Samsung Galaxy A8 star - pros and cons

In June 2018, Samsung unveiled its Galaxy A8 Star with lush fanfare. The presentation ended with an unpleasant misunderstanding, because the South Korean electronics giant, like many of its Chinese counterparts, went for a trick: the novelty had a "twin brother" Galaxy A9 Star, intended for sales in the Chinese market. Why this move was made is not clear, because an experienced buyer has long known how to choose a smartphone, and will be able to distinguish the old model even under the new name.

At the presentation, Samsung identified the A8 Star in the niche of inexpensive devices, but how much it costs, the smartphone was not announced.

Equipment

The Samsung Galaxy A8 Star is packed in a regular white cardboard box.

Inside, it is completed with the following items:

• Smartphone;
• Power Supply;
• Cable (cord length 1 m);
• Headphones;
• Adapter to USB Type-C.

It is worth noting about headphones that they are famous for their poor quality. They can be used only for the first time, then they will definitely need a replacement. The headset sits uncomfortably in the ears, constantly drops out, the sound is the most mediocre. Therefore, lovers of music, audio books or radio, it is better to choose a decent headset with high-quality sound transmission.

General characteristics

The phone has the following sensors:

• gyroscope;
• accelerometer;
• proximity sensor;
• light sensor;
• barometer;
• compass.

The Samsung Galaxy A8 Star smartphone supports dual SIM or one SIM and MicroSD at the same time. The built-in memory can be overclocked with a memory card up to 512 GB.

The device is unlocked through a fingerprint scanner located at the back. This turned out to be completely inconvenient, since the scanner is located at the level of the camera: you want to unlock the phone, but you grope the camera's peephole. An alternative unlocking is the owner's face recognition, but practice shows that recognition is triggered only 2 times out of 5.

The smartphone runs on Android 8.0 Oreo, the proprietary shell is Experience 9.0.

Key features of the new shell:

• there are four new keyboard themes;
• the "Keyboard" item in the "Settings" has been completely changed;
• added unique emoticons, emoji and stickers;
• new search by smartphone;
• virtual assistant;
• on-screen settings are supplemented with fresh filters;
• now you can have two accounts at once in different messengers;
• new game mode;
• the ability to adapt games to the display;
• extended mail management tools;
• cloud storage Samsung Cloud;

other.

Design

Visually, the appearance of the smartphone Samsung Galaxy A8 Star can be called laconic, restrained, but stylish. The absence of the famous "monobrow" at the top of the screen has undoubtedly increased the popularity of this model. The manufacturer chose high-quality materials for the phone: the body is made entirely of glass framed by an aluminum frame.

The device is released in two colors:

• the black;
• white.

The back cover houses a dual rear camera, flash and a fingerprint scanner. The camera, like on other Samsung devices, stands out.Reviews of past devices by Samsung fans were filled with discontent about the inconvenient position of the logo above the screen. Now the inscription has moved to the back cover.

Device dimensions:

• weight - 191 g;
• height - 162 mm;
• width - 77 mm;
• thickness - 7.6 mm.

The impressive size creates some inconvenience to use. The user will not immediately get used to working on it with one hand. It's worth getting a protective bumper for your phone right away to prevent bumps from accidental drops, as the all-glass device is quite slippery.

Screen

Samsung is one of the best screen makers in the world. Accordingly, the Galaxy A8 Star also has a stunning Super Amoled 1080 by 2220 (FHD +) screen. Benefits of Super Amoled Matrix:

• "Real" black;
• instant response;
• energy saving;
• excellent readability in the sun;
• small display thickness.

The diagonal is 6 inches. The useful area of ​​the display is 80%.

Manufacturers far-sightedly abandoned the "bangs" and this made the device extremely convenient for watching a variety of videos or even movies. For protection, the smartphone has a protective 2.5 D glass with an effective oleophobic coating. In some reviews, experts talk about erasing this coating in a month, so an additional protective glass sticker on the screen is not superfluous. Moreover, Samsung is famous for the production of related accessories for its devices.

Sound

The device produces good sound, which is not annoying and loud enough. You can even hear a little bass. There is a 3.5 mm headphone jack - this is a plus for music lovers, since modern flagships often refuse such connectors.

Many smartphones with the Android operating system have become unpleasantly famous, as not the loudest in listening to music and with complex controls. Samsung has created an app specifically for the capricious and discerning music lover - SoundAssistant. This application is equipped with a colossal amount of sound settings, an equalizer. SoundAssistant also helps to control sound not only on a smartphone, but also broadcast it to various other devices (PC or speaker), and there is also a special sound playback in the application for games.

Performance

The smartphone has a Snapdragon 660 processor. Together with 4 GB of internal memory, this device is a great workhorse.

The processor cores (Kryo 260) are divided into two clusters:

1. Energy saving (frequency 1.8 GHz) - reduces charge consumption;
2. Productive (frequency 2.2 GHz) - is responsible for the stable operation of the device.

The official dry specifications only give a general idea of ​​the device. A clearer understanding of a smartphone will give its presence in any rating of the highest quality or most powerful phones. They get into such top lists by passing various synthetic tests, where the devices receive points and are divided into categories according to their capabilities. Today, manufacturers of popular models are striving to conquer the AnTuTu test. This information will help the buyer to decide on the questions: "Which model is better to buy?" or "Which company is the best smartphone?" Samsung Galaxy A8 Star scored 140,000 points in the AnTuTu test and earned 4 stars. Of course, he did not reach the flagship, but he confirmed that he can cope with most tasks of increased complexity, run games at high settings, play video in 4K.

Information for active fans of mobile games: World of Tanks managed to deliver unchanged 40 FPS in 15 minutes, and PUBG Mobile - 35 in the same time. True, the device is very hot, which is a significant disadvantage.

Galaxy A8 Star, thanks to the Andreno 512 video chip, has rich graphics capabilities. The image of all applications will be great.

Summing up a small summary on the performance of the Galaxy A8 Star, it is worth noting that the device, of course, is powerful and can easily cope with most applications, but you cannot call it nimble.

Camera

Today, many manufacturers equip their devices with dual rear camera units.It may seem to an ordinary person that this is a tribute to fashion, everyone is doing it just like that, but in fact, such a solution gives additional capabilities to the camera of an ordinary smartphone. The rear camera of the Galaxy A8 Star consists of a 16MP and 24MP dual camera unit.

The A8 Star's dual rear cameras benefit from the following benefits:

• Bokeh effect - photos with a blurred background have long attracted photography enthusiasts. Now it has become possible on an ordinary phone and is available to everyone, not just the owners of professional equipment;
• excellent detail is achieved by the fact that one sensor is responsible for rendering the color of the image, and the other just for detail. The pictures are clear and contrasting;
• excellent picture quality even in poor lighting conditions;
• zoom without loss of quality. Sometimes zooming in, you can blur the picture, degrade its quality. One of the cameras is equipped with a wide-angle lens, which allows you to zoom without losing photo quality.

The pictures are of decent quality, with a good depth of field.

Sample photo:

Additional camera features of Samsung Galaxy A8 Star:

• digital zoom;
• stabilization;
• autofocus;
• shooting a panorama;
• touch focus;
• geotagging capability;
• white balance adjustment;
• self-timer;
• scene selection modes;
• shooting HDR.

The camera delicately blurs the background and maximizes the detail of the subject. How does the Galaxy A8 Star take pictures at night or in other extreme low light conditions? If you know the basic techniques of photography, problems should not arise. Even in the dark, the photos are of high quality.

How to photograph at night:

Most of the reviews of this device call the device a selfie smartphone and this is not surprising. After all, "selfies" on a 24-megapixel camera with f / 2.0 aperture are simply amazing. Surely, the Samsung Galaxy A8 Star will become a reliable companion for many bloggers or just fans of social networks - the A8 Star camera has a large set of photo enhancers. Here you can easily disguise any flaws, correct defects, embellish reality and immediately upload them to the network.

Autonomy

The Samsung Galaxy A8 Star has a lithium-ion non-removable battery with a capacity of 3700 mAh. There is a fast charging function.

Outcome

Samsung has long held a leading position in the smartphone market and can freely compete with such a mastodon as Apple. Undoubtedly, the Galaxy A8 Star will conquer its niche in the hearts of buyers. The versatile functionality of the device will satisfy the most extravagant selection criteria.

Samsung's refusal of cheap plastic to build the case in favor of aluminum and glass did the Galaxy A8 Star only good. The design of the novelty turned out to be decent and stylish, despite the design of the device only in classic colors. The device is pleasant to hold in hands, it is solid and looks presentable.

The Samsung Galaxy A8 Star smartphone can be easily used as a navigator, as the device supports communication via GPS, GLONASS. The satellite finds the device in seconds - no connection problems were identified.

The device does not have a built-in radio, but internet radio works fine, although it requires a constant and uninterrupted internet connection.

The Samsung Galaxy A8 Star smartphone can become a Wi-Fi access point, that is, you can easily distribute your Internet to friends and family on any surrounding devices.

The huge screen with Super Amoled will provide excellent color reproduction, but Samsung is tactfully silent about the unnatural blue color and frequent fading of individual pixels.

• high build quality;
• laconic design;
• large screen;
• protective 2.5 D glass;
• oleophobic coating;
• dual sim support;
• there is a fingerprint scanner;
• availability of NFC;
• the presence of ANT +;
• 3.5 mm jack (for headset);
• using microSD;
• USB Type-C connector;
• great camera.

• poor choice of phone colors;
• powerful, but not nimble;
• inconvenient location of the fingerprint scanner.

For the price, the Samsung Galaxy A8 Star is not in the budget category. The average price of A8 Star in Russia is 27,000 rubles.