Samsung Galaxy A-series has been renewed for 2018 with today’s announcement of Galaxy A8 (2018) and Galaxy A8+ (2018). The two devices will be the premium mid-range smartphones from Samsung that have borrowed a feature or two from the flagship Galaxy S8. Infinity Display has made to the A-series smartphones and it is in line with the handful of leaks that had earlier surfaced.
Starting with the Galaxy A8 (2018), the phone is smaller of the two and has a 5.6-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity display. It doesn’t come with curved edges like the Galaxy S8 does, though. This model will have 4GB of RAM and an internal storage option of 32GB or 64GB. Being a smaller phone, the Galaxy A8 (2018) will have a 3000mAh battery.
While, the Galaxy A8+ (2018) comes with a larger 6-inch Infinity display with a Full HD+ Super AMOLED panel. The phone will have two variants – one with 6GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage and another with 4GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. For catering the larger display on this device, Samsung has included a larger 3500mAh battery pack.
Other than the aforementioned information, everything else is just the same on both the devices, as if Samsung just launched a mid-range variant of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.
Both the phones will come powered by an Exynos 7885 processor with two cores running at 2.2GHz and six cores at 1.6GHz. Mali-G71 GPU has been included for graphics performance. The Galaxy A8 (2018) and Galaxy A8+ (2018) are IP68 rated for dust and water resistance. They support dual SIM cards and run on Android 7.1.1 Nougat out-of-the-box.
For the camera department, the phones come with dual selfie cameras, which is a first for any Samsung smartphone. One of them is a 16MP sensor with f/1.9 aperture, while the other one is an 8MP sensor with f/1.9 aperture. Over at the back, there is a single 16MP camera unit that has an f/1.7 aperture. The fingerprint scanner now sits below the rear camera for an easy access.
Interestingly enough, the exact camera and fingerprint scanner placement will also be seen in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9. That’s again based on the leaks that have surfaced so far. Considering how accurate the leaks about Galaxy A8 (2018) have turned out to be, we can bet big on that of Galaxy S9.
Despite their varying battery sizes, both the phones will have adaptive fast charging. They support Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, and will have a USB Type-C port. Being Samsung devices, they will come with all the quirks that Samsung’s rich UI offers, including Samsung Pay. However, it is disappointing to see a new phone coming out in January 2018 to come with Android Nougat.
Like mentioned above, the two phones will be available in the European markets starting January next year. For the rest of the world, the availability details aren’t known yet. Both the devices will be available in Black, Orchid Grey, and Blue colours. The Galaxy A8 (2018) will start at 499 Euros ($588/Rs. 37,755) while the larger Galaxy A8+ (2018) will start from 599 Euros ($706/Rs. 45,320).
