This year’s Mobile World Congress started on Monday in Barcelona. It’s one of the world’s biggest mobile show expos, however, this year fans didn’t have much to be hyped about since only a small number of flagship smartphones were announced. This year’s event is set to become one of the worst mobile shows in recent history and GSMA is not to be blamed. Since Samsung is one of the biggest brands of the show, fans expected it to reveal the new S8 models. Well, that was not the case.
Even though we have no official words from the South Korean tech giant, we will share a curious leak. On Wednesday morning Evan Blass (gadget leaker) posted an official marketing render which fits almost perfectly with descriptions of Galaxy S8 models. Out of all speculations and rumors we had about the upcoming flagship phones, this one is the most trustworthy. We’ve seen a lot of suspicious photos that ‘leaked’ on various Chinese forums about one of the most anticipated devices of the year but none of those fit so perfectly like this render we’ve got. But, remember, it is still only a render!
We know that fans are eagerly waiting for it and that’s why we will supply you with the photo of an actual Samsung Galaxy S8.
Here we have the image of the new model. That’s one of the two phones that make this flagship pair. When it comes to specs, Samsung Galaxy S8+ is equipped with a 6.2-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED display as opposed to S8 which has a 5.8-inch screen. The battery is larger in the S8+ model as well. Everything else is said to be identical which is intriguing. When we look at Apple’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus we know that 7 Plus possesses a better CPU and various other things. That isn’t the case with the Galaxy S8 and S8+ models. Everything is same except the display and battery. And that is a real kick in the teeth to the rivals.
When it comes to design, the new flagship duo looks similar to the previous year’s Galaxy S7 Edge and Galaxy Note 7. The front is covered by a curved AMOLED display with glass overlapping on the side of the phone. This feature is the same on S8 and S8+ models. The glass on these devices is also rounded so that it fits your hands perfectly. Some may argue that the size of the display may be a problem, but Samsung made up for it by making nearly edgeless sides of the screen. So it is a bit narrower than expected.
We have mentioned that specs other than the display and battery will be identical. Let’s pop the hood and see what we have there. Samsung Galaxy S8 will run on a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset in the US. However, models designed for the rest of the world will have companies Exynos processor of similar capabilities. When it comes to memory, both gadgets will have 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage as well as the possibility of putting a microSDXC card for even more storage. New devices will support microSD cards that are up to 2TB in size but, currently, the 256GB is the largest available storage capacity on the market.
Galaxy S8 models will be equipped with a 12-megapixel Dual Pixel camera which is on the back of the phone. It also has flash and sensor. Fingerprint scanner was also moved, and it now sits alongside the camera. The home button has been deleted which is a huge step since we now have a bigger screen. All of this leads to the materialization of the concept of ‘all-screen’ smartphone which is the thing that fans wanted for so long. It will be interesting to see Apple’s response to this.
Of course, phones will also have a front-facing camera. It is an 8-megapixel unit, and it will have the iris scanner which was introduced on the Galaxy Note 7. We will have a speaker on the bottom, a USB-C port, and the infamous 3.5mm headphone jack. Other than that there are power and volume buttons on the side with one novelty, and that is another button which is believed to be for ‘Bixby’ Samsung’s new virtual assistant. Bixby is a response to Apple’s AI called ‘Siri.’ Some claimed that Samsung might remove the headphone jack just like Apple did but it turns out that artists behind new S8 models listened to fans and decided not to do it.
Biggest reasons behind Apple’s removal of the headphone jack were the water resistance and more space for internal components. What is quite interesting is that Samsung managed to obtain an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance without removing the headphone jack. Furthermore, this means that new Samsung phones will be even more resistant to water than the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus since the latter were IP67-rated.
The unveiling of Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ is set to be during a press conference in New York City on 29th of March. It is predicted that the global launch will be on 21st of April. That’s what we have so far. By the looks of it, Apple will have a lot of work to do in order to surpass Samsung again.
