Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy S8 smartphone as it battles to regain the market leadership it lost to Apple after the embarrassing withdrawal of the fire-prone Note 7s.
Boasting some of the largest wrap-around screens ever made, the long-awaited S8 is the South Korean technology company's first new premium phone.
Samsung permanently halted sales of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in October after a failed recall attempt.
The incident cost the company $US5.5 billion in profit and dealt a heavy blow to its reputation.
Two versions of the phone were launched at a media event in New York on Wednesday, with a 15.75 cm and 5.8-inch curved screens.
They will go on sale on April 21 in three markets - Canada, South Korea and the United States - and roll out to other markets in the following weeks.
"We must be bold enough to step into the unknown and humble enough to learn from our mistakes," Koh Dong-jin, the company's mobile chief, said.
The S8 features Samsung's new artificial intelligence service, Bixby, with functions including a voice-commanded assistant system similar to Apple's Siri.
There is also a new facial recognition application that lets users unlock their phones by looking at them.
Samsung hopes the design update and the new features, focused on making life easier for consumers, will be enough to revive sales in a year Apple is expected to introduce major changes to its iPhones, including the very curved screens that have become staples of the Galaxy brand.
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