Samsung Galaxy A8 Star has been officially launched in the Philippines, but unfortunately, it is not a new smartphone. Less than a week ago, the Korean giant unveiled two new mid-rangers for the Chinese market: Galaxy A9 Star and A9 Star Lite. Well, the A8 Star is just a rebranded version of the A9 Star, so it has exactly the same specs sheet and it will be available in the Philippines with a similar price tag (it costs CNY 2,999 in China). No information is available about the Lite version, at least for now. Neither the listing price in the Philippines has been revealed, but we can just recap the specs.
Samsung Galaxy A8 Star has a premium glass sandwich design with a metal frame and it measures 162.4 x 77 x 7.6 mm. Its display is a wide 6.3-inch panel, even bigger than Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus. It is an Infinity Display with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels and no notch. There are also Dolby Atmos speakers for an excellent multimedia experience. The handset can be unlocked through facial recognition, but the authentication system is not hardware-based like the iPhone X, so it is not as safe.
The hardware side includes an octa-core Snapdragon 660 chipset by Qualcomm, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage expandable up to 400 GB with a micro SD. On the rear side, there is a dual camera in a vertical configuration with resolutions of 16 and 24 MP, a f/1.7 aperture and a LED flash. The front camera has a massive 24 MP resolution and a f/2.0 aperture, but it is not paired with a LED flash. Samsung Galaxy A8 Star boasts a battery with a capacity of 3700 mAh and fast charging which can be charged through a USB Type-C port. There is also an NFC module, an audio jack and Bluetooth 5.0.
