Confirmed: There's a premium version of the Galaxy S8, and you can't have one

Image: Samsung

When the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are released in just over two weeks, they’ll be the most beautiful and most powerful smartphones the world has ever seen. As we detailed in our in-depth hands-on Galaxy S8 preview, Samsung really outdid itself with these new flagship phones, both inside and out. In fact, when the new handsets finally hit the market later this month, the only smartphones on the planet that will be more impressive than the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are the, well, Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.

Confused? Allow us to elaborate.

The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will be the first smartphones in the world to feature Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 chipset and Samsung’s new Exynos 8895 SoC. These 10nm chips offer huge advantages when it comes to both power and efficiency. They phones will also pack lightning-fast UFS 2.1 flash storage modules and plenty more cutting-edge components. As we’ve seen in several benchmark tests at this point, these phones are incredibly powerful.

But rumors around the web have suggested for months that there are even better versions of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ lurking out there, and now those rumors have been confirmed by Samsung for the first time. As seen in promotional materials on Samsung’s Korean website (via Android Headlines), there will be versions of the phones available that include 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB, and 128GB of UFS 2.1 flash storage instead of 64GB. Unfortunately for Android fans in the US who might be obsessed with specs, those versions will not be sold in America.

For the overwhelming majority of smartphone users out there, “only” having 4GB of RAM is hardly a problem. And as for the added storage space, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ include microSDXC support so anyone can pop in a 200GB microSD card or even a 256GB microSD card and have more than enough space. But for hardcore Android users, having the knowledge that there are versions of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ out there that are better than the ones available in the US is proving to be a bit disconcerting, as evidence by the comments we’ve seen around the web over the past few weeks.

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Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 15 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.