The Samsung Galaxy S8 is the talk of the town, that's for certain. The Korean tech giant's flagship smartphone which is destined to take Samsung out of the doldrums is already garnering praises here and there. It is also inevitable that the Galaxy S8 will be compared to other smartphones in the market particularly with its most bitter rival, the iPhone.
The Galaxy S8 makes the iPhone 7 look old and outdated. Aside from offering their smartphones in Jet Black, matte black, and red, nothing has changed with the Apple's design since 2014. As pretty and stylish as the iPhone is, it's getting pretty old.
First of all, the Galaxy S8's design is a game-changer. While there are a few existing devices that sport slim bezels, Samsung takes the cake with the most all-screen design ever achieved. This allows the Galaxy S8 to have a massive 5.8-inch screen that's larger than 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch screens of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, respectively.
The curved screen does not only offer more space to work with, it also comes with crisp color and images courtesy of its 2960 x 1440 pixel resolution which is was better than the iPhone 7's 1334 x 750 resolution.
Also, the Galaxy S8 is a head above the rest with the latest processor in town. Samsung got exclusive rights to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 while the iPhone 7 uses the company's own A10 Fusion. Samsung's new smartphone also comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage as compared to the iPhone 7's 2GB of RAM and 32GB/128GB/256GB internal memory space.
Both have 12 megapixel rear cameras but the Samsung Galaxy S8 has a better front-facing camera with 8 megapixels to the iPhone's 7 megapixels. The Galaxy S8 also has better water resistance rating of an IP68 against the iPhone 7's IP 67. To some, the deal breaker is the presence of the headphone jack on the Galaxy S8.
Finally, Samsung is poised to challenge Siri with its own digital assistant in Bixby. Despite Siri being a veteran among the group, Apple's voice assistant has never really proven to be useful and innovative outside of the usual tasks. In other words, Siri has been, according to Independent, a disappointment. The real challenge for Bixby is Amazon's Alexa and despite its current limitations (will only work with selected apps), Samsung's AI promises to be more useful than Siri. Injong Rhee, Samsung's Executive Vice President and Head of R&D for software and services, believes that Bixby will "evolve from a smartphone interface to an interface for your life".
The Verge has created a table comparing the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The table also includes other high-end smartphones particularly the Google Pixel and Pixel XL, the LG G6, and the HTC U Ultra. Based on the specs, the Galaxy S8 is clearly better than the iPhone 7 though the other smartphones make a good case for themselves.
The Samsung Galaxy S8's true test will come six months from now when its more able challenger, the iPhone 8 or iPhone X or iPhone Edition, is finally unveiled. Till then, Samsung and its fans can rest assure that the Galaxy S8 sits comfortably at the top, for now.
