Samsung Set for Galaxy S8 Launch in Iran

The official representative of Samsung Electronics in Iran is set to launch the sales of two new phones on May 4.

The presale of the latest Samsung flagship smartphones – the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus – was launched on April 13, according to the company’s press office.

Four local online shops — DigiKala, HamahangIT, Parsamtel and MicroTel — offered the presale packages of the two smartphones.

The company is set to offer S8 and S8 Plus for 28,800,000 rials ($768) and 31,800,000 rials ($848) respectively.

Samsung Electronics on its international official website offers S8 and S8 Plus respectively for $726 and $840 minus tax, making the local price rather competitive.

 Just in Time

For a launch that Samsung really needed to go off without a hitch, the Galaxy S8 problems are already starting to pile up. From the much-discussed red tint issue to error messages, to Samsung’s broken artificial intelligence system and wireless charging problems, the Galaxy S8 has not exactly gotten off to a start that can be called stellar.

Problems like these are not exactly unheard of, but they do seem to be affecting the Galaxy S8 a little more than they do most other devices especially since the “battery faults” with Note 7 that exploded in people’s pockets.

Even though that phone was not officially launched in Iran, the local distributor said it would accept returns of the phone if people had bought them abroad or on the grey market.

According to Samsung at the time, there had been over 35 cases of the Note 7 exploding around the world. While that figure is relatively high (batteries typically fail at a rate of 1 in millions), it was still far from common.

 Rainbow of Colors

After putting out a software fix for the red tint issue on the Galaxy S8 in South Korea earlier this week, Samsung is now rolling it out in Europe. The patch adds a slider for making the entire display warmer or cooler.

The individual RGB (red, green, blue) sliders can still be accessed, but they are now found under an “advanced” section.

Samsung has vowed to replace devices for unsatisfied owners and it may need to, as the calibrated display settings are only available in Adaptive display mode. Switch that to AMOLED cinema, AMOLED photo or basic and users will lose their color balance changes. Also, changes will not take effect if the blue light filter is on.

Despite the onslaught of low-cost Chinese phones in the Iranian market in recent years, Samsung is believed to still hold on to their large market share of around 40%.