The Galaxy S8 Will Be Samsung's Biggest Test Ever (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: You know what's coming tomorrow, you've known and waited for it for months now. Samsung's 2017 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8, will be officially announced, and one of the most critical periods in the company's history will begin. The phone Samsung launches on Wednesday will carry greater expectations and have to prove a lot more than usual. Even as the world's biggest smartphone maker, Samsung's mobile credibility was deeply shaken by the Galaxy Note 7 snafu, so it now needs to reassert its reliability while also rebooting its technological advantage. Vlad Savov provides a "rundown of the biggest challenges facing Samsung" in his report. While Samsung will need to nail the design and camera performance, as well as many other things, the most critical area will be the battery, given how the Note 7 was recalled due to battery issues. Even though that incident took place half a year ago, we are still faced with the consequences. Samsung is still trying to figure out what to do with the "recalled units" and people are still making bad jokes about "explosive Samsung news." If the Galaxy S8 is to have any battery issues whatsoever, the result could be catastrophic for the company. Though, Samsung is well aware of this and has likely packed "the most robust and durable batteries we've ever seen in a smartphone" inside the Galaxy S8 devices.

Comments

Re:"you've known and waited for it for months now"

[crow]

Yeah, I don't think most people are terribly excited. It's not like five years ago when each new phone crushed the previous one. It's more like seeing what minor tweaks they're making to the previous model, and what things they're taking away that were good. In general, I expect more memory, better camera, longer battery life, and a loss of some feature that I used that most people ignored. Like when they took away the IR that my S5 had, so I couldn't turn off TVs in restaurants anymore.

In my case, I have an S7 now, so I'm curious about the S8, as I'll probably end up with an S9, so this gives me some idea of what to expect next year.

Re:Nervous testing department

[rtb61]

Tester: Phone doesn't work
Boss:Take out the battery and put it back in.
Tester:Can't do that
Boss:Fuck.

My favourite way of silencing a noisy phone, rip of the back and flick out the battery, it is faster than holding the stupid switch which refuses to function when the phone is ringing. Can be a few days before the battery goes in, meh, that's what messaging banks are for (if I need to use it, well, the battery goes back it).

It's all about the battery

[fyngyrz]

If the battery is still a non-replicable unit, then I will know they haven't learned the obvious, profound lesson:

Non-replaceable battery: Battery problem? Phone is garbage. Write off entire cost. Purchaser has nothing. Seller loses everything.

Replaceable battery: Battery problem? Send new battery. Preserve most of purchaser's value and seller's income.