The recently unveiled Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus flagships will not be compatible with Google’s Daydream VR headset. Both phones, sporting gorgeous, near bezel-less displays, is decidedly perfect for virtual reality experiences given the screen’s vibrance and pixel density. A great display is one of the de facto requirements of smooth VR experiences, and it’s a shame that the Galaxy S8’s awe-striking display won’t tandem Google’s own VR platform.
That’s not to say that the phones won’t enable VR experience entirely. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the pair will still work with Samsung’s own proprietary Gear VR headset, which is powered by Oculus.
No Daydream VR For The Galaxy S8 And S8 Plus, Sorry
Unlike Cardboard, Google’s less sophisticated DIY VR platform, the Daydream VR, will be a no-go for Samsung’s newest pair of flagships, out April 21. This is probably because Daydream is a lot more persnickety since it’s a more dedicated device than Cardboard is. Google needs to ensure that everything will be compatible and will work, and such assurance involves reaching out to the manufacturer of the phone to work out all the details and iron out the kinks.
At least for now, installing the Daydream app on both phones will bring up an error message, as tested by VRHeads. Now, this could be because of a previous exclusivity agreement with Oculus or that Samsung didn’t bother adding Daydream compatibility in time for the release of both phones at all. But it’s still possible that Daydream support will arrive later on, although no exact plans have been worded officially by both sides.
It might also help that Daydream, in its current stage, still has a very limited library, although it’s growing, for sure. By contrast, the Gear VR headset has plenty of apps and games users can experience. Even so, fragmentation is still bad news for the VR market, and it can even potentially hurt it, since it’s still at its early to mid-stages of growth. If manufacturers focus on cross-platform compatibility, maybe that’ll lessen the challenges associated with approaching VR and find out many complexities in terms of which phones are compatible or not.
Galaxy S8 And S8 Plus
For the uninitiated, the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are Samsung’s first pair of flagships after the fiasco that was the Note 7. It’s sort of being tipped as a comeback for the company, a way to win back consumers it lost after the whole Note 7 affair. Thankfully, Samsung has assured that both phones won’t be mired with the problems the Note 7 burdened users with. But until the handsets ship, we won’t know for sure.
The Galaxy S8 sports a 5.8-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,960 x 1,440. The S8 Plus, on the other hand, sports a slightly larger 6.2-inch screen, with the same resolution. Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip, though in some markets, it’s going to be a Exynos 8895 chip, as was the case with previous flagships from Samsung.
On the back is 12.3-megapixel shooter that can do 4K recording, and on the front is an 8-megapixel shooter for high-quality selfies. There’s 4 GB of RAM to keep everything nice and snappy, and there’s also 64 GB of internal storage that’s expandable up to 256 GB.
The Galaxy S8 comes with a 3,000 mAh battery, while the S8 Plus comes with 3,500 mAh battery. Both phones will come with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box and be bundled with a pair of AKG earphones.
For a full spec sheet of both phones, check out Tech Times’s previous article covering the unveiling.
Thoughts about the Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
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