Much like any other Samsung flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is also one of the most awaited smartphones of 2017. Here's what we've heard so far.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 is not going to be announced at Mobile World Congress this year. But call us obsessive compulsive, it feels like rumour roundup time for Samsung’s 2017 flagship, doesn’t it? The Samsung Galaxy S8 is reportedly going to be launched on March 21, and will start selling almost a month later, from April 21.
While Samsung’s flagships have always been important, this year’s Galaxy S8 has much more riding on its seemingly rounded metallic shoulders. The Galaxy Note 7 was a flaming wreck (sorry, we just can’t stop the puns on this one), and while Samsung still posted huge profits, it needs the next flagship to be a hit. To its credit, both the Galaxy S7 and S6 series were well received, so there’s still reason to expect…umm…fireworks?
Let’s start with build and design
To be perfectly honest, Evan Blass’ latest leak had us a little disappointed. The smaller Galaxy S7 was one of the last compact but powerful smartphones out there. Based on recent reports, the Galaxy S8 series seems to be going the “big-phone” way. There will apparently be 5.8 inch and 6.2 inch versions to this new device.
They will still have glass and metal designs and for the first time, there’s no home button on the front. While that’s a good thing, Samsung is reportedly also planning to drop the bezel size, making the phone’s more compact than what you may expect with their screen sizes. However, this means the fingerprint sensor is now on the back, particularly, next to the camera sensor. That’s another change that we’re not very sure about.
Nevertheless, we shall wait for the device to be launched before we say more.
A new Super AMOLED display
Those huge Super AMOLED panels will also sport Quad-HD resolutions and RGB pixel arrangement. This is actually a big change for Samsung, which has so far used a Diamond Pentile matrix on its displays. This means a diamond shape arrangement for sub-pixels on the display.
Samsung’s diamond pentile matrix had RGBG pixel arrangements so far. There are double the number of green pixels as compared to red and blue. In addition, the red and blue pixels are larger and diamond shaped. Such an arrangement allows higher pixel densities, but many dislike how images look on such a display. Some rumours even suggest Samsung will choose a 4K panel, but we don't have much hopes for that. It doesn't make much sense any way.
So, the choice of an RGB matrix this time could mean better and more true-to-source colour reproduction, at the expense of some pixels. If you ask us, we’re really interested in what Samsung has to offer this time.
Brains and brawns
It seems Samsung has been hogging Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 SoC, leaving no chance for others to use it. Reports say there will be no Snapdragon 835-powered devices at MWC 2017 just because Samsung had first dibs at the SoC. Now that could mean this year’s Samsung flagship will be Snapdragon 835-powered even in India. Over the last two years, the company has only announced its in-house Exynos run variants here.
While the Exynos 8890 was quite close to the Snapdragon 820, it did offer slightly lesser performance. However, given how much it has on line this year, Samsung may launch the Galaxy S8 in India running on the Snapdragon 835.
You can also expect the company’s super fast UFS 2.0 storage on the device and 4/6GB LPDDR4 RAM.
Camera
Let’s face it, Samsung did an absolutely stellar job with the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge’s camera technology. The company focused on low-light last year and it should do so this year as well. Evan Blass’ recent report confirms that the company isn’t going to join the dual-camera bandwagon.
We’re not quite sure that’s a very good choice by Samsung, but we also don’t see much reason to complain if it can substantially improve last year’s camera.
Artificial Intelligence
You didn’t expect Samsung to ignore the AI trend did you? Apple has Siri, Google has the Google Assistant, Amazon has Alexa and now Samsung is rumoured to be working on Bixby. It purchased AI firm Viv recently, which sparked rumours about a voice assistant on its next flagship and recent rumours say it’s going to be named Bixby.
However, Samsung is no stranger to voice assistants in the first place. It has had the S Voice assistant on almost all of its devices so far. S Voice, though, is nowhere close to the other assistants mentioned above. Bixby should also take over voice support on Samsung’s wearables as well.
Now, while that does sound good, Google Assistant is integrated directly into Android, which means Samsung has its work cut out to make Bixby competitive. In addition, the company needs to improve on the existing options mentioned above.
And that’s all folks!
We’re of course interested in finding out how Samsung bounces back from last year’s debacle, but let’s face it, the Galaxy S flagship is interesting nevertheless. There’s a lot left to find out, but these initial rumours do paint a picture of what Samsung has coming. We shall keep updating this story as and when we find more.
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Prasid Banerjee
Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. View Full Profile
