• 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So I was able to play with the Samsung Galaxy S8 for
00:07a couple of days, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you. The first thing I
00:11want to talk about is the screen. So it's big, it's high-res, it's bright, the aspect
00:16ratio is stretched out, so widescreen content fits it better. The extra visual real estate
00:21is nice, but using it one-handed is eh, I'll come back to that. The second thing is the
00:27design. I mean, visually it looks amazing, but it's more than that. This is the first
00:31phone that I've used where the curved screen felt really comfortable in my hand. When it
00:36comes to phones, I don't care too much about millimeters and grams and stuff like that,
00:39I just want it to feel comfortable in my hand, and most curved screens just don't feel good
00:43in the hand. But this one does, and it comes from this thing right here, the frame. The
00:48transition from the front glass to the frame and then to the back glass feels almost seamless,
00:54there's just nothing with texture. It's really nice to hold, but it's also really slippery.
00:59I would strongly recommend getting a skin for this thing. I'll link the ones I used
01:02below, they're from dbrand, and they're awesome. The other things I like are wireless charging,
01:07the headphone jack, Bluetooth 5.0, I love the extra range you get from that, I like
01:12the microSD slots, the USB-C port, and the performance feels really quick so far, all
01:17good stuff. The camera hardware is similar to the Galaxy S7, but let's be honest, the
01:22camera on the S7 was awesome, so it's not too big of a deal to me that they didn't
01:26upgrade the camera. Here are some comparison photos, I mean, this isn't a review or anything,
01:30but in case you're interested. The front-facing camera has improved quite a bit, and considering
01:38how many selfies get taken every day, I think this was a good call. Now, these devices have
01:43large screens that are super bright and have high resolution, so there's a lot of pixels
01:47to process, and the battery size isn't huge, so I wasn't expecting amazing battery life.
01:52The first full day of use, I ended the day with 32% left, relatively heavy use over the
01:57course of the day. At night, I charged it back up, watched some YouTube videos, and
02:01then I streamed a Twitch channel overnight, with max volume, max screen brightness, highest
02:06resolution, not the 1080p plus default, but the 1440p plus, and when I checked it eight
02:11hours later, it was at 36%. Screen-on time was basically the same. I think that's not
02:16bad, I mean, if I streamed that on an iPhone 7, I'd probably get some very similar numbers.
02:22Using DeX is kind of cool, I don't know how many people would use it, I mean, turning
02:26your phone into a tethered desktop experience is not something that I would use very much
02:29personally, but it's there, the option's available if you need it. The facial recognition is
02:34awesome, it works fast, and it's reliable. I tried it with sunglasses just to see, and
02:38I mean, these are the sunglasses I used, they didn't work very well, just straight up doesn't
02:43recognize it. Now, I don't wear glasses, like regular glasses, and I just wanted to know,
02:48what would it be like for people that do wear glasses? So, I popped out the lenses
02:52for my sunglasses, this is gonna look ridiculous, and I wore it on my face, and I tried to get
02:58the phone to recognize, these look, these look amazing. I tried to get the phone to
03:02recognize my face, and it was like hit or miss, sometimes it would work, sometimes it
03:06wouldn't. I should wear this for the rest of the video. Okay, I can't do it. The fingerprint
03:10scanner isn't in the best location, I have to stretch for it, but really, since the facial
03:14recognition is so good, I'm totally fine with it being on the back like this. The Galaxy
03:19S8 is packing a lot of cool tech, and that's just how Samsung rolls, they take the top
03:23of the line in phone tech, and they stuff it into their phones, and they usually end
03:26up with something like this, really high-end tech in a top-tier flagship phone. But, hardware
03:32specs aren't everything, for me, user experience is by far the most important thing when it
03:37comes to any kind of device. And with this, there's a couple things that kind of detract
03:41from the user experience. The first is that on-screen home button. I think it could, or
03:46should be a little bigger, and the haptic feedback isn't good, it feels like a regular
03:50phone vibration. If you're gonna do this, you need a more localized vibration, like
03:54how the iPhone 7 button feels. The speakers are also not stereo, and I know a lot of people
03:59don't care about this, but it's important to me, I consume most of my media on my phone,
04:03and it's so weird watching super high-res video that looks gorgeous on the screen, while
04:07having tinny audio that just comes out from one side of the phone, it just feels off.
04:11The screen is also difficult to use one-handed. So, a wide phone, like the Google Pixel XL,
04:17this is already wide and a little bit uncomfortable to use, but it's okay, I manage. The S8, because
04:22of the tall screen, the vertical stretch is crazy. This is actually the first phone I've
04:26had to use one-handed mode, and this was on the S8, it's gonna be even worse on the S8+.
04:31The last thing is probably my most personal opinion. I know a lot of people are gonna
04:35disagree with this, but I don't love where they're going with Bixby, and I know I haven't
04:39given it an extended trial, but Bixby is such a heavy investment and commitment into
04:43the exact type of stuff that I don't like about some of Samsung's software. They're
04:48proprietary Samsung apps that are just stuck on your phone you can't get rid of, and this
04:52time it comes with a dedicated hardware button. So, if you're interested in this phone, and
04:58you enjoyed the S6 and or the S7 user experience, you're gonna love the S8. It's just basically
05:04an elevated version of those phones. Truly next-level hardware, you're gonna love it.
05:08If you didn't like the S6 and or the S7 because of the user interface, because of the user
05:13experience, it's gonna feel very similar. That's the end of this video, hope you guys
05:17enjoyed it. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. I'll see you guys next time.