Gadgetory

pocket now's galaxy SI coverage is brought to you by D brand ah the honeymoon phase that initial getting to know you as you break in a new phone the Galaxy S 8 plus gives off a brilliant first impression but it raises a few philosophical questions in early use while we set it up buying clad in piano black even wiping it down between shots y'all are just going to have to get used to some fingerprint smudges in these review videos instead let's talk about the next evolution of Samsung's edge display a samsung took what they learned from the note and stretched the display for a dramatic infinity effect symmetrical front and rear curved glass terminate in ultra-thin edges on the sides and it completely achieves the desired effect this phone feels a lot smaller in the hand then it's screen size would indicate a sleek is sexy but it makes me nervous I'll be the one rolling around in the dirt and holding it over freeway overpasses for our real camera review I haven't particularly enjoyed these all glass experiments and minimalism since smashing a note 5 so for all the phone's beauty it'll probably spend most of its life in a case or skin - that case are covered the rest of samsung's accessory game is on point black cabling and charger to match the piano black finish of the phone we also get a micro USB to USB C adapter to help folks make that transition using the cables they already own and the USB OTG adapter is another terrific touch it's reported purpose is to migrate user data from another phone but keep it on hand as it'll come in handy for other USB OTG situations lastly there's a pretty killer set of headphones in the box and we shot a whole separate video showing those off which we have linked down below this first impressions Samsung's data transfer is a solid option for migrating user info I'm a showed it off during our note 7 coverage but I'm off to start fresh with this phone to get a sense of what this thing can really do free of all my junk molesting it the second phone to arrive this year with a taller display this introduces another issue in how we describe screen area simply mentioning diagonal no longer truly illustrates how it might compare to the competition we'll be digging into more detailed comparison soon but as an early tease the 6.2 inch si plus gives us a star of extra real estate over a pixel Excel or an iPhone 7 plus and just a bit more room than the 5.9 inch Huawei may nine or it would if the s8 plus was a true rectangle without these pretty curves I'm not entirely sure how to do the math on that one happily this is one of the better shapes out there for one-handed use on a big phone the overall width shockingly close to a phone like the smaller Huawei p10 or the LG G 6 we're also waiting on app developers to see who will embrace this new form factor Samsung will crop or stretch content to fill the display but otherwise expect quite a bit of wasted space what's disappointing is that even Samsung hasn't completely embraced this screen yet the camera app for example has huge pockets of unused area but fire up the manual controls and they still take up part of your viewfinder this screen is a nice improvement for web browsers and scrolling apps though is vertically we get more info on the display in any given moment Samsung's custom software running on top of the phone is also been spruced up gestures slide you into your app drawer your settings menu features new iconography it's a clean and refined approach to making navigation as fluid and as organic as any company can but some decisions like swiping vertically for the app drawer then swiping horizontally for app pages are certainly unfamiliar folks who flip their phones more readily will easily acclimate but I wonder if I'll be getting questions from friends and family coming from older galaxies getting back to the screen for just a sec in firing the phone up it would seem Samsung is by default reducing resolution perhaps as a battery saving measure or as a way to improve performance or both it's not disclosed during setup that the phone defaults to full HD instead of quad HD so we'll be curious to see how many people outside of our learning audience of course will notice that reduction in display resolution now my first day of use was largely taken up by audio tests where this phone is a nice step up over previous North American galaxies we've already published our real audio review for folks interested in a deeper dive and I took a little time out to shoot some night photos which will examine closer in our real camera review coming soon more than anything else this phone feels a lot different in operation than any galaxy we've used like the home button the effort to maintain a hardware or tactile response is appreciated but we're not sure why Samsung opted to make this more complicated than normal on-screen controls the pressure-sensitive bit can always take you home even when the home icon isn't on your screen but that's the only difference we can find press hard press lightly it's a home button and a shortcut to the Google assistant and that's about it a camera shortcut is moved to the power button familiar for pixel users and maybe a touch easier than using the volume rocker on some other devices but the bigger sin is the fingerprint sensor location on day one this is not a natural spot to go looking for that sensor hilarious that Samsung warns you not to smudge your camera they might have helped us out there with a better location for the hardware but I digress this has also been one of the more finicky sensors I've set up recently my right index finger went well but I had to retrain my left three times which should have been the easier of the two now that I'm thinking about it and it's still a bit hit or miss for unlocking the phone since that sensor is so high up on such a tall phone I just always feel like the phone is balanced on my fingertips lateral swipes are easier but there's a lot of shifting involved in navigating unlocking and using the camera but I don't feel like I ever have a solid grip if I have to slag the phone in my hand to unlock it it would have been nice if I could have also used that sensor to pull down the notification shade or scroll through photos another missed opportunity I'm hopeful that the iris scanner will help take some of the edge off but holding the phone up to your face is a lot more deliberate and action to perform than a fingerprint scan this is all mostly compounded by the fact that I just don't have any muscle memory trained for this hardware its new it's fresh and I'm still getting used to it there's so much potential for this new form factor that's yet to be realized and so many questions we'll still need to examine in what we really want out of a pocketable supercomputer but the galaxy s A+ is a stunning design achievement it really is one of the most gorgeous mobile devices I've ever held even if it makes me a little nervous to hold it sometimes you probably didn't know that jello is older than the zipper jello was introduced in 1845 while the zipper was first patented in 1851 we'd like to thank our sponsor deep brand for reminding us that times were tough in the mid-1800s yes certainly couldn't zip up a bag full of jell-o this bizarre add in all of our Samsung Galaxy sa coverage is brought to you by D branch check them out in the link below as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full Galaxy s8 and s8 Plus coverage hi mate we'll be taking a crack at the smaller s8 and one of plenty of reviews and comparisons uploaded soon for Pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next video