Right off the bat we need to include a disclaimer: all the information below is pure speculation, gathered from other resources around the web. Until Samsung makes an official announcement, anything below could change before launch.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go chat about one of the most anticipated phones of the first quarter.
Name
No Surprise here, multiple outlets are all reporting that Samsung is going to stick with the same naming convention and call this year’s model the Galaxy S8. (Android Authority) The one difference is that with two models coming out, the larger device will have the “Plus” moniker attached to it. (Greenbot "Everything we think we know...") We’ll cover more on the size differences later in this post.
Hardware
There’s pretty decent speculation that the new phone will come loaded with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 835 processor, 64GB of onboard memory and 4GB of RAM. For those heavy memory users, getting 64GB straight out of the box will be a huge improvement over the S7 which started out at 32GB
Camera
Samsung will most likely pack the S8 with a 12 MP “Dual Pixel” rear camera and 8 MP front-facing camera. In addition, TechFirst is telling us that the rear camera will be able to take incredible slo-motion video while the front camera will have the ability to do facial recognition.
Screen/Design
It’s coming in two sizes. Your standard 5.7 inch display and a “Plus” sized 6.2 inch display with a gorgeous Quad HD+ Super AMOLED Display. Like other models we are seeing this year, Samsung is maximizing real estate on the front of the device with a bezel-less screen and by removing the physical Home button. Android Authority is reporting that the GS8’s screen will also have an 18.5:9 ratio which truly capitalizes on split screen activities. Furthermore, BGR indicates that the phone will come with 3 screen resolution options (720p, 1080p and 4K).
Other Stuff
Samsung has found a way to make their phones IP68 dust and water resistant while keeping the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is good news for those of us who haven’t yet cut those headphone cords or still use an Aux cord to listen to music in their cars. The device will likely come with USB Type C out of the box with wireless charging capability. There’s a rumor from Forbes that the new device will have an Iris scanner as well as the now standard fingerprint scanner, though Samsung may be moving the finger print scanner to the back of the device for easy one-handed operation.
Features
The phone will likely come with Android 7.1 Nougat and Samsung’s latest version of TouchWiz Gace UX. On the charging front, we expect it to come with wireless charging and could switch to a USB Type-C charging port. As Samsung announced earlier this month, the S8 will be the first Samsung device to feature their new personal assistant Bixby. The Verge did a write up, but suffice to say, Samsung is looking to a evolve the personal assistant into something more than just a task reminder or direction finder.
The phone is shaping up to be packed with some awesome hardware and incredible features. Samsung is set to unveil the S8 on 3/29 at 11 am EST. Sprint will, of course, announce our unique offer shortly after.
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