Galaxy S8+ vs Galaxy Note 5: Worth the Upgrade?

Bixby AI vs S-Pen Stylus

Samsung's new Galaxy S8 and S8+ don't have a stylus, but honestly, how many of you really used it? Maybe a few times, but not that often. Instead, the Galaxy S8 is now IP68 dust and water resistant, which is great. No stylus leaves more room for the bigger battery too, a fair trade-off in many users eyes. 

With the S8 you lose the S-Pen but gain an assistant that can take notes down for you faster than pulling out the stylus. It's called Bixby, and is Samsung's take on virtual assistants. Similar to Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. 

Bixby can do tons of tasks and you just ask with your voice. He's always listening if you'd like and has some neat features. Additionally, it can launch the camera and scan items, images, landmarks or even text. Get information, find directions or translate languages. It's a magic camera. That's just a few of many many things we're expecting from Bixby. It is only available on the Galaxy S8 and S8+. It also has an interface on the phone with reminders, alerts, calendar info, content it thinks you'll like and more. 

Additionally, Samsung added 3rd party support so app developers can tap into Bixby to make it even better. He has the power of computer learning and AI behind him. For now, some of the voice actions are missing, although Samsung promises an update is coming soon with more Bixby features. 

In the meantime, get most of the S8 features on any Android with this guide.