Samsung Galaxy S8 India launch today, Xiaomi Mi 6 to be globally unveiled
Two major smartphone players, Samsung and Xiaomi, are all set to launch their devices for the Indian market today. While the S. Korean tech giant is preparing to unwrap the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus in New Delhi at 12pm, the Chinese tech firm launch event is slated to commence at 11.30am today.
Xiaomi will be live streaming its launch event from Beijing’s University of Technology Gymnasium on its website here. You can also watch the live stream of Samsung Galaxy S8 here.
Specifications, features and price
Samsung Galaxy S8
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will be available in Midnight Black, Coral Blue and Maple Gold colours.
The Galaxy S8/S8+ will have similar specifications except for display and battery size. Also, India will be getting the Exynos 8895 variant, and not the Snapdragon 835 variant.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 features a 5.8-inch QHD+ (1440x2960 pixels) Super AMOLED display while the Galaxy S8+ sports a 6.2-inch QHD+ (1440x2960 pixels) Super AMOLED display. Samsung has placed the Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on both the device. Both the handsets pack 4GB of RAM and come with 64GB inbuilt storage while also supporting expandable storage via microSD card (up to 256GB).
Both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones sport 12-megapixel 'Dual Pixel' rear camera with optical image stabilisation and an f/1.7 aperture, while there is an 8-megapixel front camera with autofocus on board as well, featuring an f/1.7 aperture.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ include connectivity options like 4G LTE (Cat. 16), Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4GHz, 5GHz), Bluetooth v5.0, USB Type-C, NFC, and GPS. Sensors on board include an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, barometer, gyroscope, heart rate sensor, magnetometer, and proximity sensor. It also supports Samsung Pay, with NFC and MST connectivity.
The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ support wireless charging as well as fast charging with the S8/S8+ packing 3000mAh and 3500mAh batteries respectively.
You can learn about the top features of the Galaxy S8 models here.
Though the pricing details for the Indian market will be officially disclosed at the event today, based on the US market price Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus could cost approx. Rs 50,000 and Rs 57,000, respectively.
The release date of the handsets for the Indian market will be known later in the day.
Xiaomi Mi 6
The Mi 6 smartphone will reportedly come with 4GB RAM and 64GB/ 128GB storage option at a starting price of approximately Rs 20,500. On the other hand, the larger variant Mi 6 Plus is speculated to feature 6GB RAM with 64GB/128GB/256GB storage options at a starting price of approx. Rs 25,000.
The Mi 6 screen could vary between 5.1 to 5.5-inch with full HD display (1920x1080 pixels). It will reportedly feature a 12MP rear camera capable of shooting 4K videos as well as an 8MP selfie camera that will also record videos at 4K. The Mi 6 is rumoured to run on the Snapdragon 835 chipset with the Adreno 540 GPU chip. And since it’s a Xiaomi, it will let you interact with MIUI 8 on top of Android 7.1.1 Nougat.
According to a leak appeared on GIZTOP website, the Mi 6 will be available in black, blue and white colours at an approximate price of Rs 26,000.
Stay tuned for a confirmation report on both the smartphones.
