The months of August and September are usually very busy for the smartphone industry. We recently discussed the upcoming specs and features of the upcoming LG V30. Today, we’re going to discuss the upcoming specs and features of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
So everyone is probably aware of the fiasco that happened last year with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Long story short, many units caught fire due to a design flaw that cost the company to ultimately recall every single unit in circulation. If you go to the airport today, you’ll still see airline companies specifically ban the Note 7 from its aircraft.
Well, despite the bad PR and bad press, Samsung is still going to keep the Note branding. In fact, they’re actually going to push the release back an extra week just so they can amp up the marketing a week before and just get everyone juiced up for a new Samsung smartphone.
The Note 8 is expected to strongly resemble the Galaxy S8 Plus but should be a bit more of a boxy appearance than the S8 Plus but it’s still going to have 18:9 aspect ratio display and it’s still going to have front and back construction that consists of glass with aluminum sides. There will be a USB-C port on the bottom along with a headphone jack, speaker grille, and S Pen slot.
Unfortunately, it appears that the fingerprint scanner will still be on the back of the phone right next to the camera sensors. There’s really no separation between the fingerprint scanner and the camera sensors. I don’t think it’s an ideal setup but you will have other options to unlock your phone. If you don’t like that fingerprint scanner, you can use the built-in iris scanner if that’s more convenient for you.
The display should be bumped up slightly to 6.3-inches. The Infinity Display will return so the sides will be curved. The display type will be Super AMOLED with a QHD resolution. So for comparison, the Galaxy S8+ has a 6.2-inch display size so the Galaxy Note 8 really shouldn’t be too much bigger than the Galaxy S8+.
There is some talk of a 4K resolution to improve the virtual reality experience and while anything’s possible, I mean the phone will probably ship with a 1080p resolution with an option to increase the resolution in the settings similar to the Galaxy Note 8. Whether or not that’s one of those options to increase to a QHD resolution or a 4K UHD resolution, it’s not to be confirmed yet. But every year, it seems there has been a lot of talk about a 4K resolution. It seems like it’s only a matter of time. I think for sure this year. If it’s not going to happen, it’s going to happen next year.
In terms of specifications, the Note 8 is expected to feature the Snapdragon 835 chipset with 4 or 6GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage for the base model with expandable storage via a microSD card slot, and there will be dual 13-megapixel rear-facing camera sensors that will be a fresh, new feature for the Galaxy Note 8 and for every Galaxy phone. It’s the first Galaxy phone to feature dual rear-facing camera sensors. We’re not really sure Samsung is gonna go with a telephoto sensor alongside the main shooter, similar to the iPhone 7 or if they’re going to install a wide angle sensor similar to the LG G6 or a monochrome sensor similar to the Moto Z2 Force. What we do know with a very high certainty is that there’s going to be two camera sensors on the rear.
Of course, there should be some new software tricks for the S Pen. One of the rumored features include a tilt feature. So when you’re drawing and you have the S Pen tilted, it should have different effects which will enhance your digital drawings, for example. It might even enhance your cursive writing. We can only wait and see. The phone will be running Android 7.0 Nougat with the Bixby digital assistant built in.
Given how the Galaxy Note 7 had such big battery issues, Samsung will be doing everything it can to make sure that there are no widespread battery issues with the Note 8. One way it will be doing that is by downgrading the battery or including a relatively small battery of around 3,500mAh that sounds fairly big. But for a device that really is known for its battery life, it’s just kind of mediocre.
Finally, one of the biggest cons with the Galaxy Note 8 is that we pretty much already know of is the price. Some rumor suggests it could cost right around $1000. Realistically, it’ll probably cost closer to $900 off-contract for the base model, which is still just a ridiculous chunk of change for a smartphone.
With that said, what are you most excited for with the Note 8? Is it the return of the S Pen? Or dual rear-facing camera sensors?