the Note 7′s demise.

“The lessons of this incident are deeply reflected in our culture and process,” Koh told reporters at a press briefing. “Samsung Electronics will be working hard to regain consumer trust.”

Koh said the Galaxy S8 would not be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona beginning Feb. 27, the traditional forum for Galaxy S series launches. He did not comment on when the company planned to launch the handset, though analysts expect it to start selling by April.

Investors have said Samsung needs to reassure consumers that it is on top of the Note 7 problem and can be trusted to fix it.

Samsung’s reputation took a hammering after it announced a recall of fire-prone Note 7s, only for reports to emerge that replacement devices also caught fire. Images of melted Samsung devices spread on social media and airlines banned travellers from carrying them on flights.

The handset, Samsung’s answer to Apple Inc’s iPhones, was withdrawn from sale in October less than two months after its launch, in one of the biggest failures in tech history.

Samsung said later on Monday it has not decided whether to reuse parts in the recovered Note 7s or resell any recalled phones. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters reselling some Note 7s as refurbished phones was an option.

The firm said it has recovered 96 percent of the 3.06 million Note 7s sold to consumers.

Short circuits

Investigations by internal and independent experts ruled out problems with the Note 7′s hardware and software. Instead, they said the batteries, which came from two suppliers, featured different manufacturing defects or design flaws that caused them to short-circuit.

“The odds that two different suppliers had issue with the same phone is an extremely low likelihood and may signal we have reached an inflection point in smartphone battery technology,” said Patrick Moorhead, president of technology analyst and advisory firm Moor Insights & Strategy.

Samsung did not name the suppliers on Monday but previously identified them as affiliate Samsung SDI Co Ltd and China’s Amperex Technology Ltd. SDI said separately it would invest 150 billion won (103.8 million pounds) to improve product safety and expected to continue supplying batteries for Samsung phones. ATL declined to comment.

Samsung said it accepted responsibility and would not take legal action against suppliers. The company touted longer battery life and fast charging as major improvements when it launched the Note 7.

“The current situation is not largely different from that of the first recall, when Samsung pointed the finger at battery defects,” said Park Chul-wan, a former director of the Center for Advanced Batteries at the Korea Electronics Technology Institute.

Battery checks

Among other measures to boost safety, Samsung said it had implemented an eight-point battery check system to avoid any such problems going unnoticed again.

While Samsung’s mobile division is widely expected to have bounced back from the Note 7 failure during the fourth quarter, experts remained cautious about the outlook for sales of future flagship devices.

“Consumers will accept the results (of the probe) only if there are no problems with the S8,” said Park.

Moorhead, however, said he thought Samsung had done enough to convince consumers that it can prevent future issues.

Samsung Electronics shares ended up 2.3 percent in a flat wider market. Analysts said the rise was mainly due to a healthy outlook for makers of tech components such as memory chips but also boosted by hopes the firm will be able to put the Note 7 fiasco behind it.

The firm expects fourth-quarter operating profit to hit a more than three-year high when it reports earnings on Tuesday, driven by booming chip sales.

source: interaksyon.com