Possibly one of the most leaked phones all year, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones were announced at Samsung's Unpacked event in New York to much fanfare. With a nearly bezel-less display that Samsung calls the "Infinity Display," and the porting over of the Edge panels to the base S8, the pair of phones may possibly be the sexiest phones of 2017. The phone will ship in five stunning colors that work well with the cleaned-up, sci-fi style update to the Grace UX skin. The skin now has the same swipe-to-app drawer gesture seen on the Pixel, and makes the jump to software buttons as well. Samsung has implemented a half-hearted version of the iPhone's home button, as it is solid-state and delivers haptic feedback when touched. In addition, the switch to software keys mean that the back and multitasking buttons can FINALLY be switched to a normal implementation in Settings. Even though long pressing this new home button still summons Google Assistant, long pressing the button below the volume rocker awakens Bixby, Samsung's second try at a personal assistant. Swiping left from the home screen summons a Google Now-like stack of cards, along with icons for opening Bixby voice and Bixby camera. So far, however, Bixby can only control first-party phone functions and not give answers to, say, who is running the country. While the battery life is currently unknown, Samsung has reassured the public that the Galaxy S8 will most likely not burst in to flames, thanks to the company's "8-Point Battery Safety Check" that it introduced two months ago. Inside the phone, the S8 is the first to support the Snapdragon 835 chip from Qualcomm (Exynos 9 internationally) and the Bluetooth 5.0 standard. Wireless charging and Samsung Pay return as well. The fingerprint reader once located on the home button has been moved to the back, but, unlike phones like Google's Pixel (2016 Mirror Journal Phone of the Year), this is not a good thing. Samsung decided to place the reader to the right of the camera, and there will be no physical cues to distinguish it from the camera or flash, so get ready for fingerprints on your lens. Speaking of that camera, it is the exact same one we've seen in the Galaxy S7 and ill-fated Note7. While that certainly was a great camera last year, I'm unsure how it will hold up against the Pixel, iPhone 7, and LG G6. The front-facing camera, however, now boasts better facial detection, allowing for Snapchat-like filters straight inside the selfie cam. Let's recapIn conclusion, the Galaxy S8's top-notch display, processor, and build give it a great selling point to consumers. But Samsung's cleaned-up—but still bloated—software remains, with the exact same camera as last year's, unknown battery life, and lackluster personal assistant remove some appeal. The questions we have about the S8 are sure to be answered soon, so it would be wise to take Note (7) about Samsung's latest and greatest flagship. Roan Thibault is the editor-in-chief of Mirror Journal.
Meet the Nokia 3310. It's the 2017 refresh of what is considered one of the greatest phones ever made. The 3310's nostalgic return stole all attention at the Mobile World Congress trade show this year, surpassing search interest for the BlackBerry KEYone, LG G6, and even Nokia's other smartphone offerings at the show (that being, the 3, 5, & 6 Android phones). But the big question is; why? Why would a simple little dumbphone, or more kindly, feature phone, be the center of attention at a trade show where the focus is the "future of mobile?" The simple answer to this whole equation is that MWC 2017 wasn't a very exciting show this year. Samsung dropped it's Galaxy S8 launch slated for the show to allow for more time following the Note7 debacle, the general public has pretty much lost interest in LG following the disappointing G5, and consumers in the West have no idea what Huawei is. That leaves only BlackBerry, who's KEYone phone was already shown off in less detail at CES in January. It was refreshing to see Nokia swoop in and drop a nostalgia nerd's dream phone, which comes complete with the old 3310's trademark ringtone and even a reincarnation of Snake. Nokia's new owners, HMD, chose the perfect time to re-release a classic at a trade show which offered no real competition this year, creating what YouTuber Michael Fisher called a "public relations grand slam." The feature phone no one saw coming was a sweet release from the rectangular slabs with big screens everyone else announced at Mobile World Congress, and took the tech world by storm. It will be sure to find it's way into the hearts of tech aficionados when it comes out for €49 in the second quarter, and most likely soon after in the United States (right now the 3310 won't work on American 2G bands). Expect some more Nokia 3310 coverage in the near future. Roan Thibault is the editor-in-cheif of Mirror Journal.
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September 2017
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