Samsung Galaxy S8 Active: Tough, combat-ready and now available

The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to be unveiled on August 23 at an event in New York City. In the meantime, though, fans of Samsung phones can feast their eyes on the all-new Galaxy S8 Active, a more ruggedized version of the Galaxy S8 released earlier this year.

To say the official announcement of the S8 Active was expected would be an understatement. In addition to being widely leaked in the past few weeks, the Active-branded spinoff of Samsung's mainstream flagship offering has been a mainstay for the past several years (see the previous S5, S6, and S7 Active phones). 

As with those past Active models, the S8 Active largely has the identical features of its baseline model -- a 5.8-inch AMOLED screen, the Bixby personal assistant and a single 12-megapixel rear camera -- but is housed in a more rugged metal body that's compliant with the MIL-STD-810G specification for water, dust and shock resistance. It also features a more capacious 4,000mAh battery, compared with the standard S8's 3,000mAh version. (Exact dimensions and weight aren't yet available.)

To that end, we'll be keen to test the S8 Active's sturdier mantle and water-resistance. Initially, a small batch of S7 Active models didn't survive when Consumer Reports (and later CNET) plunged them underwater. The company later identified and fixed the problem, which our follow-up tests verified. 

The S8 Active, available in meteor gray or titanium gold, is available exclusively in the US through AT&T (for now at least). You can get it for 30 monthly installments of $28.34, or about $850. Additional deals related to the S8 Active -- including bundles with the standard S8 and discounts on Samsung TVs -- are available at AT&T's website.