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The Rugged Samsung Galaxy S8 Active from AT&T -- REVIEWED!
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May 30, 2025
It's one of the best cellphones on the market, but do you know why the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active is so darn cool? Tech expert Dave Taylor from https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checks it out and tries just about every single feature and capability. His analysis show some weaknesses and some design elements that Samsung needs to probably rethink, but also highlights some of the best features and capabilities of the Galaxy S8 Active and exactly how it differs from the regular Samsung Galaxy S8. Learn more at the AT&T site: https://www.att.com/cellphones/samsung/galaxy-s8-active.html
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this is one of the best cell phones on
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the market today it's really close let's
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check it out Dave Taylor here and this
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time we're looking at the Samsung Galaxy
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s8 active that's this guy so this is the
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Galaxy s8 but it's repackaged it
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basically comes with its own ruggedized
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case and it's pretty sweet it's a pretty
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nice cell phone one of the things they
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do when they put this in the more rugged
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case is they give it a bigger battery so
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the regular Samsung s8 has a 3000
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milliamp hour battery this is sporting a
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4000 milliamp hour battery what does
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that do that means that it gives you a
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hundred and twenty hours of standby a
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hundred and thirteen hours of using it
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for music 32 hours of talk and it has
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wireless charging so basically this is a
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phone that if you've set your life up
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right and you have like a wireless
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charger in your car or something it will
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never die you can charge it in the
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morning and it'll be running the next
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day how awesome is that really really
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like that
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now comes at a price it's big and heavy
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and it's certainly a little bit more
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clunky but as you can see in this detail
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the edges have shock absorbers there's a
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sort of industrial presentation for the
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whole thing I really like it actually
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the front screen sports the gorilla 5
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which is the Corning Glass which is
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super tough I'm pretty sure it's not
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gonna stop a bullet sorry Wonder Woman
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but otherwise this is a pretty tough
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phone and let's see I have all these
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notes I'm looking at here it's IP 68
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rated which means that it deals with
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dust it's water-resistant in fact let's
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try out the water resistance okay so I
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got some music I thought we could have a
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little fun with this play some music get
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it up nice and loud
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okay not a great speaker but I just
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happen to have some water here you ready
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smartphone water usually not a good
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thing but listen still play more
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importantly when we take it out it's
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still alive
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it's my goodness stop playing the music
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but that's okay
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it is still a fully functional phone how
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wonderful is that
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thank you Samsung for building a phone
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that could actually handle falling in
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the water nice why is this blood red
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water cuz it's coming up on Halloween oh
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sorry we're okay
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back to the phone 64 gigabytes of RAM it
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has a micro SD in it that you could take
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up to an additional you ready for this
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256 gig now who the heck is gonna have
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256 gig worth of data on their smart
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phone I don't know maybe you want to
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have every TV show you've ever watched
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on your phone just in case you're
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trapped on a desert island and have
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wireless charging hmm it uses a nano SIM
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which is kind of interesting but again
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this is exclusively through AT&T
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Wireless at this point just so you know
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an AT&T they know how to deal with nano
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Sims so you're cool now let's see I said
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it's Gorilla Glass 5 the resolution is
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amazing it's running at 29 60 by 14 14
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14 of 40 and it's an amo LED which is
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just the screen technology I think you
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can see here even just oops let's go
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back and even just looking at it right
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here
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it's just really bright it's a beautiful
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vibrant color screen really there's
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nothing not to love about this it's 5.8
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inches across it's pretty decent size
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bigger than your iPhone 7 for example
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and inside it's running the snapdragon
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835 octa-core at 2.3 5 gigahertz it is
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indeed a very snappy phone if you care
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the Jeep
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you is actually an Adreno which gives it
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a little extra graphics boost nothing to
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complain about there and it's running
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Android seven new got or nougat
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depending on I pronounce it I actually
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had an argument with someone yesterday
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about this he was probably right either
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way
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Android seven it's as close as you can
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get to Oreo without actually having Oreo
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which is still in beta
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that's Android eight but Android seven
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gives you lots of nice features cameras
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let's talk about cameras for a second so
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the rear-facing camera here is a 12
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megapixel and the front-facing is a
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pretty monstrous 8 megapixel camera
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they're really getting pretty close and
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capabilities and here's a couple of
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examples this first one is just of a
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sunflower and you can see it's just a
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beautiful vibrant photo the detail the
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crispness the depth of the color is
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really remarkable Samsung's already
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known for really good cameras on their
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smartphones and this just continues that
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trend with some really nice camera and
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it also can manage 4k video oh sorry I
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had a second photo here's another one
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and this is something I wouldn't take
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with most smartphones this is a close-up
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of a fountain taken from basically
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within the splash zone of the fountain
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and again having this rugged phone's
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really wonderful because you can take
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those sort of shots you can take photos
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in the pool because if it falls in or if
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you get splashed whatever you just shake
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it off and you're good to go so really
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nice
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so as I said it can take 4k videos it
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actually has built-in face and smile
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detection which is pretty fun stuff
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haven't played with it too much frankly
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I have children that don't always smile
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and I can just see take a picture take
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the picture take the picture nothing but
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then again maybe you can taunt them into
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smiling as every parent understands in
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addition to having Android 7 it also
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runs another really super futuristic
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thing Bluetooth 5.1 this is the most
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advanced bluetooth device on the market
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right now as far as I'm aware so new
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things will be coming any day but
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Bluetooth 5.1
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is way into the most modern version of
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Bluetooth it should give you better
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connectivity less interference less
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dropping very nice now another thing
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worth noting is that it's also
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continuing another trend which is that
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the connector on the bottom is USB see
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this is not a micro USB like it was on
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the s7 now I am fine with that
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I think USB C is a better connector I
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actually really really hate that micro
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USB has an orientation drives me bonkers
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on all these devices so I like this it's
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not quite as elegant maybe as a
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lightning connector but it's faster and
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it's a pretty common cable you can find
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now so USBC worth knowing we've already
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talked about the battery I've already
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mentioned that it's rugged that it has
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edge bumpers and that it's shock
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protection and everything so there's not
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much left to talk about on this phone
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other than that it's just really nice
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except there's one more thing that this
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phone has and I can push this little
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side button and it brings up big speed
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so what's Bixby Bixby is Samsung's
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attempt at competing with Siri and the
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Amazon echo and all these other
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voice-activated systems and let's be
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candid it's kind of half-baked
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not super impressed with Bixby for
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example here's a couple of screenshots
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the first one this is nice this is now
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what they call this sort of shortcut
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screen and it's nice you have access to
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a flashlight and all this sort of stuff
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that's useful but when you get to Bixby
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itself and you start talking to it the
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results just aren't that stellar so for
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example if I say what time is it in
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Washington DC here's what it tells me
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now that's not Washington DC that's
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Washington State and when you look
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you'll see you talk it's taxi types in
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the word so you get that sort of
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recognition system there it shows me
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that it got Washington DC it just didn't
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understand it the worst example is when
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I ask for the Premier League standings
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which on an Apple iPhone I do this all
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the time I track the Premier League and
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the iPhone knows immediately Siri says
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oh here you go here are the standings
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on bixby it had no idea what I was doing
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and it started making changes to the
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settings on my phone and it's like what
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what's going on here so not super
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impressed with that and then here's
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another example because there's other
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features of it that are really pretty
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slick so using the Bixby recognition
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visual technology you can also take a
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photo of a product and then it will look
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that product up so I took a photo of a
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Gatorade bottle and it showed me I could
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buy that very Gatorade at Amazon not
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super useful but interesting way more
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useful is that it can do language
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translation so here's an example of me
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taking a screenshot of German on my
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computer screen and then the actual
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Samsung Galaxy s8 active system
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automatically translating that through
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google translate and showing me the
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English translation now imagine next
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time you're in a foreign country and
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you're trying to figure out street signs
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what a powerful capability that is so
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that part I think is really cool the
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whole thing with Bixby itself it really
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needs at least one more major generation
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before it's going to be valuable oh and
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one more thing is that I showed you the
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picture on the back here with the phone
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and the flash the other sensor here on
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this side
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that's a fingerprint scanner it doesn't
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work very well unfortunately even trying
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to actually register your finger so that
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you can use it for unlocking was an
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exercise in frustration because there's
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so many buttons on the side that I kept
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doing this to turn it around and make
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sure I was moving my finger on all the
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different coverings and I would
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accidentally press a button and have to
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start over so there are a lot of the
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Android phones now that have a big
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sensor in the back for your fingerprint
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and I think that works a whole lot
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better Apple of course has it on the
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front home button for now we'll see what
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comes but this whole idea of just sort
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of tucking it next to the camera as a
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very small sensor might have been a
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little too small a little overeager on
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Samsung's part that's worth knowing it
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also does have facial recognition there
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are
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pretty skeptical that that's a good way
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to unlock your phone I mean our phones
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already pay enough attention to us do we
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really want them constantly watching
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who's looking at the phone itself it's a
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lot of privacy issues there so the only
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thing left to talk about is color and
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price and before I do that can I please
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ask that you go ahead and click the
11:16
subscribe button so you can subscribe to
11:18
my channel fantastic thank you now this
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is known as titanium gold not a massive
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fan of this color but it's not horrible
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because remember it's basically like
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having a rugged case on your Samsung so
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you need to look at it that way the
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other color you can get this in is
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called meteor or grey and it's just sort
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of a darker more subtle color and that
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one I think looks a bit better and it
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looks a little less I don't know
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inexpensive is maybe a word we can use
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to describe the back and what that looks
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like
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that's up to you those are the two
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choices you're not gonna buy a case for
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this because that would be super
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redundant it's already a tough rugged
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waterproof case you don't need to get
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another case to put it in so really nice
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now this particular phone the Samsung
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Galaxy s8 active is only available
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through ATT and I'm just gonna put
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something interesting on the screen
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let's see maybe I will maybe I won't
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here we go
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so the only way you can get it is
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through AT&T Wireless which is cool
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because AT&T is a great service and good
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coverage and here's the thing if you
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want to buy it flat out it's basically
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the price of a laptop it's eight hundred
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and forty nine bucks if you just want to
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buy it straight out but AT&T has a
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service where you can actually spread
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your payment's over a couple years
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and then it drops down to $28 and 34
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cents a month it's pretty painless 28
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bucks a month for this what I would say
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is one of the very best cell phones on
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the market I love the camera it's an
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amazing camera I really love the battery
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life I like that it's ruggedized and
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water
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proof and everything it's just less
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things to worry about not super
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impressed with Bixby not impressed with
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the fingerprint scanner but you know I
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don't know that those are life
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threatening or big deals and frankly
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with Bixby there's plenty of hacks
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online where you can actually have it do
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Google hello or Google Play whatever the
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google voice navigation system is you
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can have it use that instead so you got
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a you know solution to that Samsung
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Galaxy s8 active it is definitely worth
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checking out Steve Taylor and this guy's
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going back in the water let's give it
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some more music to play we're going back
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in the water so with this I'll say catch
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you later
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[Music]
#Gadgets & Portable Electronics