- Analysis by KJ David
Although its specs list is beefier than that of the J6, Samsung's Galaxy J8 winds up as a middle-class-only wide-screen smartphone (Feel free to explore some of the best large-screen phones here) in our book nevertheless. Among its biggest cons is its polycarbonate unibody 
, which sounds cheap, compared to the metal unibodies encasing the likes of the Galaxy A6 and A6+ -- a couple of other Samsung models that came out at roughly the same time.
Just like its J6 little brother, the J8 also disappoints us when it comes to display, sticking to a mediocre (in this Android class) 1480 x 720 HD+ resolution , despite touting a large 6-inch Super AMOLED screen with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio 
that was pretty rare as of this review of its pros and cons.
Looking past those setbacks, the Samsung Galaxy J8 is pretty big on imaging, resembling a lot of the best photography-driven smartphones by sporting a 16- plus 5-megapixel dual-lens rear camera -- the main cam having an f/1.7 aperture and the deputy cam opting for f/1.9. Moreover, it boasts an LED-flash-equipped 16-megapixel selfie camera whose resolution is twice that of the front cam offered by the Galaxy J6, consequently boosting its chances at a spot alongside the best smartphones for selfies.
Among its other pros are a hearty-enough (for a semi-high-end Android) 64GB internal memory expandable by up to 256GB and a 4GB RAM , the latter working hand-in-hand with an inauspicious Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 eight-core processor running at 1.8GHz -- a good number of tantamount middle-class 2018 smartphones run on engines that safely pass the 2GHz mark.
Heading over to its stamina department, though its 3500mAh battery capacity is a step-up over the J6's 3000mAh, we flagged it as a slight weakness, knowing that similarly-sized phablets with 4000mAh (or higher) battery capacities were no longer uncommon when it entered the market. Fortunately, it keeps up with 2018 trends security-wise, coupling a facial recognition system with a standard rear-mounted fingerprint detector .
The rest of its pros and cons include the Samsung Mall application infused with Visual Search , which uses AI algorithms to identify and pull up information about certain items that interest the user, and the Android 8.0 Oreo ecosystem.
With that said, the Galaxy J8 might be lackluster when it comes to raw battery power and build, but it definitely outshines a lot of mid-level alternatives on the imaging front.
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