UPDATE: Samsung Galaxy S8 is officially priced from RM3,299 in Malaysia. Pre-order details here.
Samsung will start taking pre-orders for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in Malaysia on April 11 according to Samsung Malaysia Vice President, Lee Jui Siang. He added that three colours will be available at launch – Midnight Black, Orchid Grey and Maple Gold. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ come in two additional colours, Artic Silver and Coral Blue but this will not be available when the devices are released in Malaysia. Instead Samsung will look at public reaction and decide if there is any interest in the other colours and release them in Malaysia later, should there be demand.
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ will go on sale globally on April 21 and is expected to be available in Malaysia soon after that. Typically, pre-orders are done two weeks prior to sale date, from what we can gather, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ is likely to be on sale in Malaysia on April 28.
In terms of prices, Samsung Malaysia has not provided any details but we’re expecting the price to be very close to the Galaxy S7 at launch – about RM3,099 for the Galaxy S8 and RM3,299 for the Galaxy S8+. This, however has not been confirmed by Samsung Malaysia.
The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ marks a radical departure from previous Samsung flagship smartphones with a completely new design that see the front panel of the device completely dominated by a gorgeous Super AMOLED QHD+ display (5.8 inches, 570ppi for the Galaxy S8 and 6.2 inches, 529ppi for the Galaxy S8+). Despite increasing the screen size, the Galaxy 8 and S8+ remain comfortable to hold and operate with one hand.
This compact design is made possible by deleting the physical home button (replaced with a virtual home button with haptic feedback that feels like a physical button) and relocating the fingerprint scanner to the rear of the device. The 18.5:9 aspect ratio display now covers 83% of the front panel and is 36% larger conventional 16:9 displays.
Other headline specifications include, a 10nm Octa-Core processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB of on-board storage with support for microSD expansion up to 256GB. 3,000 mAh battery in the Galaxy S8 and 3,500 mAh in the Galaxy S8+. The rear camera is the same 12MP dual pixel f/1.7 camera as the Galaxy S7 but software and image processing has been enhanced to deliver better image and video quality. The front camera is new with a 8MP f/1.7 unit that features smart auto focus for better group selfies.
