Samsung may still be reeling from the shock of the Galaxy Note 7 exploding worldwide, but the South Korean mobile giants are not to be stalled by the unfortunate events, even though they have incurred losses of billions of dollars for the exploding batteries. But even though Samsung may have lost this instalment of their battle against Apple‘s iPhone 7, the tech world is looking ahead to the upcoming launch of the next flagship device, the Samsung Galaxy S8.
In all fairness, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has been the subject of much speculation ever since the Galaxy S7 came out. But the fiasco surrounding the Galaxy Note 7 has certainly caused a surge in anticipation for the upcoming device. It has been rumoured that the Samsung Galaxy S8 may be launched a little ahead of the anticipated release time to make up for its losses and more importantly recover the company’s goodwill. Let’s take a look at some of the features and specs of the Samsung Galaxy S8, some of which have been hinted at by the makers, while the others are products of speculation.
Samsung Galaxy S8: Key Specs and Features
Update 24/9/16: As the world suffers from damaged Galaxy Note 7, Samsung is likely to look eagerly towards its next big device – the Samsung Galaxy S8. This week we received a couple of new information regarding the upcoming handset and the highlight is that the Samsung Galaxy S8 is expected to have processor much superior to Galaxy S7. According to Sammobile, a senior official from Samsung was recently arrested by the South Korean police officers while trying to steal the company’s confidential information related to 14nm and 10nm technology. This has led tech gurus to think that Samsung is using a combination of a 10nm Exynos 8895 processor and ARM’s latest Mali-G71 graphics unit for its upcoming flagship. The GPU is believed to me around 1.8 times more powerful than the mali-T880 MP12 GPU that is used in the Exynos 8890 that powered Galaxy S7. Moreover, according to the GFXBench, this particular GPU is faster than the Snapdragon 830.
The new Mali-G71 GPU offers high-end 4K and VR experiences as it uses ARM’s brand new Bifrost architecture. Running at 850MHz, the 16nm GPU can provide a throughput of 27.2Gpix/s and its compatible with Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.2, Android RenderScript APIs, GPU Compute. Samsung is yet to make any official announcement regarding the Samsung Galaxy S8 and of course, all these are rumours and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
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Display: One of the first reports that had surfaced about the Galaxy S8 was that the company was supposedly going to do away with the flat screen option for the upcoming smartphones in their high-end flagship. The basis for this speculation came from the president of Samsung himself; back in early August, Dong-jin Koh said during an interview in New York that the company was considering making the curved screen that was seen in the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, as the new identity of the Galaxy S smartphone lineup. This feature, if implemented, would be clubbed with new, upgraded software experience and functions specifically designed for the curved screen, he had added.
While Dong-jin Koh’s comment pointed more at a concept than a concrete possibility, the chances of Samsung embracing the Edge display for good are strong, especially if we are to go by the Galaxy Note 7, which too came solely with the curved screen option. Perhaps the company is on its way to making the Edge screen the signature feature for its upcoming smartphones.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 is also likely to come in two variants like its predecessor- a 5.1-inch model and a 5.5-inch model. So if we are to go by Dong-jin Koh’s comment, both the models will come with the Edge display feature. The screen on both models will be Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 4K resolution for optimum VR experience. There could also be a fingerprint scanner housed on the screen itself.
On the inside: With Android Nougat being all the rage right now, we can hardly expect Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S model to run the previous generation Marshmallow OS. But there’s more to expect from the smartphone that Samsung aims to redeem itself with during the coming year.
A recent information leak through the Chinese social networking site Weibo claimed that the upcoming Galaxy S smartphone would pack in an upgraded 3GHz Exynos 8895 processor coupled with a powerful 6GB RAM. The earlier Galaxy S series smartphones were powered by an Exynos 8890 which was clocked at 2.9GHz. But this upgrade is meant to usher in a new, more powerful camera set up to work in conjunction with.
Camera: The twin-camera unit has taken the smartphone world by storm, and with Apple taking the design to a new height of near-perfection, Samsung cannot be expected to stay far behind if it is aiming for the big leagues. So to stay true to its high-end design and feel, the new Galaxy S8 will come with a dual 12 MP camera unit coupled with a dual-LED (dual tone) flash mounted on its back. But the two cameras will differ on the sensor front. According to sources, one of the cameras will come equipped with a Sony sensor while the other will have Samsung’s ISOCELL S5K2L2 sensor. These two in conjunction will aim to provide the perfect balance of sharpness and colour to your images. To go back to the rumoured processing unit of the Samsung Galaxy S8, the upgraded system coupled with the powerful camera unit is specifically meant to provide a boost in the upcoming smartphone’s image processing function.
The 8MP secondary camera on the front panel of the Samsung Galaxy S8 will also have another cool function. It has been reported that the front camera of the upcoming device will come equipped with an IRIS scanner which can be used to unlock the phone.
The Headphone Jack issue: It is widely speculated that Samsung will bring some changes to the headphone jack of the upcoming Galaxy S8. Much like Apple, Samsung may remove the 3.5mm headphone port, but what it will replace the old port with remains a worrying question, though Bluetooth seems like the most obvious wireless choice. However, if Samsung chooses to come up with a new proprietary headphone connectivity option, that would really complicate matters for us users, who have to hobble between different kinds of headphones for different devices.
Battery: The upcoming flagship will be backed by a non-removable Li-Ion battery, but this time, no explosions, please!
Samsung Galaxy S8: Release Date
Samsung released the Galaxy S7 smartphone back in March this year, but for the next phone in the series, the tech giant may push the release date up to February 2017 instead of March to recover from the disaster surrounding the Galaxy Note 7.
With these prospects in mind, the Samsung Galaxy S8 certainly looks like a game changer in many ways. But let’s wait for some official announcements from Samsung about the device.