Both Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ were unveiled on 29 March 2017 during a media event in New York City. They will be released in April 2017, shipping in the United States on 21 April 2017.
Hardware
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ both feature 1440p Super AMOLED displays, with an 37:18 aspect ratio taller than the 16:9 ratio used by the majority of smartphones; the S8 has a 5.8-inch panel, while the S8+ uses a larger 6.2-inch panel. The displays are both curved along the side bezels of the device, with minimal bezels that Samsung markets as an Infinity Display, and the display panel itself has rounded edges. The S8 features an octa-core Exynos system-on-chip and 4 GB of RAM; models in North American markets utilize the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 instead. Both chips are manufactured by Samsung with a 10nm process. They contain 64 GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD card. The S8 supports iris scanning, and features a fingerprint reader, relocated to the rear of the device, next to the camera. It is bundled with Harman AKG earbuds.
Unlike past Galaxy S series models, the S8 does not feature physical navigation keys, electing to use on-screen keys instead. However, unlike other implementations, the home button can still be activated if it is hidden or the screen is off. The S8’s display features pressure sensitivity limited to the home button. The S8 features the same 12-megapixel “Dual Pixel” rear camera as the S7, with software improvements. The front-facing camera was upgraded to an 8-megapixel sensor with autofocus.
The S8 and S8+ use non-removable 3000 and 3500 mAh batteries respectively; Samsung stated that it had engineered the batteries to retain their capacity for a longer period of time than previous models. The S8 supports AirFuel Inductive (formerly PMA) and Qi wireless charging standards. Due to the recalls of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, Samsung committed to stricter quality control and safety testing procedures on all of the company’s future products.
Software
The Galaxy S8 runs Android 7.0 “Nougat” with the proprietary Samsung Experience (formerly TouchWiz) user interface and software suite. The software features a suite of assistant functions known as “Bixby”, which is designed primarily to interact with Samsung’s bundled applications and other supported services. The feature allows the use of voice commands to perform phone functions, can generate cards shown on a home screen page (replacing the Flipboard integration formerly featured) based on a user’s interactions, and perform searches utilizing object recognition via the camera. Bixby will support third-party integration via an SDK. The S8 supports the use of a docking station known as Samsung DeX to access a PC-like desktop environment on an external display, with support for mouse and keyboard input.