Samsung Galaxy S8

Stellar design and a brilliant performer, the S8 is the best of the best – but it comes at a huge price

- Alan Martin

The battle to be the world’s best Android phone has never been so fierce. For a few years Samsung appeared to be king with barely any effort: a minor update was all it took. Now, it must wage war with brilliant handsets such as the Google Pixel and rescue a reputation tarnished by the burnt-out corpse of the Galaxy Note 7. Add a SIM-free price of £689 and the S8 must not only be good – it must be brilliant.

Its design certainly lives up to this description. By removing the physical home button, adding height and making curved edges ubiquitous, Samsung has created a thing of beauty. And, just as important, it’s extremely comfortable in the hand.

I use a Galaxy S7 as my main phone, itself a slim and attractive handset, and the Galaxy S8 leaves it in the dust. Putting them side by side, the differences are obvious. It isn’t much bigger, but it uses space much more effectively with around 84% of the front occupied by the screen – a big upgrade on the S7’s 72%. It’s only 3g heavier and 0.1mm thicker.

The phone inherits three design features from the previous generation: it’s IP68- certified, which means it’s waterproof in 1.5m of water for up to half an hour; it supports wireless Qi and PNA charging; and it has expandable storage for micro SD cards up to 256 GB in size, should the 64 GB of onboard storage prove insufficient. USB Type-C is in, which is better in the long run – but awkward if your house, like mine, has become a retirement home for micro- USB cables. There’s even room for a 3.5mm headphone jack.

There are two legitimate issues you can have with the design. The first is that a whole button is dedicated to Bixby, Samsung’s AI assistant, which doesn’t do a great deal right now. That makes it essentially a second home button, but the fact that Samsung has given it such prominence suggests it will become more useful in time.