New Delhi, April 19 (IANS): Set to give Apple iPhones a tough competition, Samsung on Wednesday ended the Indian consumers' wait and brought its flagship devices Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ to the country.

Packed with a voice assistant called Bixby, the 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 and 6.2-inch Galaxy S8+ were listed on a Flipkart banner ad for pre-orders, starting from 3 p.m. on Wednesday to avail the special pre-book offer of a free convertible wireless charger. 

At Rs 57,900 and Rs 64,900, respectively, the S8 and S8+ devices will be available on Flipkart and Samsung's online store from May 5.

"With the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, Samsung is unboxing smartphones that transcend the boundaries of meaningful innovations. Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ extend our trust, our heritage of great innovation and stunning design and our 'Make for India' promise," said H.C. Hong, President and CEO, Samsung Southwest Asia.

Despite the significantly larger screens on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, the re-engineered design with rounded edges and symmetrical sides make them compact and comfortable for one-handed operation. 

The Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and back provides durability and a high-quality finish.

The "Infinity Display" and bezel-less design gives a user 18 per cent more screen with no buttons. The physical home key on the front has given way to a more intuitive soft key with a pressure sensor that is embedded under the display.

The devices come with a defence-grade security platform Samsung Knox. 

For security, the company introduced an iris scanner, which is one of the most secure biometric identification systems on a phone. 

The devices also offer a choice of biometric technologies including a fingerprint scanner -- moved to the back of the device -- and facial recognition, in addition to the traditional options of pin and pattern to unlock the devices.

"These devices will offer our consumers a gateway to a new mobile life where the power of innovation will carry them beyond barriers," Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, told reporters here.

The devices have 12MP rear cameras with multi-frame processing and optical image stabilisation. They have 8MP auto-focus front shooters.

The devices are IP68 rated, meaning they are water and dust resistant. They run on Exynos Octa core (2.35 GHz Quad + 1.9 GHZ Quad) 10 nm processor and have 4GB RAM with 64GB onboard memory that can be expanded up to 256GB.

They run on Android 7.0 Nougat. While S8 has a 3,000 mAh battery, S8+ boasts a 3,500 mAh battery.

Samsung also launched Gear VR controller and Gear 360 Camera at the event.

The new Gear VR with Controller, powered by Oculus, allows a user to watch VR videos and play VR games with ease. 

Enabling one-handed control and navigation, the controller provides better motion interaction when accessing interactive VR content.