S8 carries Samsung hopes
NEW YORK: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled its Galaxy S8 flagship smartphone as it battles to regain the market leadership it lost to Apple Inc after the embarrassing withdrawal of the fireprone Note 7s.
Boasting some of the largest wraparound screens made, the longawaited S8 is the South Korean tech giant’s first new premium phone since the Note 7 debacle in October, which wiped out $US5.48 billion ($NZ7.80 billion) of profit and helped Apple overtake Samsung as the world’s top smartphone maker in the fourth quarter.
Two versions of the Galaxy S8, codenamed Dream internally, were launched in New York yesterday.
They had 6.2inch and 5.8inch curved screens — the largest to date for Samsung’s premium smartphones.
The phones, which will go on sale on April 21, are slightly longer but comparable in width to their predecessors as Samsung has eliminated nearly all of the bezel borders around the face to maximise the screen surface area.
The S8 features Samsung’s new artificial intelligence service, Bixby, with functions including a voicecommanded assistant system similar to Apple’s Siri. There is also a new facial recognition application that lets users unlock their phones by looking at them.
Samsung is hoping the design update and the new features — nothing revolutionary but focused on making life easier for consumers — will be enough to revive sales in a year Apple is expected to introduce major changes to its iPhones for its 10th anniversary, including the curved screens that have become staples of the Galaxy brand.
The S8 is also crucial for Samsung’s image as a maker of reliable mobile devices.
The selfcombusting Galaxy Note 7s had to be scrapped in October just two months after their launch and a failed attempt to recall the Note 7s in September was particularly damaging, investors and analysts say, leading to questions about the firm’s credibility.
Samsung responded by implementing new battery safety measures after an internal investigation identified battery problems from two different suppliers as the cause of the Note 7’s problems.
Analysts say consumers may still be wary of potential problems.
Samsung’s early marketing of the S8 has eschewed the safety issue, which brand experts say is an attempt to avoid reminding consumers of the images of burnt Note 7s that spread throughout the world’s media late last year.
Owners of older iPhones might soon be forced to upgrade, with Apple tipped to cease support for previous versions of its phones.
Despite being supported by the iOS 10.3 update Apple released earlier this week, the tech giant is tipped to drop the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c and the fourthgeneration iPad later this year, according to news.com.au.