In what seems to be a worrying trend for Samsung, its latest flagship has only been on the market for a weekend and it's already running into problems. Read more: Samsung Galaxy S8 review
Customers in Korea are complaining about an issue with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ which is causing the display to have a red tint. Photos of affected devices have been posted to Twitter and Instagram side-by-side with non-affected handsets to highlight the difference, and "Galaxy S8 Red Screen" began trending on the county's search engine, Naver.
Samsung initially offered a manual fix (which involves going to Settings, Display, Screen Mode and selecting Colour Balance), but this didn't work for all customers. Now, Samsung has seemingly admitted defeat and said it will be rolling out a software update this week.
Speaking to The Korea Herald, a Samsung spokesperson said: "We decided to upgrade the software for all Galaxy S8 clients...because of some dissatisfied customers although there is no problem in the phones itself." When the software rolls out to customers, they will be prompted to install the update via Settings.
Samsung additionally told WIRED: "The Galaxy S8 and S8+ are equipped with Super AMOLED display to provide rich colours with high sharpness and contrast. In the past, we have received feedback that consumers wanted the ability to customise the colour setting of their Galaxy devices due to natural variations in displays, and we provided the option to do so in previous software updates.
"While the Galaxy S8 and S8+ have the ability for the user to modify the colour of the display, Samsung has listened to feedback and has decided to release a software update starting from this week which will provide customers with a further enhanced ability to adjust the colour setting to their preference.”
Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S8 range on March 29 and anyone who pre-ordered the device received their handsets on Thursday (April 20) and over the weekend. The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ full release date is Friday (April 28) in UK and Europe.
Reviews of the device have been overwhelmingly positive (we scored it nine out of 10 and dubbed it the best phones on the market), which should leave Samsung relieved. Last year, thousands of Samsung Note 7 devices had to be recalled, and were banned from flights, after the handsets started "exploding" and setting on fire.
After months of investigations, Samsung revealed there were two battery manufacturing issues. The first issue related to battery size: batteries made by Samsung's SDI group were too small in one corner, causing negative electrodes to be bent and increase the likelihood of short circuiting.
The second issue was caused by batteries from a third-party provider, Amperex Technology Ltd, which were found to be incorrectly welded. Points left on the batteries were able to penetrate protective insulating.
Operating System: androids 7.0
Dimensions and weight: 148.9 x 68.1 x 8.0 mm, 155g
Processor: Octa core (2.3GHz Quad + 1.7GHz Quad), 64 bit, 10 nm process
Memory: 4GB RAM (LPDDR4), 64GB (UFS 2.1)
Display: 5.8” (146.5mm)1 Quad HD+ (2960x1440), (570ppi)
Camera: Rear: Dual Pixel 12MP OIS (F1.7), Front: 8MP AF (F1.7)
Battery: 3,000 mAh, fast charging on wired and wireless, wireless charging compatible with WPC and PMA
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz), VHT80 MU-MIMO, 1024QAM, Bluetooth v 5.0 (LE up to 2Mbps), ANT+, USB Type-C, NFC, locations (GPS, Galileo, Glonass, BeiDou)
Sensors: Accelerometer, Barometer, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Hall Sensor, Heart Rate Sensor, Proximity Sensor, RGB Light Sensor, Iris Sensor, Pressure Sensor
Audio: MP3, M4A, 3GA, AAC, OGG, OGA, WAV, WMA, AMR, AWB, FLAC, MID, MIDI, XMF, MXMF, IMY, RTTTL, RTX, OTA, DSF, DFF
Video: MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, WEBM
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
