Samsung has been the top smartphone vendor by sales volume for several years now, and it has maintained its leading position a few different ways. One is by offering a wide range of high-quality smartphones that span every price point from entry-level to ultra-premium flagship phones. Another is by outspending rivals by billions of dollars each year when it comes to marketing and advertising. Of course, those of who have been watching the industry for the past decade will always remember how Samsung got its start in the first place. The company’s initial transition from “dumb” cell phones to smartphones did not go smoothly, and its early handsets were terrible in every way. Then Samsung realized it had to go all-in on copying Apple’s iPhone, which was still reshaping the entire industry. Samsung went back to the drawing board and literally wrote the book on copying Apple. The rest, as they say, is history.
Several years and dozens of lawsuits later, and Samsung relies far less on Apple for inspiration. In fact, some might say that Samsung’s newest smartphones have an even better design than Apple’s current iPhone lineup — especially if you’re not a fan of display notches. The company played with a number of different designs before landing on the Infinity Display design we all know and love, and it has become a signature feature among all of Samsung’s flagship phones. If a new leak turns out to be accurate, however, there will be one version of its upcoming Galaxy S10 that sports a totally different design than the rest.
Samsung’s Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, and Galaxy Note 9 are certainly not the most exciting smartphones the company has ever released. Each model is nearly identical to its predecessor in terms of design, and none of them offer any truly compelling features that have sent people rushing to stores to buy them. As a result, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are shaping up to be Samsung’s worst-selling Galaxy S smartphones since 2012, and the Note 9 has already been all but forgotten by the tech media just one month after its release.
They might not be the most exciting phones, but they are definitely some of the best phones on the planet in terms of both design and performance. Where design is concerned, they feature Samsung’s signature curved display on the front and similarly curved glass on the back. The result is a phone that looks sleek and feels fantastic in the hand, and it’s something we’ve come to expect on all of Samsung’s new high-end smartphones.
Next year’s hotly anticipated Galaxy S10 is going to be packed with new features like an in-display fingerprint sensor and as many as five cameras. But another reason people are so excited for the phone is the new design. The phone will still feature Samsung’s signature curved Infinity Display, but the bezels above and below the screen have supposedly been made much smaller. It’s likely to be closer than Samsung has ever come to achieving the all-screen design people are waiting for, and until now we thought that every version of the Galaxy S10 would feature the same look. According to the world’s top Samsung leaker, however, that won’t be the case.
Ice Universe has a long history of leaking accurate information about unreleased Samsung products. In fact, no one has been more prolific in recent years. With Samsung’s Galaxy S10 release fast approaching, he has started to share new information about the upcoming flagship phone series. And in his latest post on Twitter, his new intel definitely comes as a surprise.
We know that Samsung is working on three different versions of the Galaxy S10, just like Apple is releasing three versions of its new iPhone this year. We’ll get a Galaxy S10 and a Galaxy S10+ just like we did with this year’s S9, but there will also be a third new model that is expected to have less impressive specs and a lower price point. In his new leak, Ice Universe shared Samsung’s model numbers and screen sizes for all three phones. But it’s the rest of the info he shared that comes as a surprise.
Galaxy S10
SM-G970 5.8 flat display
SM-G973 5.8 edge display
SM-G975 6.44 edge display— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) September 21, 2018
The SM-G973 is the main Galaxy S10, which we know will feature a 5.8-inch curved Super AMOLED screen, and the SM-G975 is the larger Galaxy S10+ with a curved 6.44-inch screen. But it looks like the SM-G970 will sport a different design with a flat screen, ditching Samsung’s signature Infinity design. We obviously can’t confirm anything at this point, but this was likely done to keep costs down so that Samsung can offer the phone at a significantly lower price. The flexible Super AMOLED panels Samsung uses in its flagship phones are expensive, and there is of course even more cost associated with bending the glass that covers them.
All three of Samsung’s new Galaxy S10 phones are expected to be unveiled early next year, possibly as soon as CES 2019 in early January. A fourth model is reportedly in the works as well, but if rumors pan out it’ll just be a Galaxy S10+ with 5G compatibility.
