There were questions among some industry watchers as to how last year’s Galaxy Note 7 debacle would impact sales of Samsung’s new flagship phones, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. Following their release earlier this year, the S8 and S8+ quickly became Samsung’s fastest-selling smartphones of all time. So yes, it’s fairly safe to assume at this point that consumers are “over it.”
With the Galaxy S8 and S8+ behind us, Android fans are already looking ahead to Samsung’s next big flagship smartphone. Set to debut as soon as this coming August, expectations for the Galaxy Note 8 are high as rumors about the phone’s bleeding-edge specs and sleek updated design continue to swirl. But now, a new report brings some bad news. Apparently, one of the most hotly anticipated Note 8 features will be a no-show when the phone is released later this summer.
If recent rumors pan out, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 will include everything that makes that Galaxy S8 and S8+ great, and then some. The phone will apparently have an even larger Infinity Display and perhaps a screen-to-body ratio that’s even more impressive than the 83% achieved by the S8. We an also expect a next-generation S Pen with some nifty new software and hardware features.
One thing we shouldn’t expect, if this new report pans out, is an embedded fingerprint scanner.
Samsung is working on technology that will allow it to embed fingerprint sensors directly into a smartphone’s display. This will be a signature feature in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 8, but it looks like Samsung is unable to get the required tech ready for mass production. According to an unnamed Samsung executive who spoke with South Korean industry news site Naver, the Note 8 won’t have a fingerprint scanner built into its screen.
“We made every effort to install a display-integrated fingerprint sensor on Galaxy Note 8, but we decided not to install it on this strategic phone due to various technical limitations such as security,” the anonymous exec reportedly said. Let’s just hope Samsung doesn’t put the scanner next to the camera on the back of the Galaxy Note 8, as it did on the S8.
