Galaxy S8 playing it safe as first phone after recall
Samsung aims to earn back trust with newly unveiled smartphone
NEW YORK— Samsung seems to be playing it safe with its first major smartphone since the embarrassing recall of its fire-prone Note 7.
The Galaxy S8 features a larger display than its predecessor, the Galaxy S7, and sports a voice assistant intended to rival Siri and Google Assistant. But there is no increase in battery capacity, providing the battery more breathing room. The Note 7 pushed the engineering envelope with its battery, which contrib- uted to a series of spontaneous smartphone combustions.
The Galaxy S8 will come in two sizes, both bigger than last year’s models. Both models have screens that curve around the edges and get rid of the physical home button.
The Note 7 recall cost Samsung at least $5.3 billion (U.S.). Though many customers remain loyal, any further misstep could prove fatal for the brand.
“We’re in the process of earning back that trust,” said Drew Blackard, a senior director of product marketing for Samsung. In the U.S., Samsung will start taking orders Thursday, with shipments scheduled for April 21. Prices haven’t been announced yet.
Samsung has blamed the Note 7 fires on design and manufacturing defects in its batteries. Inspectors concluded that the initial batteries were too small for their capacity, and that their external pouch put pressure on the internal structure, leading to damage and overheating.
Samsung recalled the phones and shipped replacements, but the newer batteries had welding defects and a lack of protective tape. Samsung recalled the replacements, too, and scrapped the phone.
The company says phones will now go through multiple inspections, including X-rays and stress tests at ex- treme temperatures. The standardsize S8 phone has as much battery capacity as last year’s Galaxy S7, but the phone is 4 per cent larger by volume. The larger S8 Plus model has 3 per cent less capacity than the Galaxy S7 Edge and the same capacity as the Note 7, but the phone’s volume is larger by 12 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively.
Both models have larger displays, meaning more drain on the battery.
Samsung says the new phones offer all-day battery life under normal use.
The S8 phone’s display measures 5.8 inches diagonally, compared with 5.1 inches on the S7. The S8 Plus will be 6.2 inches, compared with S7 Edge’s 5.5 inches and the Note 7’s 5.7 inches. Both S8 models are taller than their predecessors, but widths are roughly the same to preserve one-handed use.
Samsung is minimizing the frame, or bezel, surrounding the display; gone is a horizontal strip with the home button at the bottom. Instead, Samsung is embedding a virtual home button in the display.
Samsung claims its new voice assistant, Bixby, will do much more than rivals from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. For one thing, Samsung says Bixby will be able to handle any smartphone task currently managed by touch. Bixby will also offer information on products scanned with the phone’s camera.
But there’s a major caveat: Bixby will work only with selected Samsung apps, including the photo gallery and messages. The front camera is getting a boost to eight megapixels, from five megapixels, while the rear one stays at 12 megapixels.
As with previous models, the S8 is water and dust resistant and features a memory card slot to supplement 64 gigabytes of built-in storage. The S8 will get an iris scanner to let people unlock the phone by looking at it.
An optional docking station will turn the S8 phone into a desktop computer when connected to a regular TV. In that mode, people will be able to resize windows and work with several apps at once.