A new leak has uncovered a couple of live photos of the Galaxy S8 Active, hinting that a release isn’t too far away. The handset was certified by the FCC earlier this month, so leaks like these were always on the cards. It’s evident from these pictures that Samsung has done a lot of work with regards to the design of the handset, and that it’s completely different from the standard Galaxy S8 and S8+ models.
The first thing we notice here is that the edge display is missing with Samsung sticking to a fairly flat edged display panel in order to aid durability. The phone is MIL-STD-810G approved, and comes with IP68 certification as well, so the durability is one of the key highlights of Samsung’s Active flagship lineup. Although there’s no AT&T branding on board here, it’s very likely that the model will remain an exclusive with the network in the U.S. The video below gives a very good idea of the design and other attributes of the handset.
With the edge display missing, one wonders if the company will be able to strike a chord with the masses. The company is using the same 5.8-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display, however, so there should be no distinction in terms of display quality. The company has done away with the hardware button on the front, sticking to a capacitive button instead. This is a major shift for Samsung’s Galaxy S Active lineup, as every device in the past few years came with a physical button. There’s a standalone Bixby button on the side, although it’s not customizable. The phone is running Android 7.0 by default, apparently.
The handset doesn’t come with an underwater camera mode, which is surprising given that the predecessor supported this feature. It is being mentioned that the Galaxy S8 Active will come with a 4,000 mAh battery, up from 3,000 mAh and 3,500 mAh on the Galaxy S8 and the S8+ respectively. The newly emerged report also mentions that the Active model is about 1.5x thicker than the standard Galaxy S8. The Galaxy S8 Active shares the rest of its hardware specs with the Galaxy S8, so there should be no other major changes internally.
