Samsung Galaxy S8 Deals with no upfront cost

Samsung have recently released the S9 and S9 plus, this has dropped the price of the Samsung Galaxy S8 with many monthly plans having no upfront cost.

First, let’s look at how the iconic S8 looks & Feels.

The S8 had to perform well after the somewhat inadequate Note 7 let down Samsung fans around the world.

 The Display

Samsung followed the trend and stretched their aspect ratios in 2017. Using the 18.5:9 setup gave them a screen that nearly stretched the from the top to the bottom of the screen. Samsung did take several good learnings from the Edge and created a screen with no apparent bezels to the right and left.

This helped bring the S9 Display up in the world giving the screen a much lighter display and a slimmer body. It’s a comfortable handset to use in one hand but with one little snag, the top may just be out of reach, but swiping is across the phone is easy.

One great addition is the resolution coming in at 2960 X 1440 and its HD ready as soon as you open the box. Their main reason for the change in resolution was to help save the handsets battery life. This means you can keep most of your settings on maximum without worrying about finding your phone dead in your pocket after 1 hour!

The phone is setup to auto zoom into videos which naturally scale to the display. This feature can be turned off which helps make the images softer in the screen.

The AMOLED panels helps the black colours appear sold and deep whilst vibrant colours jump out of the screen.

Main Features

The S8 was one of the first phones to feature Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and the back of the handset. As with other Samsung phones there is the gentle curving around the edges.  Gorilla Glass 5 can sometimes be a little slippery but putting on a simple case takes care of that!

Samsung did move away from some of its usual designs. Gone are the home key and buttons replaced with on-display versions.

The Fingerprint scanner has been relegated to the back just beside the camera.
One part of the design that does annoy people is the finger print scanner is very high up the phone which means short fingers may have a little trouble.

There are multiple options to unlock the phone. You can just use the old-fashioned pin number, facial recognition or IRIS scanning (which sounds cool doesn’t it)

Samsung did release the IRIS scanner with the Note 7 and they have upgraded this for the release of the S8 and S8 plus. One thing to note about the IRIS scanner is it does work when wearing glasses which is where facial recognition usually lets you down, even with the latest phones like the iPhone X and S9 Plus.

The S8 is also IP68 waterproof which means you can submerge the phone in water up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes or under.

The S8 comes with 64GB internal memory but you can bulk this out using the microSD slot to boost the phones memory by another 256GB.

The Camera
The camera is very similar to the S7 & S7 edge using 12MP, but Samsung have worked on their software to enhance the photo and movie making experience.

This was the first time Samsung used their multi-frame image processing. In simple techie terms this means it takes three photos, smashes them together to make a better photo. The speed of the camera was also upgraded, you can take photo upon photo without any time lag.

The resulting photos are great. Outdoor photos are sharp and clean, and the level of detail is a great lift from the S7. The upgrade in software also included improved optical image stabilisation using dual pixel auto focus which makes low lighting photos also appear clean and crisp.

Photos taken in darker situations have also improved with the S8 using a F/1.7 aperture to lighten up the shots.

The front camera also got an upgrade to 8MP meaning selfies got a whole lot better. In the past Samsung’s selfie cameras often got a poor review but this upgrade did put them back in the rankings at the time.

The Video uses 30fps with up to 4K resolution. Upon testing the video performed best using stabilisation available at 1080p/30fps.

Even after a few years on the market the S8 still packs a powerful punch when testing the speed of the phone. Using the S8’s Exynos 8895 process coupled with 4GB of Ram keeps the phone ticking through tasks nicely.

Battery Life
The S8 was tested against a one-hour movie at half brightness, and dropped by only 10%, on full brightness it did drop considerably further but the introduction of fast charging means this isn’t as issue. The S8 can go from 0% battery to 70 plus in just one hour.

Samsung also reduced the amount of pre-installed apps and bloatware which does help the battery life a little.

Voice Assistant

The S8 comes with Bixby, Samsung’s first time of combating other leading handsets with voice assistant technology.

It’s a handy bit of kit which helps you with daily tasks. Its uses the calendar well to keep your organised and can pull daily news stories from Upday to help keep you in the loop with current affairs.

Sound Quality

Samsung had been a little left behind when looking at their sound quality but the S8 and S8 plus really have stepped up.

It comes with headphones in the box which is a bit of a luxury these days. The sound quality is ok but if you are buying a phone that’s going to give you amazing sound then we are suggesting getting the S9 or S9 plus.

Get all our best Samsung Galaxy S8 Deals with no upfront cost here.