Samsung S8/S8+ review: gorgeous design, build quality, great camera, but fingerprint scanner is in awkward spot, Bixby's useless, preinstalled apps are annoying
Here's What We Think About It iFixit : Samsung Galaxy S8 Teardown Steve Kovach / Business Insider : Why the iPhone 7 is still better than the Samsung Galaxy S8 Ina Fried / Axios : Putting the Galaxy S8 camera through its paces Daniel Bader / Android Central : Galaxy S8 review: Flo's take Zach Epstein / BGR : Samsung's Galaxy S8 is already a smash hit Danny Zepeda / TechnoBuffalo : Galaxy S8 teardown reveals it's nearly impossible to repair Inquirer : Galaxy S8 owners complain of ‘red-tinted’ display borkage Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily : Qualcomm, Skyworks, Broadcom Hold Onto Top Spots in Samsung 'Galaxy S8′ Rob Thubron / TechSpot : iFixit teardowns of Galaxy S8/S8+ show that the handsets aren't easy to repair Vikas Shukla / ValueWalk : Galaxy S8 Teardown: What iFixit Found Inside Samsung's New Phone Todd Haselton / CNBC : Samsung Galaxy S8 review - this is the future of smartphones Tyler Lee / Ubergizmo : iFixit Galaxy S8 Teardown Gives It A 4/10 For Repairability Ewan Spence / Forbes : The Powerful Secret Hiding Inside Samsung's New Galaxy S8 Chris Velazco / Engadget : Last year's Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge were excellent phones … Ben Schoon / 9to5Google : Comment: The Samsung Galaxy S8's fingerprint sensor is infuriating in more ways than one Quentyn Kennemer / Phandroid : Be very careful with your Galaxy S8, because it's extremely difficult to repair Ryne Hager / Android Police : Galaxy S8 and S8+ take it all off for our amusement in iFixit's latest teardown Lance Ulanoff / Mashable : Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+ prove you can never have too much screen Chris Burns / SlashGear : Day 1 with Galaxy S8: 5 tips for new users Ben Fox Rubin / CNET : Galaxy S8 is awesome, except for one thing (The 3:59, Ep. 212) Tim-o-tato / Droid Life : Galaxy S8 Teardown Confirms These Phones Are a Pain to Self Repair Vlad Savov / The Verge : No more TouchWiz jokes: Samsung's software has caught up to its hardware Michael Simon / CIO.com : Galaxy S8+ Unboxing: A whole lot more than a phone Brian Crecente / Polygon : Gear VR's latest iteration is more about the phone than the controller Larry Dignan / ZDNet : Samsung's Galaxy S8 does DeX: Is it a Chromebook challenger or virtual desktop play? Walt Mossberg / The Verge : Samsung Galaxy S8 squeezes more into less Luke Dormehl / Cult of Mac : Samsung Galaxy S8 battery looks awfully familiar Marques Brownlee : Samsung Galaxy S8 Review: The Ultimate Smartphone? Andrei Călina / BetaNews : How to unlock a Samsung Galaxy S8, or any other smartphone, quickly and safely Kieren McCarthy / The Register : Samsung's Shixby: Reviewers unimpressed with S8 digital assistant Cory Gunther / Gotta Be Mobile : 6 Things the Galaxy S8 Tells Us About the Galaxy Note 8 Rajesh Pandey / Android Beat : Samsung Galaxy S8+ Teardown Reveals Same Battery Layout as Galaxy Note 7 Evan Selleck / iPhone Hacks : Samsung Galaxy S8 Review Roundup: Achieving Redemption ABC News : Galaxy S8: More screen and elegance, but a hefty price tag Tweets: @engadget : Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus review: Redemption is here http://twitter.com/... Ian Betteridge / @ianbetteridge : Not cool, Samsung. You don't want the NYT to review your phone? http://www.nytimes.com/... http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The Verge's Galaxy S8 verdict lands almost exactly a year after its Galaxy S7 review, and the shape is familiar: Samsung's hardware — design, build, camera — earns top marks while the software layer drags. What changed between the two flagships is that the weak spot moved from generic bloat to a specific bet: Bixby, which the hands-on three weeks earlier had flagged as the one untested variable, is now judged useless out of the gate.
The review also lands amid early turbulence the coverage already documents — teardowns calling the S8 nearly impossible to repair and owner complaints about red-tinted displays — so the awkward fingerprint placement and preinstalled apps stack onto a launch that is, per BGR, a commercial smash hit anyway. That gap between sales momentum and reviewer sentiment is the story to watch.
First-order effects
- Buyers choosing the S8 on design and camera must work around the fingerprint scanner sitting beside the camera and a dedicated assistant Samsung's own reviewers call useless, while the preinstalled app load repeats the S7-era bloat complaint verbatim.
Second-order effects
- Samsung responds on hardware faster than on software: the Galaxy S9+ review a year later credits better fingerprint sensor placement, but Bixby is again judged a failure — the physical fix ships, the assistant doesn't improve.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across S7 → S8 → S9, Samsung's flagship cycle becomes hardware-iterative but assistant-stagnant: a device shipping a dedicated button for software reviewers consistently pan, ceding the assistant layer on its own hardware to whatever rivals ship.
The trend: Samsung's flagship reviews show a company that can fix hardware complaints within one cycle — the fingerprint scanner — but whose in-house assistant has now failed review three years running, making Bixby a structural liability rather than a launch stumble.