This week saw the day that myself and my fellow phone geeks have been waiting for, the launch of the much-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S8. The successor to the awesome Galaxy S7, which was named Best Smartphone of 2016 at the recent Mobile World Congress, the S8 has some big shoes to fill. So, how will it do it?
The S7 was based on the Exynos 8890, Samsung’s high performance SOC built on a 14nm FinFET process with ARM’s Midgard based Mali-T880 GPU in an MP12 configuration. Featuring impressive graphics and powering high-quality mobile VR experiences, the S7 has enjoyed a fantastic reputation. The S8 is powered by the recently announced Exynos 8895 SOC and takes things up a notch as the world’s first processor to be built on 10nm FinFET process technology with improvements to the transistor structure. This means more transistors can be fitted into the same silicon area, reducing power consumption by up to 40% while increasing performance by up to 27%. The 8895 features an octa-core CPU which includes four of Samsung’s second generation custom designed main CPU cores and four ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs as well as the newest high performance Mali GPU, Mali-G71. Launched in 2016, Mali-G71 represents a whole new world of graphics processing power. Based on the new generation of Mali GPU architecture, Bifrost, Mali-G71 provides maximum performance with minimum energy expenditure and has innovative power and bandwidth saving features such as clause shaders and full coherency between the GPU and CPU. These architectural advantages combined with the process node improvements make for enormous gains in performance and efficiency. In fact, by implementing a 20 core configuration of the Mali-G71 GPU, the Exynos 8895 boasts 60% more performance compared to the 8890 as well as the ability to manage 4K recording and playback at 120fps.
Samsung have made it clear that they intend this SOC to be a game-changer. Not content with the fantastic reception of the Samsung Gear VR, the super-popular, smartphone powered VR headset created in collaboration with Oculus, they’ve gone up a gear there too. In a separate area of MWC they demonstrated a standalone VR headset, independent of your smartphone, powered solely by this new chip. Pitched as a prototype, it seems that Samsung are keen for Head Mounted Display (HMD) manufacturers to consider Exynos for the next wave of devices as VR pushes through into the mainstream. With Mali GPUs used in more than 50% of mobile Virtual Reality devices there’s a solid foundation of high quality graphics for an impressive, immersive VR experience.
So back to the phone itself. The waterproof Galaxy S8 features a 5.8 inch, Full HD, edge to edge infinity display with no bezels and no front button in order to maximise viewable content. The home button works as usual but is now built into the screen itself and operated by a pressure sensor for a sleeker, smoother appearance. Flexible screen content allows you to custom-resize windows for smoother multitasking. Security has been ramped up too, now your content is secured not only by your fingerprints, but by your eyes. Iris scanning allows you the reassurance that only you are able to access your phone and facial recognition technology has been incorporated too for even speedier unlocking. Once you’re in, the advancements keep coming. Bixby is the new personal assistant you never knew you’d missed. You can communicate with it via talk, text and touch for better than ever interaction. Even searching has hit the next generation with the option to simply show Bixby what you want to look for by opening your camera app.
The superior processing power and added complexity mean this phone can bring you the next level of emerging technologies that started with mobile VR and exploded with Pokemon Go. Computer vision, machine learning, and mixed realities are all within reach with this awesome example of ARM powered technology enabling tomorrow’s use cases today.