The Galaxy S8 launched later than Samsung wanted this year, as a direct result of that Galaxy Note 7 recall. However, Samsung’s phone was still the first Android phone to bring to the market a critical key component, one that other rivals lacked.
From the looks of it, Samsung may pull off the same trick with the upcoming Galaxy S9.
Samsung and Qualcomm inked a special deal for the Galaxy S8, making the phone the first device in the world to pack a Snapdragon 835 processor. Other devices, like the LG G6 that LG launched more than a month before the Galaxy S8 was unveiled, suffered the consequences. The 2017 LG flagship was hardly a best-selling device, and specs may have played a significant role in that.
The Snapdragon 835 is one of the various 10nm chips shipping inside smartphone this year, with Apple’s A10X and A11 Bionic, and Samsung’s Exynos 8895 also included in that list. LG, meanwhile, had to rely on older hardware for the G6.
The Snapdragon 845 launching next year will be a Galaxy S9/S9+ exclusive, Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin said in a tweet. If accurate, that must be terrible news for Samsung’s competitors looking to unveil new phones early next year.
Murtazin also said the phone will launch a month earlier than usual, without specifying what that means.
The Galaxy S8 was an exception for Samsung, which was forced to unveil it in late March. In previous years, Samsung scheduled press conferences at the Mobile World Congress to announce the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S7. That’s usually a late February or early March affair. Will the Galaxy S return to MWC next year? Or will Samsung launch it even earlier than that?
