The Galaxy S8’s Ugly Sister – But I’m into her… S8 Active Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,518 words · ~7 min read
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i loved the galaxy s6 active but
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aside from being kind of a frump compared to its much hotter cousin the
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s6 it lacked a fingerprint sensor at a time
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when that was the next big thing to have
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for quick secure authentication the next generation of active integrated
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a fingerprint reader with the clicky home button for a truly no compromises
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experience though except the regular s7's killer new
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feature was ip68 water resistance removing one of the active's main
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selling points that and the s7 active was really bulky
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even for inactive so
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as you'd probably expect this generation is full of compromises
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again here we go
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after the expected message from our sponsor Intel
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hp's new omen x lineup comes equipped with Intel 7th generation core i7
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processors check them out at the link in the video description
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now in terms of the internal hardware the s8 active is every bit as worthy of
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the flagship label as the s8 and the
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note 8. it's got an octa-core processor four gigs of RAM 64 gigs of storage with
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microsd expansion i mean you guys know the drill but it's also got a couple of
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tricks up its sleeve that they don't first is the shatter resistant screen
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encased in a mil standard 810g temperature dust shock and pressure
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resistant enclosure and second is the
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massive 4 000 milliamp hour battery
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inside let's start with a closer look at the screen
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this one is a bit of a mixed bag from the regular s8 it carries over the
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bright accurate once configured correctly 5.8
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inch 2960x1440 amoled panel the unusual eighteen and a
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half by nine aspect ratio and on-screen buttons including a pressure
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sensitive home instead of hardware buttons
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a tough pill to swallow for some long time active fans though it wasn't a huge
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deal for me i personally like the flexibility of being able to hide them
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for more room for consuming vertical content
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not to mention horizontal content the big screen makes the s8 active supremely
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awesome for watching movies or other ultrawide aspect ratio content when
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you're on the go as long as you don't mind using headphones or the in my opinion
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inexcusable in 2017 mono bottom facing
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speaker configuration but
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if you were hoping for a shatter resistant display that also manages to
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somehow wrap around the edges of the device infinity style
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then you'll be sorely disappointed by the flat glass and
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definitely not bezel-less 75 screen to
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body ratio though again this isn't something that
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bothered me that much the s8 active is
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actually as big an improvement over the s7 active in terms of its screen to body
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ratio as the s8 was to the s7
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the bigger issue is that while both
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phones use gorilla glass 5 many users are reporting that the
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shatter resistant coating seems to make this one much more susceptible to micro
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scratching and mine does definitely have some micro scratches
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though with that said my s8 has just as many from similar use in my pocket so
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take that as you will i actually have a theory that whether it's corning's batch
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to batch variation or the different
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configurations that oems request for it
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uh their glass products are ending up with the same name for marketing
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purposes but really different characteristics the droid turbo gen one
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that i used for a year and then that taren has been using since has gorilla
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glass 3 but it has almost no surface
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imperfections to this day while the rest of my phones
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apple and Android usually end up scuffed to hell by pocket lint within a few days
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anyway i digress let's talk about the second big selling point of this phone
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the battery even as a pretty heavy user i managed
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only once to kill the s8 active in a single day and that was only because i
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subjected it to over six hours of simultaneous gps navigation and wi-fi
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hotspot sharing during an all-day on-location shoot down in seattle
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this is by far my favorite thing about active phones i mean i still end up
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charging every night but most people would easily get two days or more with
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some of the clever power saving features in the Android 7 nougat version of
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samsung experience but wait a second don't active phones
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have a third awesome selling point ah yes
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the programmable button on the left that wait what the
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it's a bixby button just like the rest of samsung's current lineup now
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i mean at least they let you disable it for accidental presses now but i'm still
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gonna copy-paste my usual spiel about how they should allow native
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reprogramming you know like they used to
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speaking of copy paste the camera including the front-facing iris scanner
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that i still don't find as fast or reliable as the fingerprint reader is
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literally copy-pasted from the galaxy s8 and that's a good thing i never noticed
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any difference in image quality or launch times on the rear 12 megapixel
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camera that records 4k video at up to 30 FPS
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and while it doesn't have a dual sensor
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system like the note 8 for optical zoom or fake bokeh which i'll be calling foca
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from now on honestly that matters way less to me these days
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than a quality front-facing camera and this one gets me better results than
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even the iphone 8. i mean it's not like i take a bunch of selfies with my
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duckface friends in the club or whatever but when i'm hanging out with my kids i
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end up capturing a lot more moments thanks to the wider angle lens and it's
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decent low light performance just remember before you use it make
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sure you turn off all the cheesy face shaping and skin smoothing effects
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now let's talk gripes
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the samsung experience on this phone is not the smoothest experience
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this device crashes more than every other phone that i've reviewed
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combined it's not every day or anything but it's
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too much everything from random reboots to
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the screen staying on with the clock stops so clearly not working until i
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hard reset to the phone clearly being
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working like it'll lock and unlock with the buttons but the touchscreen is
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totally unresponsive until i hard reset it
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and before you ask i checked a t site to
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make sure that i was running the latest software so
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samsung an update would be super swell
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and while you're at it you can't move an expanded list around
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on me while i am swiping stuff away from it
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and fix this one too when you hit the fingerprint sensor
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which i still don't like on the back by the way see
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there you go that's what it's supposed to do dump you on the home screen
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perfect but if you hit it sometimes when the
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phone isn't actually locked for some reason
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i then have to swipe before i can see the home screen
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why would i want that i mean it's not like it matters that
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much the instability that i've experienced already rules this phone out
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as a daily driver for me but if that could be fixed
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i otherwise really like it it's like it's like a dog that's smart
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friendly playful and pees on your stuff
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it just needs a little bit more work
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speaking of needing a little bit more work if you were just thinking you know
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my phone needs a little bit more work i want to spend some time making it look
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awesome and making it resistant to scuffs and scratches well dbrand has got
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you covered get it that's a pun because they cover your phone they're your
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source for awesome vinyl skins and they've got tons of options colors
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textures and devices you can cover your
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laptop your phone your tablet your console your console controllers and
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more they use only high quality authentic true textured 3m vinyl on
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every product and they are cut with unrivaled
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precision their customer service robots are easy
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to work with and their products are affordable with affordable also
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worldwide shipping so check them out at the link below you can use their
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customizer to see exactly what your device will look like it's pretty cool
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum
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which you should totally join