The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has been rumoured to launch earlier than usual this year. Corroborating that rumour, a post by a leakster on Weibo has listed down the hardware specifications of the productivity-centric flagship from Samsung. Earlier reports have indicated the Note 9 could come out as early as July or August.
As per the post, the Galaxy Note 9 will be powered by the same chipsets that are on the Galaxy S9 phones — Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 in some regions and Exynos 9810 in global markets. The post also suggests it could sport a larger 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display of the same 18.5:9 resolution That’s just 0.2-inch larger than the Galaxy S9+, which will act as a differentiating factor between the two flagships.
While the above rumours are somewhat expected, the battery capacity on the Galaxy Note 9, as per the post, seems adventurous. The Note 9 is expected to come with a 4,000mAh battery, a big jump from the 3,300mAh capacity on the Galaxy Note 8 from last year. We say adventurous because the last time Samsung powered a Note device with a high-capacity battery, it started exploding the world over and had to be recalled at a global scale.
If Samsung is indeed confident about the high-capacity battery, it indicates the company has perfected its battery-testing methods that was adopted after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.
Samsung is also expected to skip the under-display fingerprint sensor until it is perfected. Currently, the new sensor which is being implemented by the likes of Vivo and Huawei, still has some issues to iron out, a reason good enough for Samsung to skip it in this product cycle.
The Korea Herald has given a late August timeline for the launch of the flagship. Other rumours put the timeline between late July and early August. Earlier reports have stated that OLED panel production for Galaxy Note 9 will start from April, which is two months earlier than usual, pegging the launch timeline to July or August.