Samsung Galaxy A8+ First Impressions: Worthy addition in upper mid-range price segment

Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) and A8+ (2018) bring dual front camera setup and Infinity Display design to mid-range segment

By Rohit
|

Samsung has kicked off the year 2018 in the Indian market with the launch of Galaxy A8+ value flagship handset. Priced at Rs. 32,990, the smartphone will be exclusively available on Amazon.in by January 20, 2018 and is going to challenge OnePlus 5T and Huawei Honor View 10 in sub Rs. 35,000 price category.

 
Samsung Galaxy A8+ First Impressions

Samsung Galaxy A8+ sports the Infinity display design similar to the 2017's flagship handsets- Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8. The new Galaxy A8+ also features dual-lens camera setup, but interestingly the two lens setup is provided at front and not at the rear panel like the flagship Galaxy Note 8 phablet. Galaxy A8+ also borrows one important feature from Galaxy S series devices. It also comes with Samsung Pay support, which is company's in-house digital payment system.

We were present at the Samsung launch event today and tested the handset for a brief time to check out its features. Here's what we found out.

Design and Dispay

Design and Dispay

Galaxy A8+ shares a close DNA with Galaxy S8/S8+ series. The smartphone is made out of metal and glass and looks quite premium. Galaxy A8+ borrows the Edge-to-Edge screen from Galaxy S8 series and sports a 6-inch FHD Super AMOLED Infinity display. The 18:9 aspect ratio AMOLED display is vivid and responsive. It delivers better color reproduction than the LCD screen used in Honor View 10, a close competitor of Galaxy A8+. Samsung has also added Always-on display feature to Galaxy A8+.

As far as design is concerned, Galaxy A8+ offers a comfortable in-hand feel and is also IP68 certified. The water-dust resistivity gives Galaxy A8+ an edge over its closest competitors- Honor View 10 and OnePlus 5T.

 

Dual-lens camera setup for selfies
 

Dual-lens camera setup for selfies

Samsung has integrated an interesting camera setup on Galaxy A8+. Unlike most of the smartphones that offer a dual-lens camera setup at rear side, Galaxy A8+ sports a dual front facing camera. The smartphone features a 16MP+8MP front facing camera setup that works on a F/1.9 aperture. The front facing dual-lens camera comes with 'Live Focus' mode that captures depth of field to deliver Bokeh images. As far as rear camera is concerned, you get a 16MP snapper that utilizes a bright F/1.7 aperture lens to deliver on photography. The cameras are snappy and image output also seemed good.

We will evaluate the performance of cameras in our comprehensive review of Galaxy A8+ in the coming week.

 

6GB RAM and Samsung Exynos Chipset

6GB RAM and Samsung Exynos Chipset

There's good amount of firepower under the hood. Samsung Galaxy A8+ is powered by Samsung's in-house Exynos 7885 octa-core SoC, with two cores clocked at a 2.2GHz and six cores clocked at 1.6GHz. It features 6GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage, expandable via microSD card by up to 256GB.

We will compare the gaming, computing and multitasking performance of Galaxy A8+ with OnePlus 5T and Honor View 10 to find out who wins the title of best performance handset in upper mid-range price-point.

 

Stuck with Android 7.1.1 Nougat

Stuck with Android 7.1.1 Nougat

The new Galaxy A8+ still runs the old Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which is a bit disappointing. Samsung have to push the Android Oreo update for Galaxy A8+ shortly to match the competition in its respective price-point. The UI worked smoothly in our brief duration with the smartphone. Galaxy A8+ also comes with Samsung Pay support.

 

 

Battery and Connectivity

Battery and Connectivity

In terms of connectivity, Galaxy A8+ offers 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, latest Bluetooth v5.0, GPS/ A-GPS, NFC, and USB Type-C port. As far as battery is concerned, Galaxy A8+ is powered by a 3,500mAh battery unit, which on papers is bigger than the battery that powers the OnePlus 5T, but smaller than the battery cell of View 10. We will find out how long does Samsung Galaxy lasts on one single charge in our detailed review.

 

 

Conclusion

Conclusion

Samsung has delivered a worthy contender in the upper mid-range flagship category. However, Galaxy A8+ plays very safe and fails to offer something as interesting as AI capabilities seen in Honor View 10, or intuitive Oxygen OS by OnePlus. What works in favor of Galaxy A8+ is a water-dust resistant design and brand trust that can create problems for OnePlus 5T and Honor View 10 to some extent.

Overall, I believe that the smartphone has just made the upper mid-range price category more interesting and competitive. We will evaluate the complete potential of Galaxy A8+ in our comprehensive review.

 

 

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