Galaxy S8 - After 1 Year

Samsung Galaxy S8 launched alongside with its bigger sibling Samsung Galaxy S8+ last year. However, ever since launch, the bigger Galaxy S8+ have gotten more spotlight from the people out there.

Many people bought the Galaxy S8+ instead of the smaller Galaxy S8. I however had decided to buy a smaller Galaxy S8, mainly due to a more manageable compact body when compare to the larger Galaxy S8+, even though the smaller Galaxy S8 comes with a smaller battery, and I don’t see much difference between the two models apart from that. So hereby I would like to share some of my thoughts and experience on the smaller Galaxy S8 after one year of usage.

I picked the Coral Blue Samsung Galaxy S8

One of the highlights of the Galaxy S8 is the design. Samsung introduced a whole new revolutionary design in the mobile industry with the Galaxy S8 line. The new infinity design from the Galaxy S8 line minimizes the bezels, giving the phone an end-to-end screen that stretches over the phone, while still maintaining the premium glass sandwich design (glass front and glass back with aluminum frame) from the Galaxy S6 era. This new design have literally set the trend for the mobile phones design in year 2017, from mid range phones to flagship phones.

I would really like to praise Samsung on this cool new infinity design on the Galaxy S8. Initially I always think that the curve edges design are sort of gimmicky, but I have to say that that Galaxy S8 is looking so gorgeous mainly because of the seamless blend of the screen over the curve edges. Also because of this stunning design, Samsung successfully won me over while I was deciding to buy either a S8 or HTC U11 back then. I still remember when I first got a Galaxy S8 on my hands, it feels so much like a device from the future. The Galaxy S8 is definitely still one of the most good looking phones even until now, and I still feel very proud for owning a Galaxy S8. Look at the design of phones in 2018 now. Notches everywhere... Yikes!

Galaxy S8 with that reflective glass back is stunning

But still I have a minor comment on the design. Nope, not the fingerprint sensor position. Initially it was a little inconvenient, but eventually I get used to the position, not even once I accidentally smudges the camera lens. Also, there are other options to unlocking the phone, like iris scanner or a less secure face recognition. Personally I used face recognition despite being less secure and unreliable when I don’t have my glasses on or in dark surrounding, but it is faster and more convenient, as iris scanner is not working very well with my glasses.

My complaint on the design is the colour of the phone. There are total of 5 colour options available, namely Midnight Black (the standard one that many people prefers), Orchid Grey (the new colour introduces with S8), Artic Silver, Maple Gold and Coral Blue. In the advertisement, all 5 colours look very nice. I personally picked the Coral Blue as I like blue colour a lot, and the Coral Blue Galaxy Note 7 actually attracts me a lot. However, the Coral Blue on my Galaxy S8 looks very dull as compare to those illustrated in the Samsung advertisement. Not only the Coral Blue one, also on the other colours, like Orchid Grey and Maple Gold, in which my brother owned an Orchid Grey unit. I have personally seen a Coral Blue Galaxy S9 and S9+, at least the colours looks just as nice as in the advertisement, unlike the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

Orchid Grey in reality (left) vs in advertisement (right)

Next highlight of the Galaxy S8 I will talk about is the Infinity Display. Infinity display, is what Samsung called the display they put on the Galaxy S8 and later to its other devices as well. The size of the Infinity Display on the Galaxy S8 is a 5.8 inch display panel with a resolution of 2960 x 1440 (also known as 2K or WQHD), which is a very big screen for a device of this footprint. Truly, the display looks like infinity, thanks to the extremely thin side bezels, as well as the curve edges. The moment the screen is on, you can immediately notice the big nice screen which almost fully occupied the front panel of the phone.

 

 5.8 inch Super AMOLED Infinity Display on the Samsung Galaxy S8

 
The colour from the Infinity Display on the Galaxy S8 is very punchy and saturated, it might not looks natural, but it is definitely nice to look at, but it doesn't matters because people will prefer the more unnatural vibrant representation of colour instead of the natural dull representation of colour. The display brightness is very good, the display can go super dark and it is great for me to read in dark surroundings, while it can also go super bright in which I have no problem looking at the display even at outdoor under the sun. Also, the screen is of an uncommon 18.5:9 aspect ratio, which now have become a trend or standard in smartphones. The Infinity Display on the Galaxy S8 is by default set at 1080P FHD resolution, but options for a more power saving 720P HD resolution and also a more crispy clear 1440P 2K resolution are available in the setting.

Personally, I always preferred the 1080P FHD resolution, as it saves plenty of battery life, when compare to the 1440P 2K resolution which is a recommended option suggested by many reviewers. The differences between these two are barely noticeable for me. The 1080P FHD resolution still looking sharp for me. I hope Samsung could have included an adaptive resolution mode like Sony did on their Premium line, which switch from 1080P to 4K resolution automatically when a media app is used and switch back to 1080P when it is out of media app.

Camera is definitely one of the most important feature of a smartphone. Literally every smartphone that release will focus their marketing on the camera performance. The rear camera of the Galaxy S8 is a 12 Megapixel f/1.7 aperture lens, which is the same as its predecessor, the Galaxy S7 Edge. The same lens is also used on the newer Galaxy S9 as well. The front camera however receives a spec bump, it is a 8 Megapixel f/1.7 aperture lens with autofocus. Front camera with autofocus is still consider very rare in the industry, so this is definitely a good upgrade from the Galaxy S7 Edge which only have a 5 Megapixel f/1.7 aperture lens.

The camera experience on the Galaxy S8 is very good one. The user interface is clean, and user friendly. The camera focus is very fast. Taking a picture is also very snappy. The image quality is also very good, no matter in good or poor lighting condition. But honestly speaking, literally every phone can take nice picture in good lighting condition, but consistency wise is a different story. For the Galaxy S8, it can consistently take good picture, with a well-balanced exposure, nice punchy colour, great sharpness and fine details. And this also applies to the low light shooting scenario on the Galaxy S8. When it comes to low light photography with smartphone, I don’t think any other phones came close to Samsung, probably Huawei in 2018 with the P20 and P20 Pro. Not to be biased, I personally find the low light shots on the Huawei look too bright that it feel very unrealistic, but they just looks incredibly good. Hereby I will share some of the shots I have taken with my Galaxy S8.

 

Hassan II Mosque at Casablanca, Morocco taken with the Galaxy S8

 

Christmas decoration at Rizal Park, Philippines taken with the Galaxy S8

 
Pokebowl from The Fish Bowl at Sunway, Malaysia taken with the Galaxy S8 

 
Ramen from Torazou Ramen at Kuchai Lama, Malaysia taken with the Galaxy S8

I personally don’t record a lot of videos as compare to taking picture. So not much I can tell about video recording but some tips for video recording. Since the camera mode and video mode share the same viewfinder, so before recording video I will advise to hold the record button for a while, then the viewfinder will change the preview to video mode, so you can easily position the video properly before start recording. Overall, the video quality is almost the same as image quality. However, the stabilization is not very smooth, as of my experience, even the camera has optical image stabilizer (OIS).

The camera doesn’t have the popular portrait mode (or Live Focus for Samsung) since the Galaxy S8 only have one rear camera. However, there is a Selective Focus mode, which was available since the Galaxy S5 era (Year 2014). This mode basically does the similar bokeh effect as the portrait mode but a lot less accurate. But it is literally a hit-or-miss, maybe a 5% hit and 95% miss, so do not expect too much from this, just use the manual mode to get the portrait shot, at least that is more reliable, if you are familiar with those settings.

 

A 'miss' portrait shot of my sister taken with the Galaxy S8 Selective Focus mode
(Her arms are blurred out)

Next thing I would like to share is performance, which is the most important part of a smartphone. O before we proceed into the detail, let’s get started with the hardware on the Galaxy S8. Powering the Galaxy S8 is a 3000 mAh battery, and Exynos 8895 octa core processor with 4GB RAM. Spec wise, the Galaxy S8 is undeniably powerful, even for today standard. However, performance may vary based on the usage pattern of different users, consider that it will eventually slows down from time-to-time. Samsung devices are very famous for being very laggy after certain months of usage, even on the flagship. However, I’m very glad that this is not the case for my Galaxy S8.

Probably because Samsung have finally ditched TouchWiz for the new Samsung Experience that introduced with the Galaxy S8 line. Samsung Experience is the new software skin atop of Android. Initially, the Galaxy S8 was booted with Android 7.0 Nougat, but currently it can be upgraded to Android 8.0 Oreo. After more than one year of usage, my Galaxy S8 is still running very smoothly. I don’t see very obvious delay or stutter when opening app or navigating around the phone.

However, I do noticed that the RAM usage is now constantly at 3GB+ out of 4GB. Even restarting the phone wouldn’t help. There was once my Galaxy S8 literally experience a severe frame drop in Arena of Valor (AoV), after playing it for around 1 hour. And when I checked my RAM usage from the device maintenance in setting, the RAM usage hikes up to 3.7GB. To reduce such high RAM usage, I now have the habit to clear my recent apps list. This action helps a lot, as the Galaxy S8 will literally left some of the apps in recent to run in the background constantly, so that you can be back to the app faster. But opening the app again is pretty fast on the Galaxy S8, so I would rather open the app again to save the RAM usage.

Another problem with the software is the animation. I don’t know whether it is me or what, the animation on the Galaxy S8 looks very sluggish when compare to other phones like the OnePlus 5 and Pixel 2 XL that my friend owned. So I have dived into the setting, enabling developer options, speeding up the window animation scale and transition animation scale to 0.5x. That’s the fastest option available. The animation still doesn’t feel very fast, but definitely better than before.

Apart from the two issues above, I think the software is alright. At least I don’t feel like I need to switch to Google Now launcher or Nova launcher. Also this time around, Samsung have reduced the bloatware a lot, even some of the Samsung app can be uninstalled, which is good, because I prefer using the one from Google for a more seamless data syncing experience across all platform.

The battery life on the Galaxy S8 is mediocre. Personally I do a lot of things with my smartphone. I would rate my usage pattern as heavy. Usually, I would play AoV for 1 to 2 hours, another 1 hour to play Pokemon Go, streaming Spotify while driving with Bluetooth on (about 1 hour as well), some time for WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger. Also, taking some picture for my lunch and post to Instagram story. The 3000 mAh battery can only last me for like 7 to 8 hours with 4 hours plus of screen-on time. I will still need to carry a powerbank around to make sure that it never runs out of juice before I head home. Take note that I do not have Always On Display on, and also I set my screen resolution to FHD to get more battery life. There is also a power saving mode and max power saving mode available.

 

3000 mAh battery on the Galaxy S8 can last up to 8 hours without turning on power saving mode

 
2% battery with Max Power Saving mode on can last for 7 hours without turning on mobile data 

Even though the Galaxy S8 comes with Fast Charging, but the charging is not very fast, still taking about 2 hours to fully charge from 5%.  It’s pretty disappointing, as there are QuickCharge 3.0 technology out there, but Samsung decided to opt for the QuickCharge 2.0 instead. Probably they want to play safe after the battery issue with the Galaxy Note 7. But it is really great that wireless charging is available for the Galaxy S8. Wireless charge is slower than cable charging, so if you need to squeeze as much juice as possible in a short period of time, go with cable charging.

I have to specifically pinpoint the audio part for the Galaxy S8. This is one of the weak part of the Galaxy S8. Galaxy S8 has a bottom firing mono speaker. It is very loud for a bottom firing mono speaker, but the position at bottom right corner of the phone can be easily covered, especially when watching videos or playing games. It would be so much better if a pair of stereo speakers can be included. But luckily the Galaxy S8 comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the pair of AKG headphones that comes in the box sounds very nice, which is a good thing.

Last I want to talk about Bixby. I came from a Google phone, Nexus 5. I rely on my Google Now cards a lot. So I have decided to give Bixby a try. Bixby Home… Showing some unnecessary cards like what pictures I last take, my next alarms, suggested theme and wallpapers, and also some news feed which I’m not interested at all. The only useful thing it shows is my calendar schedule, nothing else. Bixby Voice, also gave it a try. Very good, but it can’t recognize song, so I decided to stick with Google Assistant. But I don’t use voice assistant a lot, not even Google assistant. If you ask me, I will still prefer the old Google Now on Tap more than Google Assistant. At least it will show me instant information for whatever they find from the screen, which is more useful. Luckily the feature is still there, just that it is now less convenient in which you need to tap ‘What’s on my screen?’ button after launching Google Assistant via long tap home button. So in the end, I just disabled the whole Bixby thing with bxActions, directing all kind of call to Bixby to Google Now instead.

As a conclusion, Galaxy S8 is a very great phone, even for today standard. It have a beautiful design, stunning display, great camera, also it is IP68 water and dust resistant. Also it have some shortcomings, such as a mediocre battery life, bottom firing mono speaker, and maybe for some people the fingerprint sensor placement. But one thing I think Samsung deserve to be praised is the software performance. For the first time I think the Samsung software able to maintain its performance without being laggy to the extent of unusable like the old TouchWiz days.

Would I still recommend this phone after a year? Yes, especially if you can get them with discount or sales. If you are able to find one below RM 2000, get it! Otherwise, I would rather recommend the OnePlus 6. I personally didn’t use an OnePlus device before, but I have friends who did, and their OnePlus 3, 3T are still running very smooth after years, and OnePlus 6 also have more RAM and a newer and more powerful Snapdragon 845 chipset, which will definitely more future proof than the Galaxy S8.