Samsung Galaxy S8 first look: Upcoming flagship looks stunning

A sales assistant uses her mobile phone next to the company logos of Apple and Samsung at a store in Hefei, Anhui province September 10, 2014. Reuters/Jianan Yu

The March 29 launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus is getting nearer, and fans are getting more hyped up with each passing day. While lots of speculations have been popping up over the last few weeks regarding the upcoming flagships, a number of supposed leaked photos have also made rounds. None of those images compare to the most recent one, though, which was leaked by one of the most reliable tipsters in the tech business.

Insider Evan Blass posted on Monday what seems to be the first real photo of a Samsung Galaxy S8 handset that has been made public. (See photo below.) It’s currently not known whether the variant shown on the picture is the Galaxy S8 or the bigger Galaxy S8 Plus, but it certainly confirms what previous reports indicated about the upcoming handset: it furnishes a dual-curved bezel-less display, an above-positioned iris scanner and a dedicated button for the AI assistant Bixby (the one under the volume rocker). Also, there is not one single physical button on the front of the phone.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus were previously thought to be launched at Mobile World Congress (MWC 2017), but the South Korean tech giant ultimately just teased its upcoming flagships via a short video at the said event. Samsung is now set to officially announce the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus on March 29 (the date shown on the leaked photo) at a launch event in New York.

Samsung reportedly retained the 3.5mm headphone jack on both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, which should be great news for fans. Apple caused quite a stir when they decided to remove the audio port from its most recent flagships, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

A recent leak also detailed the specs and features of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, and they’re almost identical except for the fact that the latter equips a larger display. The Galaxy S8 sports a 5.8-inch quad HD+ Super AMOLED screen. The Galaxy S8 Plus likewise uses the same kind of display, but only slightly bigger at 6.2 inches. Here are the reported specs and features of both S8 smartphones: