Galaxy S8 Looks Great, But Bixby, DeX Are the Real Questions

Let's become this out the way first: Samsung'southward Galaxy S8 and S8+, which were announced this week, appear to be great phones, with terrific-looking screens and sleek new design. But despite promises of revolutionary design, what really stood out to me were: the new vocalism assistant, known as Bixby; the promise of the phone connecting all of the devices in your home; and DeX, a dock that lets the phone act as a desktop computer.

All of these are intriguing concepts—but they still come with large questions, every bit the concepts take been tried earlier with limited success.

At the launch, DJ Koh, president of Samsung's mobile communications business organisation (higher up), argued that the S8 marked "the beginning of a new era of smartphone design." I've heard like comments from all the large telephone makers this year, probably because everyone wants to be seen as doing something radically different. But it nevertheless seems like the basic prototype of the smartphone has been set up and no one can deviate too far from it.

The "infinity display" on the v.8-inch S8 and the 6.ii-inch S8+ looks great, though I'm a bit surprised that Samsung touts this as being brand new, since the curved edges on the side were a big part of last year's Galaxy S7 border. I admired the curved edges of that telephone, and this looks like a continuation of that theme, albeit with smaller top and lesser bezels and the replacement of the physical home button with one that is embedded beneath the display.

Still, the inclusion of this design on both the standard S8 and the larger S8+ takes a niche feature mainstream, and the other pattern tweaks make the phone look particularly squeamish. I exercise like the thought of making the display taller so it still fits well in your mitt—a concept also seen on the LG G6, which was announced at Mobile World Congress. I was peculiarly impressed by how well the S8+ fit in my mitt. I do desire to see how existent videos look on the two,960-past-ane,440, xviii.v:9 ratio display, but at first glance, the Super AMOLED display looked great.

Concluding year's Galaxy S7 had a terrific camera, only I was surprised to see how few camera upgrades Samsung added, given how competitors accept been moving toward dual-camera setups for better zoom (such every bit on the iPhone 7 Plus) or wide angle shots (such equally on the G6).

Samsung did talk nigh a "multi-frame processor" to reduce noise and increment effulgence, but that may non be very visible in daily use. Instead, Samsung seems to be focusing more on the front end-facing camera; in that location it added an 8-megapixel sensor with autofocus and face up detection. The company says the average person will accept 25,000 selfies in a lifetime, so I suppose this makes sense, even if it'due south not the style I typically utilise a smartphone.

The other hardware features look impressive, like the utilise of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 in United states models and the Exynos 8895 in well-nigh overseas markets. These should exist the first phones with 10nm processors to make information technology to market when they go along sale on April 21, and this should enable faster functioning and lower ability consumption. I'one thousand also interested in Iris detection providing a higher level of security, besides as face detection making it easier to unlock your phone. (The phones yet accept the now-ubiquitous fingerprint detection, though it has moved to the back of the phone adjacent to the camera; I'm not sure how convenient that will feel in bodily utilize.)

Simply again, the things I thought were most interesting were the things that won't really be tested until the phone is released.

The biggest wildcard is probably the Bixby assistant, which Samsung said differs from other voice assistants in that it is "context-aware"—Bixby knows what is happening on the screen of the device—and by its integration of vox and touch. This involves integration with Samsung'southward own apps, but as well 3rd-political party apps, and I'll be curious to run into how well information technology works. (Bixby wasn't available to test at the launch). You tin launch Bixby by clicking on a button on the side of the telephone.

At the launch, I could run across the diverse tiles Bixby creates that y'all achieve by swiping from the correct of the domicile screen, which looked adept, though they looked very similar to the cards that Google Now enables (on the Google Pixel and other phones).

Of course, the telephone will also come with Google vocalism support, meaning it volition have two forms of voice assistants, which may be confusing. Koh went out of his fashion to extol Samsung'due south partnership with Google on the phone, reflected on the Android base, and said "Google has been by our side the entire fourth dimension."

The adjacent big feature is Samsung Connect, a way to command Samsung and SmartThings devices through Bixby on your phone. Samsung makes a good case for the phone as a logical place from which to control all of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices we have, merely the globe is not fabricated up entirely of Samsung devices. While SmartThings had a fair number of IoT integrations available, Samsung has a long style to go earlier it gets to the number of devices supporting the skills nosotros see with something like Amazon's Alexa. And we could talk for a long time about the security implications of all of these IoT devices.

And and then there is DeX, which, if it is properly implemented—and that remains an "if"—could be the most exciting feature. DeX promises to let you plug the Galaxy S8 into a modest dock, into which yous can plug a monitor or Television. With the attachment of a wireless keyboard and mouse, you could then use this as a desktop.

The thought of turning a phone into a desktop or laptop is far from a new 1: Palm was discussing it a decade agone; Motorola shipped the Atrix in 2022 with the aforementioned concept; Sentio is a "universal laptop trounce" for Android devices; and Microsoft has touted its Continuum feature, designed to turn Windows Phones into PCs, exemplified by its Lumia 950 and HP's Aristocracy X3. None of these has really been successful.

Samsung hopes this time volition exist different, and has made the devices easier to use and the docks more common. Finer, when y'all plug an S8 into a dock, it runs the tablet version of the application instead of the telephone version, and does so in an Android interface that supports multiple, resizable windows as well as the family cut, copy, and paste features. Yet it uses the same files on the phone and runs the phone versions of the applications, so you always have your data with you.

I was able to spend a few minutes with versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, besides as Adobe Lightroom, all of which appear to work well. Samsung says more applications volition be adapted for the new characteristic, and that Citrix, VMware, and Amazon VDI environments will be supported as well—important for this to piece of work in a corporate environs. Executives told me the visitor plans to have docks bachelor in public places—airports and hotels, for example—so that travelers can actually take advantage of the capability. Over again, it sounds great—but information technology's all almost the execution.

The company too touted new VR features, including a new version of its Gear 360 camera that looked very skillful, and a new motion controller.

Overall, I came abroad quite impressed by the S8 itself as a device, but even more interested by what the other features could mean in terms of changing the way we use these devices. I exercise believe nosotros are heading toward much more than employ of voice assistants, so I'chiliad looking forward to seeing if Bixby can actually do a lot more for me, simply I'one thousand a fleck skeptical about the IoT connections and hopeful merely uncertain equally to whether DeX can really bring near the convergence of telephone and PC that people have long talked near. I look forrard to trying it all out.

Michael J. Miller is master data officeholder at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. Miller, who was editor-in-principal of PC Magazine from 1991 to 2005, authors this web log for PCMag.com to share his thoughts on PC-related products. No investment advice is offered in this blog. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment house which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this weblog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be fabricated.