The safe Galaxy Note 7, which will retail as the Galaxy Note FE or Galaxy Note 7R, will not be launched this month in Korea and other markets, as some reports noted in the past. Instead, the release date has been pushed back to July, a new report says, almost one year after the phone’s original launch.
According to Korean site ETNews, July 7th should be the release date for the handset in Korea. That’s a week later than originally planned, an official familiar with the situation said, as Samsung decided to sell 450,000 Galaxy Note FE units or 300,000 more than initially expected. The nation’s top three mobile operators should have the phone in stock.
The report also notes the phone will cost anywhere between 740,000 and 760,000 won — that’s $656 and $673, respectively, in line with previous reports.
ETNews adds that the Galaxy Note FE will have a new feature compared to the original version, and that’s support for the Bixby voice assistant that first launched on the Galaxy S8.
A different report from iNews24 said the phone will have the same colors as the original Galaxy Note 7, and users should not expect a new design. The phone is made from stock parts originally planned to be used in the Galaxy Note 7 production, aside from the battery, which is smaller than the original.
That’s hardly a surprise. After all, Samsung is trying to recoup some of the Galaxy Note 7-related losses, so it’d be unlikely to make any changes to the phone, aside from the battery.
