Samsung Galaxy S8+ in 5 days.

[handymanshandle]

So it's been about 5 days. Well 4 days and like a lot of change since the 5 day mark is technically a few hours away but in these first 5 days I've gotten a pretty good feel of the phone that is seemingly backed up by other reviewers and even just the technically stuff about it kinda tells you what to expect. 

The first day for me was kinda odd in a way because I kinda remembered the trips and photos and stuff that I did with my old phone a Galaxy S6 32GB that I got towards the end of 2015. Going into the next days with the phone, it began to make me definitely feel good about spending a large majority of my $227 weekly paycheck. I had to pay $96 to buyout my Galaxy S6 and then I paid about $58 in taxes and then $24 for a case and then another $1 or so in taxes bringing my total for the day to $189. I also decided to just play it safe and buy into the bait they try selling you. The insurance plans. I took a monthly plan that will run me $9/mo from Best Buy.

 

I went with Best Buy again as they have a sale going on until the 26th where they'll take $300 off the price of Verizon and Sprint Galaxy S8s and S8+s I think they were discounting S8s/S8+ on other carriers but not nearly as much as they were on Sprint and Verizon.

 

I'm on Verizon so I got the Verizon version of the phone. Pretty standard fare here, a fair bit of bloatware but a lot of it can be easily removed. Same couldn't have been said for the Galaxy S6 when I got that. A lot of the bloat on the S6 I had to go into settings to disable those apps.

 

In some moderate use, I notice I can easily get 4 hours screen on time with out even breaking past 50%. Right now as I'm writing this, my S8+ is at 40% and 6 hours of screen on time. 

Now some things should be noted how I've managed that number is that I kept the display brightness below 50% and have used it mostly on wifi and with moderate use of mostly watching Youtube and some other not so demanding tasks like web browsing and using the Android Discord app. I suspect video games would probably bring those numbers down significantly if you were doing that for an extended amount of time. I think you could probably stream stuff from Netflix or watching locally stored movies and video for quite a few hours. I want to say probably close to 6 hours. Now a few years down the road, we'll see how that large 3,500mAh battery holds up over several charges and if and how much quick charging would deteriorate that longevity. I presume that it would probably do what quick charging normally does to batteries, so try to stay away from it as much as possible. I kinda attribute that to some of the reasons why towards the end my S6 started having some issues with battery life besides the cell having 2 years of charging and discharging on it.

 

Photos are pretty good. I could see how you might think that the camera on the S6 might be better or how you might think this camera might be better. I think generally for most purposes the camera on this phone is better. It's not perfect and there are somethings that the software does that annoys me a lot and that would be that it seems to not shoot in the full 12mp and goes down to a weird ratio and 8mp and I'm not sure how to fix that. There's probably a camera app that would probably fix that. But I don't know which one and honestly the default app should work like it's suppose to but I'm not exactly sure why Samsung is doing what they are doing with the camera app. Maybe one of you guys might be able to tell me. But it still takes nice photos just like the S6. Technically the S6 had a slightly higher res camera but I think the dynamic range on this phone is better.

Here's a couple examples of what kinda photos I got out of the Galaxy S8+ in a fairly clear sunny day at a lake a few cities over.

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And for comparison's sake here's some photos I got out of my Galaxy S6. I know this isn't quite as fair because different subjects. Different lighting conditions. But the general idea is what I'm getting at. I guess to make it a little more fair, I'll keep the subject a lake. Just a much larger lake and fortunately the lighting situation that day would be pretty comparable to the one I took on Saturday (08/19/17). These photos below were taken on my S6 (07/02/17). 

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The photos on the S6. Are maybe a little sharper but just looking at them the differences would be hard to tell honestly. Both phones make good photos. But the larger pixel size on the S8+ helps it in lower light. But in low light using a phone isn't exactly an ideal experience. Personally I like the cameras on both, but to me the S8+'s camera just looks slightly better.

 

For games, I only really play hearthstone. Not exactly a demanding game. But it did feel like it was running at a higher FPS on the S8+.

 

It's a lot quicker than the S6 at loading stuff up and since it has more RAM. It's a lot harder to run out of it. But to be fair, the S6 that wasn't an issue too big as long as you weren't keeping lots of apps opened all at once.

 

In all, the screen is nice. It gets really bright, battery life is great, the camera is good, it's quick and can take pretty much whatever you wanted to throw at it. 

 

The only thing I miss the most in these short 5 days is the lack of the IR Blaster. It was so cool to be able to use my phone to turn my TV off or on and change the channel or the volume. I wished they would've kept it. But I suppose maybe they had to make some compromises to get it water resistant and allow a MicroSD card.

 

So if you're looking to buy a new phone, give the S8+ a look. If it's a little too big, the S8 seems like a good option too. Just a slightly smaller battery so battery life will be a little different but not too different probably.

 

TL;DR

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It's a great phone. Battery life is amazing. 40% left on the battery and I've got 6 hours SoT with not too much effort. Camera is great. It's quick. 10/10 buy it if you're in the market for a new phone

 

[handymanshandle]

I guess if you want photos here are some photos of my S8+.

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[FIXXX]

19 hours ago, wcreek said:

I guess if you want photos here are some photos of my S8+.

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Looks just like a black rectangle... Phones should really get back to actually being distinguishable, this is ridiculous.

[Tempestwins]

Honestly, You should consider getting the verizon protection plan. Easier to get them to replace the phone. Bestbuy would charge you a fee of probably 200-250 every claim you make with their plan anyway. And I think the basic verizon insurance (all you need really), is 7 bucks a month for loss, theft, and damage. 

[handymanshandle]

18 minutes ago, Tempestwins said:

Honestly, You should consider getting the verizon protection plan. Easier to get them to replace the phone. Bestbuy would charge you a fee of probably 200-250 every claim you make with their plan anyway. And I think the basic verizon insurance (all you need really), is 7 bucks a month for loss, theft, and damage. 

Yeah I might switch to that. Getting a new debit card so maybe I'll cancel my plan through them and look at something from Verizon. Probably when we decide to switch to the beyond unlimited plan.

[Tempestwins]

24 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Yeah I might switch to that. Getting a new debit card so maybe I'll cancel my plan through them and look at something from Verizon. Probably when we decide to switch to the beyond unlimited plan.

Just remember, Bestbuy and Verizon are both pretty strict on that 14 day return/exchange period. that goes for adding on or removing insurance plans as well. 

[handymanshandle]

32 minutes ago, Tempestwins said:

Just remember, Bestbuy and Verizon are both pretty strict on that 14 day return/exchange period. that goes for adding on or removing insurance plans as well. 

Oh I'm fine paying for the first month. But I did get the plan when I got the phone last friday

[Techicolors]

On 8/23/2017 at 4:26 AM, wcreek said:

Now a few years down the road, we'll see how that large 3,500mAh battery holds up over several charges and if and how much quick charging would deteriorate that longevity.

i believe Samsung claimed that battery retention for the S8 will be roughly 95% a year or so on 

http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/29/the-galaxy-s8s-new-battery-will-degrade-less-quickly-than-the-galaxy-s7s/

 

you could use an app called AccuBattery to monitor battery health and retention, tho i'm not sure how accurate it is since the studies backing it up are pretty old 

 

On 8/23/2017 at 4:26 AM, wcreek said:

I presume that it would probably do what quick charging normally does to batteries, so try to stay away from it as much as possible. I kinda attribute that to some of the reasons why towards the end my S6 started having some issues with battery life besides the cell having 2 years of charging and discharging on it.

i turned off fast charging for a while, but the phone still keeps pretty warm when i charge from 40% (read 36c) 

 

i might delve into wireless charging, but finding the right one is tough.. the samsung OEM is the only nice one but it's pricey 

 

 

[TheEpicDuck]

Great review, I got the s8 from work for free  i had a s6 edge before and i really liked it. i miss the smaller screen and the fingerprint reader on the front. both great phones but the s8 is better.