Samsung Galaxy S8 64GB (Verizon)

I wanted to wait a little bit to get a full experience with the phone before diving into a review. After a week with the phone, I feel comfortable sharing my opinion. So lets dive into it. (It's a little long-winded, but I wanted to be thorough for those shopping around). I've always wanted to be on the bleeding edge of technology, and my opinions are trusted by those around me and usually dictate what my family, friends, and co-workers (who work in the tech industry with me) get. I have been a Samsung user for years. I am not a blind 'fangirl' though. Every year, I evaluate all of the phones on the market and try to decide if I should make the move to another brand. I almost did this year, because I was struggling with the size of the Galaxy S7 Edge (as a girl I don't have the biggest hands and was finding the S7 Edge awkward to use). I decided to wait until the announcement of the Galaxy S8 this year though before making my decision to see what Samsung was bring to the table. After the announcement, I was still a little unsure - as beautiful as the phone was, the edge screens were what I was having trouble with on the S7 Edge and now Samsung was going "all in" with them. I went to my local Big Box store the next day to their Samsung Experience stand and checked out the display models. And that's when I made the decision to stick with Samsung. Design - The design of this phone feels very well thought out and intentional, and it pays off. I had the S7 Edge and loved it, but it always felt a little uncomfortable in my hand. It was a little too wide, and I couldn't easily access buttons on the other side of the screen without touching the edge of the phone. With the S8, they managed to deliver a bigger, more beautiful screen in a smaller frame. I carefully decided between the S8 and S8+, and the S8 just feels...right in my hand. It feels like a natural extension of my hand and not some awkward boxy thing I am fumbling with. That had to take thought and planning on Samsung's part, and they got it just right. And that's not to say the S8+ is too big in general, just too big for me. That's the great thing about this generation of phone, there's a size for everyone. I was worried that the fingerprint reader would be difficult to use with the back placement, but again, with how comfortable the phone is in my hand, it is easy to access and use. I only use it for Samsung Pay though - for everything else I use a combination of the Face Unlock and Google's Smart Lock, because they make the phone incredibly easy to use while still making it secure. The Screen - This screen is just simply beautiful. There is a reason it has been the first phone given an A+ rating as the best performing smartphone display. It is just jaw-dropping. The Infinity Display stretches across practically the entire front of the phone. The colors are sharp and accurate. The tactile home button embedded under the screen is a welcome addition, giving you the feel of a physical home button without taking up the real estate of one. Watching videos is a new, welcome, immersive experience with this display. The same thing can be said about viewing pictures. They give you the ability to scale the resolution and the size of things on the screen - allowing you to customize the phone to your preferences. The Camera - I loved the camera on my S7 Edge. So taking that same camera and refining it further has made it even better. It focuses in a split second and takes sharp, beautiful photos. Low-light photos just keep getting better and better. The option to double-tap the home button to launch the camera (which I used regularly in the S7) is now moved to the power button since there is no physical home button anymore. It's taking some time to get used to, but I appreciate that they considered this and moved it, instead of doing away with it all-together. While I am not personally a selfie person, I have tested the front facing camera and it's great too. The Software - This is by far Samsung's best version of their UI (user interface). Unlike in the past, where every gimmick was thrown at you to see what would stick, Samsung thought this through. All of the software feels well-designed and intentional. And most importantly, it's easy to use. The removal of the app button on the home screen was long overdue. Now, to get to your apps, you simply swipe up on your home screen. The Always on Display (AOD) gives me useful information with a glance at my screen without having to fumble around and push buttons just to check and see if I have any notifications. The new Grace UI is simple, clean, and elegant. Clean colors and white lines makes everything feel cohesive. In fact, it is so well done, that I find myself sticking with the stock apps Samsung created for the Galaxy S8 instead of downloading replacements. Gone are the days of replacing the Calendar App, the Clock App, the Calculator App, the Messaging App, the Camera App, the note-taking app, the Health-Tracking App, and more. I have found myself loving the usefulness of the feature-rich Samsung stock apps. Bixby has a lot of potential and I am excited to see where Samsung takes us with it. There's an unlock method for everyone - whether you prefer a password, pattern, PIN, fingerprint, face unlock, or iris scanner. Samsung Pay is present and such a convenience. Using it at the store is as easy as a tap of the phone. Which is faster than using a card nowadays since they started rolling out the chip and pin cards. If you decide to go with the newest generation of Samsung phones, I highly recommend going to a nearby store and getting a feel for the S8 and S8+ in your hand to decide which one is right for you. Since the only difference between the two is screen size (and a slightly increased battery in the S8+ to offset the larger screen), this is not a case of bigger is always better. This is a personal preference. Take it from me - I learned my mistake by diving headfirst into the bigger phone with the last generation and regretted it. While it was still a great phone, it was awkward and cumbersome to use. Now, with the Galaxy S8, since I made a well-informed intentional decision, the phone just feels like an extension of my arm. Battery Life - I use my phone regularly to heavily, day in and day out. I am getting through a full day easily without having to top my phone off. I even have days where I play a popular game that requires you to walk around and use GPS to catch things. When I play that, I set my screen to timeout at 10 minutes and actually have it on sometimes for hours at a time. Even after I am done, my battery has been no lower than 60% when starting with a full charge and playing for hours. If you do find yourself in a situation where your battery is starting to run low and you can't charge it, the power saving options in the Galaxy S8 really help you milk every last ounce of juice out of the charge. The AKG headphones that come with the phone by default are amazing! They fit in your ear perfectly. And whether they are meant to be or not, feel like they are almost noise-cancelling with how well they drown out background noise. The sound quality that comes from them is phenomenal. For the cons - Bixby is still being developed, so it's not fully functional yet. But should be soon. It has a lot of potential and I am excited to see where it goes. Not all apps are currently designed for the phones unusual aspect ratio (18.5:9), so you will either have black bars at the top/bottom or sides of the screen (depending on the orientation), or if you try to force it to full screen ratio, may end up with the screen tiling. It's not a deal-breaker at all, and I've actually only seen it happen in one app at this point. If you rely on My Knox, it is not available on the Galaxy S8. The only thing available at this time is Secure Folder (which from what I have been able to gather so far, is very similar to My Knox, but I'm still trying to research this further). Secure Folder does still seem to allow you to create a separate, closed environment the same as My Knox, but doesn't have all of the same fine-tuning and customization that My Knox offered. Overall, this is, in my opinion, one of the best - if not the best - smartphone on the market. It is comfortable, fast, powerful, well-designed. With a great front and rear camera, a screen that has been voted the best smartphone screen ever, and lots of great apps made by Samsung. If you weren't a fan of Samsung in the past, I highly recommend giving them another try. I think they will change your mind. If you already are a Samsung fan, this is a phone worthy of the Galaxy S name.