Samsung to launch Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones in India on April 19

It’s official, Samsung is launching its latest flagship smartphones — Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ — in India on April 19. The company announced this in a tweet on its official Twitter account. “India, get ready to #UnboxYourPhone! Samsung #GalaxyS8 #GalaxyS8Plus, India launch on 19th April, 2017,” goes the tweet from @SamsungMobileIN.

The two smartphones are already up for pre-order in India. The company, however, so far has not announced the devices’ India pricing.
South Korea-based Samsung unveiled Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones at an event on March 29 in New York, US. The duo run on Google’s latest OS Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. Coming to specs, Samsung Galaxy S8 sports a 5.8-inch QuadHD+ (2960×1440) ‘Infinity Display’ with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection and 570ppi pixel density. It is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor along with 4GB RAM and 64GB inbuilt storage.

On the optics front, the Galaxy S8 sports a 12MP dual-pixel camera with f/1.7 aperture and OIS. There is also a front-facing 8MP autofocus camera with f/1.7 aperture. Some of the connectivity features included are Wi-Fi, NFC, USB Type-C, GPS and Bluetooth 5.0.
The bigger-screen variant, Galaxy S8+ sports a 6.2-inch QuadHD+ (2960×1440) ‘Infinity Display’ with 529ppi pixel density. Powered by the same processor, the Galaxy S8 Plus comes with the same RAM and inbuilt storage. It is backed by a larger 3500mAh battery supporting the same wireless fast-charging technology. The camera specifics also stay similar to that of the Galaxy S8. Furthermore, both Galaxy S8 and S8+ have pressure-sensitive home buttons built right into the phones’ screens.
It is worth adding that the smartphones are likely to be powered by the company’s own Exynos 9-series processor in select countries, including India. Besides featuring a fingerprint sensor at the back, the duo also come with iris scanner and facial recognition. The smartphones come with IP68 rating, which makes them water and dust resistant. The duo support microSD card up to 256GB.
For connectivity, the new smartphones are claimed to be among the first in the world to be capable of achieving gigabit LTE speeds. Backed by a 3000mAh battery, the Galaxy S8 also supports wireless fast-charging technology.
The smartphones come in five colour variants – Midnight Black, Arctic Silver, Maple Gold, Coral Blue and Orchid Gray. The duo are also claimed to be the first ones that come with Mobile HDR Premium certification.
One of the key highlights of Galaxy S8 and S8+ is the company’s home-brewed Bixby digital assistant, rival to Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana. There’s also a dedicated button to fire up the assistant on the handsets.However,

Samsung recently announced that it is delaying the voice control feature of Bixby. A company spokesperson recently told the Verge website that Bixby Voice will be available later this spring. The features of the smart assistant that will be available upon launch include Vision, Home and Reminder.