Samsung’s Galaxy S8 smartphone has a striking, high-res display, a speedy processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage… in most of the world.
If you happen to live in China though, you’ll be able to buy a Galaxy S8 Special Edition phone with 6GB of memory and 128GB of storage. Samsung currently has no plans to offer that special edition model in any other countries.
On the one hand, the move makes sense: there are plenty of high-spec Chinese phones with at least 6GB of RAM. In fact, Chinese brand Vivo was the first to launch a 6GB phone more than a year ago. So Samsung may feel like it needs to match those features in order to compete.
On the other hand, I’m still not sure Samsung is competing: the phone is expected to sell for more than $1000 in China. Last year’s Vivo Xplay5, by comparison, was priced at $655… and it was the first 6GB phone to hit the market.
Samsung does plan to throw in a free DeX dock for customers who pre-order the Special Edition phone, so I guess that’s a $150 savings… if you were planning to use your Android phone as a desktop computer.
via Phone Arena
I am not sure an Android device can make effective use of that much RAM. Also, it will increase battery drain. With really good phones being available for half the price this is a hard sell. I do like some of the design choices of the S8. Not enough to spend that kind of cash on a device with a life expectancy of two years.