Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphone may have been a bit of a disaster, but the company has announced that a Note 8 is coming later this year.
Before that happens though, we’ll see the launch of the Galaxy S8, the follow-up to the smaller, cheaper, and less fire-prone Galaxy S7. And if recent leaks/reports are anything to go by, the new phone will blur at least one of the lines that has typically separate the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series phones: the Galaxy S8 is expected to have a very large screen.
But that’s not the only thing that’s new.
According to VentureBeat’s Evan Blass, Samsung will unveil the new phone on March 29th, and the Galaxy S8 will do away with physical navigation buttons, instead using on-screen buttons and an AMOLED display that covers about 83 percent of the front of the device, leaving slim bezels above and below the screen.
Samsung will reportedly offer two different models: one with a 5.8 inch display, and another with a 6.2 inch screen. Both will use Samsung’s “Edge” style display, which means the screen will curve to wrap over part of the left and right sides of the phone.
Blass says the displays also have a QHD resolution and an unusual aspect ratio of 18.5:9.
The phones are expected to be available with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chips in some markets and Samsung Exynos processors in others, but overall Blass says that we can expect some performance gains over last year’s models, including:
- 11 percent faster CPU
- 23 percent faster graphics
- 20 percent better energy efficiency
The phones are expected to feature 4GB of RAM, at least 64GB of storage, a USB Type-C port, a headset jack, and a microSD card slot. Those last two features buck recent trends… but Samsung seems to have no plans to bring back a removable battery to its flagship smartphone lineup.
You can find more leaked details at VentureBeat and The Guardian, including information about the batteries, cameras, and other hardware and software updates.
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That fingerprint scanner next to the camera doesn’t exactly seem like the best place to put it. But maybe they’re trying to get people to use the Iris scanner?
it’s HR monitor :D, because of reflection surface look like fingerprint reader.
HR monitor thus far has been located right near the flash, have they redesigned it?
Gosh you are right XD
I am surprised the screen “only” takes up 83% of the front of the phone. With the removal of the physical button and the mic hole being at the bottom, the only thing you need is a small slit for the ear speaker at the top. The rest could be display. Glad the SD card slot and headphone jack are still there. I held out small hope that the Note7 disaster would bring back the removable battery. Guess that was too much to wish for.
Well as long as it has a headphone jack, I’m still on board.
I had the opportunity to try out a Galaxy S6 for a few weeks, and I was really impressed with it (apart from battery life and storage) in comparison to my BLU Studio Energy. Because of my experience with the S6, I’m interested in making an S7 my next phone (for the slightly higher battery capacity and expandable storage, since the S6 just wouldn’t cut it at its price point without those features). What are the chances of the S7 coming down a fair bit in price when the S8 is released? I’m not willing to spend $700+ on a phone. If it comes down to it, a Zenfone 3 Laser (4GB RAM model) will likely be my choice at a more reasonable price point.
The S7 will still be at least double the price of a Zenfone 3 Laser when the S8 comes out. The S6 is still around $400.
Yeah, I figure that’ll be the case. Unfortunately, I have yet to find the Zenfone 3 Laser model with 4GB of RAM. Staples and Best Buy both just have the 2GB RAM model. Amazon.ca only has the 4GB RAM model from 3rd party sellers. I might end up going with something else entirely.
Curved edges = dead to me.
Edge screen on all models? Good bye, Samsung.