After much speculations, rumours and leaks, South Korean tech giant Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy S8 along with the Galaxy S8 Plus in a ceremony today. The Samsung Galaxy S8 launch is the biggest event the tech giant is hosting since the Galaxy Note 7 saga so, the event was a highly anticipated one.  As you already know, the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus were billed to be the first smartphones to pack Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 835 chipset and indeed they were launched with the powerful flagship chip. But whether you’ll get to buy the Snapdragon 835-powered version of the S8 or S8 Plus will depend on where you live.

Design & Hardware

The Samsung Galaxy S8 features a design which isn’t entirely different from its predecessors but it comes with an unusually high screen-to-body ratio. A large display ensured the traditional home button which sits at the front of the screen under the display was absent. Instead, the Galaxy S8 features a virtual home button. The bezels are thin and the display is a curved one.

On the specifications, the Galaxy S8 sports a 5.8-ich Super AMOLED display with a resolution of  2960 x 1440 pixels and 570ppi. The processor is an octa-core Snapdragon 835 chipset clocked at 2.35GHz on some version while there is another version powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 chip also clocked at 2.35GHz. The United States will get the Snapdragon 835-powered version while other international countries would get the Exynos 8895-powered version. China is said to also get the Qualcomm-powered version but there is no official word on that yet. Both versions are backed by 4GB of RAM while there is 64GB of storage onboard which is expandable via a microSD slot.

Camera, Battery

On the camera aspect, the Galaxy S8 packs a 12MP rear camera with a f/1.7 aperture, OIS and LED flash and at the front, there is an 8MP selfie camera with a f/1.7 aperture and autofocus. We are yet to see camera samples of theGalaxy S8’s camera but we believe it would be a very powerful setup. Keeping the lights on is a generous 3000mAh battery which should do a good job in that regard.

Connectivity, Other Features

Other features include a USB Type-C port, NFC and MST for Samsung Pay, IP68 water and dust resistance and yes, it still packs a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is also a wireless charging support as well as Cat. 16 LTE. Others include Bluetooth 5.0 which is capable of streaming to two devices at the same time and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac. The Galaxy S8 isn’t too wide despite its large size, packing a dimension of 148.9 x 68.1 x 8 mm and it weighs just 155g. The device runs on Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the-box and also comes with Samsung’s new Bixby Assistant which is launched by pressing a dedicated physical button located on the side of the phone.

Pricing & Availability

As for the pricing, Samsung left that out unfortunately but the Galaxy S8 is expected to start at around $750. Both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will be up for pre-order as from tomorrow, March 30 while they will be officially released in the US on April 21. Each pre-order qualifies you to get a free Gear VR headset with a controller and a set of games. The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will be available in black, gray, and silver in the US while Gold and blue are the options on the international edition.

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