All the 8’s

Samsung S8

This handset has been on the market for almost 4 months now and is a firm favourite with Smartphone users. It’s scoring high reviews all over the mobile and tech websites, and so it should, with Samsung being in the electronics market since 1969, and currently being the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones. The S8 looks smooth and sleek with its edge-to-edge screen and boasts the Infinity Display that sets a new standard for uninterrupted, immersive experiences. It enables an expanded screen size without having to set it in a larger phone. The 8mp front camera with Smart Auto Focus tracks faces, so whether you use your arm or a selfie stick, everyone in the shot will be in focus. The rear 12mp Dual Pixel Sensor camera has an F1.7 lens and lots of software features to take full advantage of it. On the camera’s Pro Mode, it gives you the option to adjust any of the six settings: ISO, Shutter speed, Exposure, Colour tone, Manual focus, and WB (White Balance) so you can release your inner artistic photographer. The S8 is Samsung’s securest smartphone yet with an iris scanner and facial recognition to unlock your phone amongst other features. It’s water resistant up to 1.5 meters of for 30 minutes which is nice to know in case you tip your drink on it or drop it in a puddle, which hopefully wouldn’t be as deep as 1.5 meters! Thanks to the innovation of the 10nm processor, Samsung say that their apps launch faster, the battery life is longer, and power consumption is down 20% on previous models. The Galaxy S8 is Gigabit LTE and Gigabit Wi-Fi ready, and Wi-Fi on the Galaxy S8 supports 1024-QAM, meaning you get up to 20% faster download speeds compared to previous models, so if you’re downloading big files or sharing your data, speed isn’t an issue. The handset has high-quality 32-bit PCM and DSD64/128 playback support so your music will sound pretty good, paired with the included new earphones that offer premium sound by AKG, with a teeny tiny Woofer and Tweeter. There is room for an additional MicroSD card in the handset to expand the already large 64GB memory that comes as standard. Lastly, Samsung introduces Bixby with the S8. This seems to be the newest version of the old “Hi Galaxy” function and with Bixby you can use voice, text, or touch to say what you need since it understands all three. You can also just use your camera or an image to get results right away. Whether you’d like to know more about a product or place, want to find a restaurant nearby, or even need to translate a document—just call up Bixby. And of course, you can also use this mobile phone to make and receive phone calls.

Nokia 8

The Nokia 8 was announced just yesterday! The Nokia brand have risen from the ashes under the ownership of HMD Global, and have so far this year given us 4 brilliant handsets ranging from the revamped good old 3310, to the most recently released and very well priced Nokia 3 smartphone. The Nokia 8 is putting it’s new “Bothie” mode at the top of its list of selling points. Use both front and rear cameras simultaneously with Dual-Sight mode to take “Bothie” videos and pictures. You will also be able to share these amazing split screen videos with your fans and followers on YouTube and Facebook should you wish, with built in live streaming. Nokia 8 features a 13 MP dual image-fusion rear camera with both colour and monochrome sensors, plus a wide-angle 13 MP phase detection auto-focus front camera. Both front and rear cameras are equipped with ZEISS optics. In addition to the swanky high-end camera lenses and visual tricks, the Nokia 8 is the first ever phone to feature Nokia OZO spatial 360° audio built in to its core. The industry-standard OZO Audio Technology for 360° recording is coupled with 4K video capture and Nokia claims you won’t compromise on sight or sound and you’ll be able to relive the moments like you were there again. To maximize performance, Nokia 8 is built upon the cutting-edge Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835 Mobile Platform, engineered to deliver exceptionally long battery life and improved superior graphics performance. They’ve also added a full-length copper cooling pipe with graphite shield to dissipate system heat across the full body of the phone. This sounds like a pretty good idea as your phone can get hot when you’re engrossed in a game of candy crush. The Nokia 8 comes with Android Nougat 7.1.1, packed with the full spread of Google’s most popular apps and no unnecessary extras. Because Nokia are using the Android operating system for their smartphones now, instead of their old Nokia software, or the Windows platform they tried, they now have the added Android standard features as selling points, like unlimited storage with Google Photos for all those bothies, and Google Assistant, “Ok Google”. The handset looks pretty good and comes in a choice of fairly grown-up and muted colours. It is precision machined from a single block of 6000 series aluminium with a polished mirror finish. The bright 5.3″ 2K polarized display is protected by sculpted Corning® Gorilla® Glass 5. The Nokia 8 has a 64 GB memory as standard and you can add a MicroSD card up to 256 GB. We believe it can also make and receive phone calls. It looks like it’s going to be a pretty decent top end smartphone and we look forward to the release and the reviews that follow.

iPhone 8

This is currently all rumours and speculation and teasers, but we know that the iPhone 8 must be being produced at some point in the future as it’s the number after 7, and that’s what Apple do. They keep improving on their handsets, and delivering them to us. We have no idea when this will be announced or released but we’ve managed to collate some speculative titbits for you to peruse. They are apparently taking on the Samsung S8 with a 5.8in 2.5D OLED edge-to-edge display and no physical home button, so the screen can be bigger but the handset doesn’t have to be. It also looks set to be the first to debut wireless charging tech. Facial recognition is to be used in place of Touch ID to unlock the device. It appears that the handset’s rear shell will house a vertical dual camera setup and that it will be available in black, silver or rose gold. Apple could also introduce a new ‘SmartCam’ scene selection features to the iPhone 8’s camera, that will be able to intelligently capture the best photos when shooting specific scenes like sun rises and fireworks. Apple might also equip the iPhone 8 with a 3D laser system to make for better augmented reality (AR) functionality. Allegedly the rear-facing laser will enable better depth detection for augmented reality apps, and a more accurate type of autofocus for pictures. There are also claims that the iPhone 8 will feature a new L-shaped battery configuration that should deliver a “significantly improved” battery life. Apparently, Apple are to offer the iPhone 8 handset in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB configurations with some colours only available in certain sizes. Other rumours include an ‘all-glass’ construction, Apple A11 chip, rear-facing Touch ID sensor, iOS 11 with improved Siri and P2P payments, support for LTE speeds up to 450Mbps, and the ability to make and receive phone calls.

And for your ease of reference, the full specs as we know them, in table form.