I’m one of those unfortunate folks who purchased a Samsung Note 7, had it recalled, received a replacement and then had that recalled. I wound up with an S7 Edge; nice phone, but I missed the Note 7 -- it was the best phone I'd ever had, even though I rarely used the S-Pen. I’m not one to give up on Samsung, so when the S8 and S8+ were announced I decided to wait for the availability of the unlocked versions and then purchase the S8+. However, once I had a chance to try demo units, I discovered that my average-sized hands had trouble reaching the fingerprint sensor on the s8+. I like large phones but the S8+ was too tall for me and I decided to purchase the S8 instead.
Since I didn’t plan to purchase an S8 through my carrier, T-Mobile, I switched cell service to Cricket Wireless. I’m very happy with Cricket's features, the signal strength in my area, and the lower monthly cost. I still planned to buy an unlocked S8 and bring it to Cricket but on April 21 I received an email from Cricket announcing the availability of the S8. The local Cricket store had a demo unit and one in the box for sale. I didn’t plan on leaving Cricket anytime soon and I bought the S8 from the Cricket store..
So, I bought the S8 instead of the S8+ and the phone I bought is locked to Cricket for the next six months. I'm OK with that and, after a few days, the S8 is the best phone I've ever had. It has everything I liked about the Note 7 and more -- a beautiful AMOLED screen that’s remarkably bright, USB C, incredibly fast charging, wireless charging, 64GB of storage plus a microSD card slot, and great build quality. There was an S-Pen feature on the Note 7 that allowed you to take screenshots of selected areas of the screen and also create animated GIFs. That feature is available on an S8 Edge panel. I would prefer a better location for the fingerprint sensor, although it’s easy to reach and, with a bumper case on the phone, I have yet to miss the sensor and smudge the camera lens. I can’t use the iris scanner with bifocals, and Bixby is a work in progress that doesn’t need its own button. I’ve read that Samsung has improved the TouchWiz UI but I’m a Nova Prime user so I can’t comment on any TouchWiz improvements.
My S8 has no wi-fi connectivity issues or a red tint on the screen, but here’s something to keep in mind. The S8 I bought from Cricket appears to be pretty much stock, but I’ve read that some T-Mobile variants have removed the wireless fast charging setting and Verizon has removed the shopping feature from Bixby vision.
So far I’m very happy with Cricket Wireless and the Samsung Galaxy S8.
Since I didn’t plan to purchase an S8 through my carrier, T-Mobile, I switched cell service to Cricket Wireless. I’m very happy with Cricket's features, the signal strength in my area, and the lower monthly cost. I still planned to buy an unlocked S8 and bring it to Cricket but on April 21 I received an email from Cricket announcing the availability of the S8. The local Cricket store had a demo unit and one in the box for sale. I didn’t plan on leaving Cricket anytime soon and I bought the S8 from the Cricket store..
So, I bought the S8 instead of the S8+ and the phone I bought is locked to Cricket for the next six months. I'm OK with that and, after a few days, the S8 is the best phone I've ever had. It has everything I liked about the Note 7 and more -- a beautiful AMOLED screen that’s remarkably bright, USB C, incredibly fast charging, wireless charging, 64GB of storage plus a microSD card slot, and great build quality. There was an S-Pen feature on the Note 7 that allowed you to take screenshots of selected areas of the screen and also create animated GIFs. That feature is available on an S8 Edge panel. I would prefer a better location for the fingerprint sensor, although it’s easy to reach and, with a bumper case on the phone, I have yet to miss the sensor and smudge the camera lens. I can’t use the iris scanner with bifocals, and Bixby is a work in progress that doesn’t need its own button. I’ve read that Samsung has improved the TouchWiz UI but I’m a Nova Prime user so I can’t comment on any TouchWiz improvements.
My S8 has no wi-fi connectivity issues or a red tint on the screen, but here’s something to keep in mind. The S8 I bought from Cricket appears to be pretty much stock, but I’ve read that some T-Mobile variants have removed the wireless fast charging setting and Verizon has removed the shopping feature from Bixby vision.
So far I’m very happy with Cricket Wireless and the Samsung Galaxy S8.
