The Galaxy S8/S8+ is a beautiful looking thing but the all-glass exterior makes it a fragile device to use without a case. For those who want the performance of the Galaxy S8 with added durability to withstand the elements, there’s a new variant that will be announced very soon.
From the new leaked photos and videos, the Galaxy S8 Active will retain the same shape as the current Galaxy S8 with a tall 18.5:9 Infinity Display. To withstand hard drops, the Galaxy S8 Active gets a flat 5.8″ screen and MIL-STD 810G certification which are quite similar to the LG G6. There are no physical buttons in front and you get a pressure sensitive virtual home button like the standard S8. Of course, there’s also an extra button at the side to summon Bixby.
The rear of the Galaxy S8 Active gets a rugged looking plastic/rubbery texture which is obviously more durable than glass. The camera, heart rate sensor and fingerprint sensor placement at the rear remains unchanged and the same goes for its USB Type-C, headphone jack and speaker grill at the bottom.
To last more than a day, the Galaxy S8 Active also comes with a larger 4,000mAh battery which is 25% more in capacity than the regular S8. The rest of the hardware remains unchanged with a Snapdragon 835 processor (US market) with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It is interesting to point out that the SIM slot is double sided to accept a nano-SIM and a microSD card.
Unfortunately, you probably can’t get one here officially once it goes on sale in the US very soon. The previous Galaxy S6/S7 Active variants were released as exclusive devices to US carrier AT&T and it is likely that the new S8 Active get the same treatment as well. If you want to toughen up your existing Galaxy S8/S8+, one alternative is to get a rugged case from Otterbox.
