With 2019’s onslaught of smartphone launches now coming to a close, Samsung is already gearing up for the reveal of its next flagship, the Galaxy S11. We have had multiple leaks and rumours revealing information about the upcoming flagship series, but the latest report gives us a peek into something really interesting.
Samsung filed a patent with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) called “Space Zoom”. The patent is described as lossless zoom and it is quite likely that the S11 will attempt to do what the Pixel 4 is being known for — Astrophotography.
The patent describes it as the ability to zoom in on a subject without losing quality. It sounds like what Huawei has been doing with the P30 Pro or Oppo with the Reno 10X Zoom. The former even claimed that you can take shots of the moon using the mode. Samsung could have figured out a way to implement periscope telephoto zoom lens. It could also just be a way of applying digital zoom in tandem with image stacking to take zoomed shots without a big drop in quality.
Space Zoom certainly sounds interesting, but another report hints at something far more useful. The Galaxy S11e, the budget Galaxy S flagship for the coming year will have a larger 3,730mAH battery. GSMArena spotted a battery certification by SafetyKorea website for the model number EB-BG980ABY, which is supposed to go into a Samsung phone with the model number G980. Now, the Galaxy S10e came with the model number SM-G970, so it’s only safe to assume we are looking at battery capacity of the Galaxy S11e.
The image shared by the website is of poor quality but it’s easy to spot the battery is rated 14.36 Wh. Now, it’s known that the battery operates at 3.85V for mobile devices, so it can be deduced that the battery capacity could be 3,730mAh.
The rated capacity which Samsung would advertise should be around 3800-3900mAh, which is a major improvement over the Galaxy S10e. The S10e scored high in our review for performance, camera and usability, but failed to last even half a day thanks to a low 3,100mAh battery. A 3800mAh battery means a good 20 percent improvement in battery life.
Previous leaks have tipped the Galaxy S11 series will sport 90Hz refresh rate displays and 5G capability. The larger battery could be put in place to compensate for the higher power intake.