For some reason, Samsung chose to make the Galaxy J8 official in India last month alongside the Galaxy J6, Galaxy A6, and Galaxy A6+. What made the announcement strange was the revelation that the Galaxy J8 would hit retail in July while the other three devices would go on sale the very next day (at least in India, where the company also quietly launched the Galaxy J4 recently). Perhaps the company wanted folks to know that it has more devices with an Infinity display on the way, and while we can't say if that was actually the reason, Samsung seems to have doubled down on getting the Galaxy J8 ready for a proper launch.
Samsung testing the Galaxy J8 with an updated model number
The Galaxy J8 was originally coupled with model number SM-J800, but Samsung has now decided to change it to SM-J810F. It is with this new model number that the J8 is now being tested, and the phone has secured important certifications in the last week from the FCC and the Bluetooth SIG. The SM-J810F can also be seen on the Geekbench website, which reiterates that the specs aren't going to change along with the model number. Oh, and Samsung has put up support pages for the SM-J810F and SM-J810Y in Russia and Thailand respectively, lending more support to the possibility of a global launch in the next couple of weeks.
The Galaxy J8 and Galaxy J8+ were rumored to be rebranded versions of the Galaxy A6 and Galaxy A6+ for some markets, but it's clear now that a J8+ doesn't exist and the Galaxy J8 takes elements from both the A6 and A6+. It's unknown at this point if the Galaxy J8 will launch as widely as the Galaxy J6. It is probably going to be released in markets where Samsung needs to launch as many devices in the budget and lower-mid-range segments as it can to keep the competition at bay, which might be why it is currently listed for countries like India, Russia, and Thailand.
