Gadgetory

why does this phone exist hey dr. frog ro what's going on everybody and I actually don't really mean to be so harsh when it comes to this phone the Galaxy s8 active it's available on AT&T and you can of course get it on that carrier if you're looking for a ruggedized version of the galaxy s 8 or the SI plus but I wanted to go through a few reasons why I think the active line has kind of lost its way it finds itself in a very interesting position because it's trying to provide features that are different from its original counterparts but the original counterparts are kind of already stellar so before I kind of rant about a couple of the pet peeves that I have with the galaxy s 8 active I do want to give you guys a bit of a story back in 2015 I went to e3 and I was fulfilling a bit of a personal dream by going to one of the biggest gaming conventions but I was distracted the entire time because just a couple of months prior to that they announced the Samsung Galaxy s6 active now the galaxy s5 active did come out just a year prior so the active line wasn't necessarily new but I loved the look of especially the stealth of black s6 active and I knew I just had to get my hands on it and once I did I realized why I really did love that device it was at that point that Samsung changed their design language with the galaxy s6 to glass on glass with a metal body whereas glass on glass bodies were going to become the future of our smartphones I was trying to cling to a past where we had sturdier meteor plastic phones in comparison to all of the phones we have let's say today which kind of go for a slimmer let's say more delicate design and I still kind of feel the same way about phones today we have so many glass on glass designs right now that plastic phones like this are incredibly rare and if you saw my daily driver video regarding the BlackBerry key one you could tell that I gravitate towards phones that don't really follow that pack but then there comes a bit of a problem while the Galaxy s8 active is still continuing everything that the active line does putting great specifications from the original Galaxy S device and putting it into a meteor body unfortunately the original galaxy line has already perfected its own design Samsung has made the infinity display not only a great piece of eye candy but one of the main features and the main ways that Samsung can put a larger screen on a smaller device so it's because of that that the Galaxy s8 active doesn't really put off the same good vibes that the Galax the s6 active had one I bought it the bezels are so much bigger than we're now used to with all of the phones that have very minimal bezels and the phone has a hep to that while welcome is contrary to the kind of slim and light bodies that were once four and a few years ago but are now the norm now there are very valid reasons to go for a phone like this because if you're going to drop your phone and you have those butterfingers or you just really clumsy all the time and you drop this phone you're just gonna get scuffs on the back or on the sides and it's probably gonna bounce right back unfortunately when it comes to all of the other phones in Samsung's camp if you were to drop the phone one side of glass could potentially crack or shatter now don't get too ahead of yourselves I won't be dropping this phone yet there is another phone out there that has protection despite not needing a different kind of body and that is the LG v 30 now we don't have our full production news of the LG v 30 yet but what we do know is that it is supposed to be not only IP certified but also have milspec protection and when the time comes we're probably going to pit the Galaxy s8 active against the LGV 30 and see which one actually comes out on top and if a body like the s8 active is actually required anymore but not all of it is bad like I said I'm not trying to just trash on the galaxy s 8 active there are just a few things that made me think about whether or not a phone like this but they used to love a couple of generations ago should even exist anymore but a lot of what people love about the active line does return you get this kind of body with all of the great specifications underneath and one of the main features of these phones because they're heavier and thicker is a bigger battery and 4,000 milliamp hours is what you get in the Galaxy s8 active 500 over the si+ and a thousand more over the original s8 no matter how you slice it longevity like that is something that everybody wants and the active line was able to provide that but up until now I've been talking about how other devices have been kind of encroaching on the galaxy s active line and its territories but there's one significant loss in this phone that I just could not get past and that has to do with my favorite feature of the s6 active and the other phones before and after it up until now the active key anyone who has followed me for the last couple of years knows that I love physical keys and you're probably sick of hearing me talk about the BlackBerry key one well the Galaxy s6 active was one of my favorite phones because it had an extra key that you can program for tap or holding for two different applications you could easily open no matter where you are in the phone it was such a subtle but incredibly powerful tool and I used it for so many different app combinations not just for convenience but for productivity and when you couple all of that with the long battery life the s6 active was actually a phone that could just get stuff done but in the s8 active the key is gone replaced by the bane of many a current samsung user's existence bigsby now hold on I do know that Bigsby has been getting better over the last number of months and that users could kind of go through the learning curve and get quite a bit out of Samsung's assistance however there are still some bugs with it and I even experienced some in the Galaxy S eight active when I press the Bigsby button and it tries to open Bigsby actually crashes quite a bit at the time and if you look at all of the people who tried to customize the Bigsby button to make it do something that they wanted instead well that's exactly how I feel about the s8 active because in previous versions of this phone we literally got a button that did just that I was really excited to use the active line again and I was actually having a good time with it but I couldn't get over the fact that I didn't have that active key anymore because I was so used to it in the s6 active that I personally bought there are a lot of people out there who probably really want an active version of the Galaxy S a and more power to you if you're looking specifically for features that set the s8 active apart like its rugged looks and bigger battery then go and have at it but unfortunately for a user like me that used to love the active line for way more than just those features the list of reasons has shrunken under the ever-expanding list of things that Samsung is trying to do it's a jump forward followed by just a bit of a stumble back head into the comments down below and let us know what you think about the Galaxy s8 active or any of the active phones if you were like me and you actually got one in the past and then stick around because we're going to have so much more here in Android authorities so you can subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and don't forget to drop us some likes on these videos because we love to see those thumbs up from there you can stick around and head on over to android authority comm for even more because we are your source for all things Android