The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus continue Samsung's recent penchant of combining outstanding smartphone design with an excellent display to create an all-around fantastic experience.

Incredible & comfortable design Outstanding Super AMOLED display Fast performance Good all-round camera Bixby Voice Assistant has potential Best in class in-box headphones Acceptable battery life Front-facing camera has autofocus Plenty of customization options

Odd fingerprint sensor location Bixby is limited and needs work No major improvements to the camera Iris recognition is hit and miss Bottom-firing speaker is average at best

The AnTuTu battery test sets the display brightness to maximum and cranks up workloads for the processor, graphics core, memory and storage subsystems. It then runs through a number of real-world scripted workloads, including web browsing, gaming, and video playback, in an effort to drain the...

That's the first thing Samsung's product manager said to me before introducing the company's new flagship Galaxy S8 last month. He's not wrong: the modern concept of the smartphone has been around for a decade now, and the differences between devices are exceedingly incremental.

Gorgeous design; Meticulous fit and finish; Great camera; Big screen; but not a big phone; Gorgeous design; Meticulous fit and finish; Great camera; Enormous; stunning display

Annoying preinstalled apps; Atrocious fingerprint scanner placement; Merely average battery life; Bixby is useless; Annoying preinstalled apps; Atrocious fingerprint scanner placement; Bixby is useless; Larger size can be cumbersome

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is a gorgeous big-screen phone with a comfortable single-handed feel, and it's packed with top-notch components and promising new software.

Hand-friendly design; Gorgeous screen; Best processor and modem available

Awkward fingerprint scanner placement; Average battery life

Iterative future In an industry that seems to have hit an innovation plateau, with almost every device looking nearly identical and company's grasping for consumer attention in a saturated high-end Android market, the S8 and S8+ are an iterative jump forward that manages to still feel exciting.

Stunningly beautiful and unique looking; One of the best Android displays out there; Extremely powerful thanks to the Snapdragon 835

Expensive; Still similar to last year's S7 and S7 Edge; Double edges (if you don't like Samsung's previous 'Edge' models; this could be an issue

How does a company shake a global recall of a high profile product If you're the world's biggest smartphone maker, you keep doing what you know -- tweaking, innovating, improving and building the very products that lead to success.

Amazing screen; Fast; reliable camera; Bigger display; smaller housing; Fast performance; Waterproof

Bixby isn't ready; Some software tweaks just don't make sense; Lack of stereo speakers

How different, or better can you make an Android smartphone? After all, the glossy design, curved display and 12MP camera of the Samsung Galaxy S8 aren't that different from the Galaxy S7 Edge that only came out last year.

Where to start with a Samsung Galaxy S phone launch? These phones aim to be the very best on the market and in recent years, they've arguably succeeded. But Samsung has always had a habit of hyping them through the roof and sending them to market laden with gimmicky features that can range from...

Very pretty; Very fast; Superb camera

Bixby virtual assistant is a joke; Average battery life

There's an old saying used by people to pluck up courage in tough situations – "it takes pressure to make a diamond". That's what Samsung did. Put simply – the Galaxy S8 is the best smartphone Samsung has ever produced. The device has a brilliant and iconic design and incredible build-quality.

Samsung's Galaxy S8 could be the perfect phone. A little expensive, but offering incredible value for that price, the Galaxy S8 has a great camera, excellent performance, a battery that'll do most people all day, in a package that just works so well.