8 Galaxy S8 Features You Should Know About

Craige Fleischer deep dives some of the most useful Galaxy S8 features available now

Providing users with an unconfined mobile experience, the new Galaxy S8 and S8+ feature a refined, ‘unboxed’ design, enhanced security with new biometric technologies, robust entertainment capabilities and an intelligent new interface to enhance the way people interact with their phone.

This is according to Craige Fleischer, Director Integrated Mobility at Samsung South Africa, who highlights the top 8 features of the S8 below.

Refined Design

“The Galaxy S8 builds on Samsung’s design heritage with a large Infinity Display, a bezel-less, dual-edge display that takes up more than 80 percent of the phone’s front screen,” he says. “Visually obtrusive elements are minimal, resulting in more tangible screen space. An invisible Home button embedded underneath the screen functions just like a physical button while Recent and Back buttons are now customisable soft keys.”

Available locally in three colours including Midnight Black, the all-new Orchid Gray and Maple Gold, the Galaxy S8’s subtle curvature flows from the front of the device to the back to create a more ergonomic grip ideal for one-handed operation. The phone’s camera, fingerprint scanner and heart rate sensor have been incorporated on the back of the device in a way that minimises protrusions, ensuring a sleek aesthetic at any angle.

One Unified Experience

Designed around the Infinity Display, the UX of the Galaxy S8 was developed to add convenience and enhance the flow of user interactions. Like the display itself, the UX is seamless, unifying visual and audio components to create one continuous experience.

The default wallpaper of the customisable Always On Display complements the colour of the phone, while its aesthetic transitions smoothly to the Lock and Home screens. Meanwhile, a new vertical swiping interface provides seamless navigation between the Home and App screens.

Even the phone’s app icons and typography incorporate the Galaxy S8’s design language through a play of continuous curves and lines. Its brand sound “Over the Horizon” and ringtones have also been updated to better harmonise with the design of the device.

See More, Scroll Less

“The stunning Infinity Display of the Galaxy S8 is 18 percent larger than the display of the Galaxy S7, making for a noticeably more immersive viewing experience,” says Fleischer.

When watched in landscape mode, 21:9 movies fill the Galaxy S8’s 18.5:9 display, while the black bars above and below the picture are minimised, increasing the viewing area by 36 percent, compared to the Galaxy S7. This, along with the phone’s High Dynamic Range (HDR) Premium capabilities, enables users to see content exactly as the creator intended. Gaming experiences, too, are enhanced, as any game that supports 18.5:9 full screen mode is automatically optimised to fill up the entire screen.

“The Infinity Display also makes it easier to see and do more from a single screen without having to scroll as often. Optimised for multi-window usability, multitasking is made easy, even when using the phone’s full keyboard. The Galaxy S8’s new Snap Window feature enhances productivity by allowing users to pin a specific area from a recent app to the top of the screen, and continue using the area below it.”

In addition, the Infinity Display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 which is impervious against scratches and external impacts.

Great Photos, In a Snap

The Galaxy S8 builds on the Galaxy foundation with its advanced camera, which offers multi-frame image processing. With this technology, the camera takes multiple photos in rapid succession instead of just one, then selects the clearest image and uses the others to reduce the blur. This enhanced image processing ensures that shots taken when the subject is moving, in low light or when zoomed in are clear and vibrant.

The dual-pixel sensor technology, wide aperture and fast autofocus of the 12MP F1.7 rear camera work together to create beautiful photographs even in low-light conditions. The 8MP F1.7 front camera has been equipped with enhanced autofocus features and facial recognition technology that can recognise and track faces to provide clear, focused selfies, regardless of the distance between the user and the camera.

“With an easy-to-use filter setting, users can enhance their photos by selecting from a variety of filters, including Auto Filter, which automatically selects one optimised for their photo. Animated stickers and stamps can also now be applied to images when taking photos, right from the native camera app. The camera’s UX has also been optimised for one-handed operation,” Fleischer explains.

A New Way to Interact

Although Bixby, Samsung’s new intelligent interface, is continuously being developed, it was created to enhance the way people interact with their Galaxy S8. The intuitive and comprehensive interface leverages contextual awareness to learn users’ habits and provide related information, and is easily activated with a press of its dedicated hardware button or by saying “Bixby.”

With its multimodal functionality, its Voice feature lets users control multiple apps simultaneously using voice and touch commands interchangeably. Bixby has the ability to control all settings and features of each service without affecting other tasks users might be working on.

Its Vision interface can detect what users are looking for and respond accordingly, making it easier to search for images similar to ones selected by the user, shop online, get information about landmarks, decode QR codes and even translate foreign text through the phone’s Camera. Bixby also ensures that users remember important events through its intelligent Reminder feature. All of Bixby’s features can be accessed through its Home screen, which displays a user’s most contextually relevant apps on a single screen.