Microsoft Will Sell Samsung Galaxy S8 And S8+ ‘Microsoft Edition’ Android Nougat Flagships

by Brandon Hill — Thursday, March 30, 2017, 10:50 AM EDT

Microsoft appears to be abandoning its Lumia smartphone hardware, but that doesn’t mean that the software giant has given up on smartphones altogether. The company still provides a wide variety of software for competing platforms like iOS and Android in the form of Office, OneDrive and Cortana (among others).

With that in mind, Microsoft has announced a rather peculiar partnership with Samsung and its newly announced Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ flagship smartphones: it will sell the Galaxy S8 and S8+ Microsoft Edition in its retail stores. According to The Verge, the smartphones will come preloaded with a gaggle of Microsoft services and apps, and goes beyond the usual staple of Microsoft apps that are bundled with all Galaxy devices sold through U.S. wireless carriers.

Microsoft provided the following guidance in a statement:

A Microsoft customization is applied to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ Microsoft Edition when the devices are unboxed and connected to Wi-Fi. This customization ensures customers a best-in-class productivity experience with Microsoft applications such as Office, OneDrive, Cortana, Outlook and more.

This is definitely an interesting turn of events for Microsoft, and surprisingly enough, the most powerful and feature-packed smartphones that will be available in Microsoft Stores will be running Android 7.0 Nougat. Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 family is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor (for the U.S. market), come equipped with gorgeous, near bezel-less QHD+ displays, feature an iris scanner and facial recognition, and highlight the new Bixby digital personal assistant.

Preorders for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ open today (pre-orders for the Microsoft Edition are only available at brick and mortar Microsoft Stores) and the smartphones will begin shipping on April 21^st.

(Top Image Sourced From Robert Stinnett/flickr)

Tags: Samsung, Microsoft, (nasdaq:msft), krx005930, galaxy s8, galaxy s8+

Brandon Hill

Brandon received his first PC, an IBM Aptiva 310, in 1994 and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth on computer building/repair working at a mom and pop computer shop as a plucky teen in the mid 90s and went on to join AnandTech as the Senior News Editor in 1999. Brandon would later help to form DailyTech where he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008 until 2014. Brandon is a tech geek at heart, and family members always know where to turn when they need free tech support. When he isn’t writing about the tech hardware or studying up on the latest in mobile gadgets, you’ll find him browsing forums that cater to his long-running passion: automobiles.

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