This is the first live look at the Samsung Galaxy S8.
We now know what the Galaxy S8 will look like, if this live photo of the new device, or pair of devices, is real.
According to trustworthy leaker, Evan Blass of Venturebeat, the Galaxy S8 will resemble its predecessor in a number of ways, but will eschew the standard flat model for a duo of curved edge-to-edge variants in two sizes: 5.8 inches and 6.2 inches. Based on a previous leak, we know that the phone’s screen, which will reportedly have a non-standard 18.5:9 aspect ratio, will comprise 83% of the front, which approaches the definition of “bezel-less”. The odd aspect ratio will also allow Samsung to fit more vertically on the screen; the navigation keys won’t eat into any actual screen real estate like on other devices with typical 16:9 shapes.
The 5.8-inch version will reportedly have a 3,000mAh battery, while the larger 6.2-inch model will be boosted to 3,500mAh.
As you can see from the shot above, Samsung will be doing away with a physical home button and capacitive navigation keys on the phone’s front, moving to on-screen buttons while shifting the fingerprint sensor to the phone’s rear, to the right (or left, depending on how you’re holding the phone) of the 12MP rear camera. At the bottom, a USB-C port is centered next to a single speaker and, thankfully, a headphone jack.
Though we don’t know screen resolution as of yet, the 5.8-inch version will reportedly have a 3,000mAh battery, while the larger 6.2-inch model will be boosted to 3,500mAh. That is the same, and slightly smaller, than the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, respectively.
Inside, a Snapdragon 835 will pair with 4GB of RAM, while a new 64GB base storage size will be augmentable with a microSD slot. As we reported earlier this week, the Galaxy S8 will be the first phone to ship with Qualcomm’s new ultra-fast Snapdragon 835, much to the chagrin of LG and others.
We can expect incremental upgrades in the imaging department, according to Venturebeat; a single 12MP rear sensor and f/1.7 lens sounds the same as the Galaxy S7’s on paper, but there will undoubtedly be improvements to the optics to talk about. On the software side, the camera will incorporate OCR abilities to parse images and text that the new AI assistant will be able to turn into documents for archiving.
The phone will be announced at an event in New York City on March 29.
Perhaps the most interesting and unusual feature will be a Microsoft Continuum-like desktop dock called DeX, which will allow Android to be used as a desktop operating system, with a little help from Samsung’s engineers. It’s unclear what version of Android the phone will run at launch, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see Android 7.1 Nougat when the Galaxy S8 debuts in April.
As for the announcement itself, VB is reporting that it will take place in New York City on March 29, a month after Mobile World Congress. In Europe, the phones will cost €799 and €899, respectively, €100 more than the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge.
Samsung
Samsung is a massive South Korea-based multinational company that makes some of the best-selling phones, tablets and mobile accessories, but also spans industries such as televisions, appliances and semiconductors (like memory and processors). Samsung is the largest Android device manufacturer worldwide.