The Galaxy S8 is one of the highly anticipated phones of 2017 and for a good reason. Samsung’s next flagship is supposed to bring over a new design, complete with next-gen features that are also in the cards for Apple’s iPhone 8. A new report indicates the Galaxy S8 will indeed have an all-screen front-side, featuring a fingerprint sensor placed in the lower side of the screen.
This isn’t the first time we hear Samsung is moving to a bezel-less design for its top smartphone. But Bloomberg seems to confirm the new features — well, nothing is confirmed until Samsung announces it.
According to people familiar with the matter, the Galaxy S8’s display will have a virtual home button. The phone will retain the wraparound OLED screen seen in previous Galaxy S models.
The phone should be launched in March, but Samsung is taking extra steps to make sure the phone is safe to use, which means the release date could be pushed to April.
“Since the [Galaxy Note 7] phones have a record of burning up, it needs time for these phones to be verified as safe. HMC Investment Securities Co analyst Greg Roh told Bloomberg. “How safe the phones turn out to be is more important than any hardware innovation. It will take about a month or two for people to actually start opening their pockets.”
The Galaxy S8 will use Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 processor and Samsung’s Exynos CPU, the report says. The phone should feature “an upgraded digital assistant,” based on AI features developed by the UK-based Viv Labs, a company that Samsung purchased in October.
Bloomberg also notes that the next-gen iPhone should also feature a bezel-less wraparound OLED display that will feature a virtual home button. Samsung will beat Apple to market with this new smartphone design concept, even though next year’s iPhone 8 was rumored for months to receive an edge-to-edge screen complete with an embedded Touch ID button. The iPhone 8 is expected to launch next September.
Xiaomi, meanwhile, is the first company to have launched an all screen phone. The “concept” Mi Mix in the image above is available in limited numbers and ensures that Xiaomi is the first company in the world to have achieved such a design.
