Even though we spent the last year running around the world’s largest mobile phone tradeshow, we still don’t actually know when you’ll be able to hold a Galaxy S8 in your cold, sweaty hands. We know that the launch event is going to be in March, but assuming that Samsung doesn’t give the entire world apology Galaxy S8s then and there to make up for the Note 7, we’re going to be waiting a little longer to get the actual phones.
A new report from The Investor cites industry sources as saying that the pre-orders will open on April 10th, just two weeks after the official announcement date. Pre-orders tend to precede the official retail availability by a week or two, so we should be seeing the Galaxy S8 in stores sometime in mid to late April.
Of course, it won’t just be one new phone we’re seeing. Samsung is strongly rumored to be releasing two devices, and Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. As is tradition by this point, the Galaxy S8 is the mainstream device, while the S8+ will have a slightly bigger screen and marginally upgraded guts.
It’s a formula that Apple made popular with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and it’s proven to work by letting companies sell a premium, top-end device and also a more affordable phone for people with regular-sized hands.
We don’t need to wait for March 29th to get most of the details on the phone, though. A series of leaked images obtained by BGR show off the Galaxy S8 in most of its glory. In particular, we’re seeing a phone that has very little bezel on either side, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor inside, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of memory. The fingerprint sensor has also been relocated to sit on the back side alongside the camera and flash.
The end result is a phone that has very little bezel of any kind. The lack of fingerprint sensor on the front frees up some space, and the only bezel really left houses the speaker and iris sensor up above the screen.
