The result? Almost every smartphone OEM is focusing on the products they sell under the Rs 35,000 price bracket. Be it OnePlus, Xiaomi, Huawei, and even HMD Global’s Nokia. However, one company has remained largely absent in this segment — Samsung. Yes, the Korean juggernaut which still holds the majority of the market share. But it has begun bleeding numbers now, and it’s making changes left and right to reestablish its unprecedented reign.
It’s also on the heavier end of the spectrum at 191 grams thanks to the all-glass body, a hefty battery pack and of course, the enormous screen on the front. Add that to the tall display, and you’ve got yourself a rather inconvenient phone. Mind you; it’s still surprisingly handy than I thought it would, probably because of the 18.5:9 aspect ratio.
Moreover, you will have to clean a ton of finger smudges at the end of a day, but I guess that’s the price you have to pay for glass design. The situation can be curbed to some level if you opt for the Gold variant or a case, though. One of the major highlights of the Galaxy A8+ is the fact that it’s IP68 certified. This essentially means it can survive splashes of water and even a drop in the commode.
A Plus-Sized Screen
Another cornerstone of the Galaxy A8+ lies in what Samsung does best — making big, bright, and vibrant screens. The Galaxy A8+ inherits all of those perks and comes with a 6-inch Super AMOLED display which features a resolution of Full HD+. There’s also a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass present, but you’re going to slap a tempered glass on it anyway, so that does even matter?
The display on the Galaxy A8+ is sharp and comes with ample brightness to be visible under any circumstances. Although out of the box, I did find it excessively vibrant and saturated. Fortunately, you can tone it down in the settings. But I’m told users tend to prefer the default setting. Opting for the 18.5:9 aspect ratio has allowed Samsung to scrap off every unnecessary bezel from the front and the outcome is stupendous just like the company’s flagship phones. In addition to that, the screen can remain always-on for showing you quick bits of information such as notifications, time, alarms and more. Another poor positional choice — the speaker. It’s present slightly above the power button on the right side which is the place my hands usually rest on when I’m using the phone. Even if I’m holding the phone with one hand while watching videos in landscape mode, the speaker ends up being blocked. It’s not a well-thought decision is all I’m saying.
A Caller’s Paradise
A-Minus Software
The Galaxy A8+ runs on Samsung’s custom software which is built on top of Android Nougat (no Oreo yet, sadly). And I’m glad to report that it’s much better than it ever used to be. Most of the granular settings are now tucked away deep in the settings like Smart Stay, Gaming Mode, and more. All the Samsung bells and whistles are present as you’d expect including Samsung Pay, themes, dual messenger which lets you run two WhatsApp accounts, secure folder, what have you. It’s still a bloatware galore, and you can not uninstall any of them including Facebook, Microsoft’s entire productivity suite and a bunch of Samsung’s own.
Under the hood, the Galaxy A8+ is powered by Samsung’s homegrown Exynos 7885 octa-core chipset with 6GB of RAM, 64GB internal storage, and a Mali-G71 GPU. The phone performs exceptionally well whether it’s a resource intensive game or just browsing social feeds. It does suffer from this one weird bug which paralyzes the phone completely. The only fix I could find for it is an old-school reboot with the button combination. It’s not as regular as to be a deal breaker but Samsung certainly needs to address it in the next update. The 3500mAh battery is equally impressive as the Galaxy A8+ can easily last more than a day even on heavy use. It was able to produce consistently a screen-on-time of over five hours. Plus, the phone supports quick charging as well and can be juiced up to a hundred percent in roughly 90 minutes.
A Mixed Bag of Cameras
The camera setup on the Galaxy A8+ is primarily built for users who prefer clicking selfies over anything else. The phone, therefore, features two sensors on the front and only a single at the back.
The rear 16-megapixel f/1.7 lens manages to capture excellent pictures in the majority of scenarios irrespective of whether you’re indoors or outdoors. Images taken on the Galaxy A8+ turn out detailed and have accurate contrasts. They’re neither oversaturated, nor dull. The phone is able to figure out the right exposure setting even under direct sunlight which is quite commendable. Whenever it doesn’t, the HDR mode can be kicked in. It is a little on the aggressive side, however, not as much as to ruin the shot.
The Galaxy A8+ does struggle in low-light situations. I was trying shoot a concert, and the phone just kept going off-focus all the time. It wasn’t an entirely dark environment either. The only way the Galaxy A8+ is able to click acceptable pictures during the nighttime is if you and the object both are at a standstill. Even in those, you’ll have to settle with soft borders and noise.
The lack of Optical Image Stabilization is a lot more apparent when you record videos. The clips, while feature passable details and colors, are shaky most of the times. It also can not record in 4K and neither does it have the Slow Motion mode which are certainly significant drawbacks considering the price and competition. In addition to that, the phone suffers from the infamous “focus hunting” issue which leads to stutters in your clips whenever the phone refocuses.
On the front, you’ll find two sensors — one regular 16-megapixel and a secondary 8-megapixel lens for producing live bokeh effects. While the selfies taken in daylight were mostly great, the pair’s drawbacks begin to appear as the lights go down. For starters, it faces difficulties with the edges and exposure. The depth-of-field can, at times, seem artificial too. That being said, it is on par with the competition, all of which tend to struggle with dimly lit scenarios.
Rounding that off is the plethora of settings and modes Samsung bundles. This includes animated stickers, Bixby Vision (which literally never worked once for me), Manual, and you can even download more. The bottom is that the camera on the Galaxy A8+ is right at the top in its league and at times, a little above them as well.
