Galaxy S8 announcement: all of the news from Samsung’s launch event – The Verge

How to preorder the Galaxy Note 8

2017-08-24T09:39:35-04:00

Yesterday, Samsung unveiled its latest flagship, and now you can officially put in a preorder for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. In a limited promotional offer, the company is offering bundle deals for preorders that'll include either its Gear 360 camera or a wireless charging pad and memory card, but you have to put in an order before September 24th.

Before you speed off to get the new phone, know that carriers and retailers aren't all offering up preorders at the same time. Here are the ones that are available as of 12 AM today and otherwise. We'll update this article as more information comes in.

Direct from Samsung, unlocked

You can get the …

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Note 8 preorders will come with a free Gear 360 or charging pad bundle

2017-08-23T11:49:11-04:00

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is official, and it will be available for preorder starting August 24th. To sweeten the deal, Samsung is tacking on freebies for preorders within the first month. If you preorder / buy a Galaxy Note 8 any time between August 24th and September 24th, it'll come with your choice of either a free Samsung Gear 360 camera or a charging bundle - specifically, the "Galaxy Foundation Kit" bundle, valued at $190, which contains a free 128GB EVO+ memory card and wireless charging pad. The promotional period includes the time when the preorders go out and when major retailers like Best Buy and Walmart and carriers including AT …

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Samsung Galaxy S8 price starts at $720 — here’s how to buy

2017-04-21T09:50:28-04:00

Samsung's latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, launch today at carriers and retail stores across the United States (and globally). Availability of some models has already slipped to late April, so it seems Samsung has a hit on its hands and could be in for a successful bounce back from the Note 7 recall. And carriers are already bickering over which network the S8 runs fastest on.

Below you'll find everything you need to know about how to purchase the Galaxy S8.

Carriers

Verizon

Available in stores April 21st.

Galaxy S8: $720 full retail
Monthly installments: $30 / mo for 24 months

Galaxy S8 Plus: $840 full retail
M …

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The Galaxy S8’s misplaced fingerprint scanner was probably a last-minute change

2017-04-01T11:45:01-04:00

Samsung Galaxy S8 | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Ask anyone to tell you where a smartphone's fingerprint reader should be and, though the answers will vary, you'll never be told "off center, right next to the camera lens on the back." But lo and behold, that's exactly where Samsung plopped its fingerprint scanner on the new (and otherwise delightful) Galaxy S8. It's a perplexing decision if we consider it as a deliberate design choice, but reports ahead of the S8's launch, which now seem validated by the device itself, suggest that it was a last-minute alteration enforced by the slower-than-desired development of more ambitious technology.

A March 13th report out of Korea lays it all out …

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Why didn’t Samsung upgrade the main camera on the S8?

2017-03-30T13:37:33-04:00

Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are full of new stuff: a new display that stretches across more of the phone than ever, a new processor, a new digital assistant. One thing that isn't really new, however, is the camera on the back of the phone.

SamMobile's Asif Iqbal Shaik points out that the S8 does appear to use new image chips, but the benefits are hard to pin down. There might be some improvements in low light, but if there's an otherwise significant difference, Samsung declined to mention it during the S8 event.

That initially feels kind of crazy, right? Much like its competitors, Samsung over the years made an increasingly bigger deal …

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We’re gonna need Pythagoras’ help to compare screen sizes in 2017

2017-03-30T13:01:03-04:00

Android Central's Alex Dobie made this point to me in the buildup to Samsung's Galaxy S8 launch yesterday: a 5.8-inch phone with the S8's elongated 18.5:9 aspect ratio doesn't have the same size screen as a 5.8-inch phone with the traditional 16:9. The two might share the same diagonal measurement, but in terms of area, the S8's screen would be smaller. That's because the change in aspect ratio breaks the linear scale by which we've compared almost all smartphones to date. If every rectangle has the same aspect ratio - the relationship between its height and width - then knowing its diagonal measurement gives us a rough way to compare or at …

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Microsoft is selling its own Samsung Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition

2017-03-30T09:41:41-04:00

Samsung originally bundled Microsoft's Skype, OneDrive, and OneNote apps on the Galaxy S6 and S7, but it appears things are a little different this year. Samsung unveiled its latest Galaxy S8 handset yesterday, and now Microsoft is planning to offer its own customized version. The Samsung Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition is available for preorders today at Microsoft's US retail stores, and will include Microsoft's range of apps and services.

"A Microsoft customization is applied to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ Microsoft Edition when the devices are unboxed and connected to Wi-Fi," says a Microsoft spokesperson. "This customization ensure …

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Samsung’s biggest challenge now is Google software, not Apple hardware

2017-03-30T08:18:42-04:00

Samsung Galaxy S8 | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

It's an occupational hazard among gadget geeks to fixate on new hardware, and yesterday's introduction of the gorgeous Galaxy S8 by Samsung made that easier than ever. I could write for days about how pretty and pleasant that new handset is. But I also notice that the traditional competitive narrative of my smartphone versus your smartphone is starting to fade out of relevance. Samsung may still measure its mobile ventures by the iPhone yardstick, but its bigger challenges these days are coming from Google's suite of connected services. Yes, the same Google on whose Android shoulders Samsung's Galaxy S8 stands.

To appreciate the importance …

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Pictures don’t do the Galaxy S8 justice

2017-03-29T15:49:57-04:00

DJ Koh | Samsung

Just when I thought that great design was fading as a big point of differentiation among smartphones, Samsung has triumphantly proven me wrong with its new Galaxy S8. This phone, which I'd already seen from every conceivable angle courtesy of two solid months of leaked photos, wowed me today. Holding it in my hands for the first time, I suddenly shed all of my jadedness and cynicism, and I just felt happy that it existed. Yes, first impressions are fleeting and often misleading, but I don't really care right now - my gadget lust has been reawakened by Samsung's glorious new gadget.

For most people, the big headline with the S8's design will …

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The Samsung Galaxy S8 is the first phone with Bluetooth 5.0

2017-03-29T15:39:13-04:00

Buried in the spec sheet for Samsung's new Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus phones is a wonderful bit of information: the new phones will be the first on the market with Bluetooth 5.0. The new wireless protocol should offer some great benefits over the latest standard, Bluetooth 4.2, which was released in December 2014.

The most immediate gains will be in audio, speed, and range. Bluetooth 5.0 offers twice the speed and four times the range as Bluetooth 4.2, meaning you'll be able to maintain connection up to about 800 feet (240 meters) away from the phone with compatible devices. (Of course, that mileage may vary depending on the environment you're i …

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