The Guardian drops Galaxy S8 details: Near bezel-less display, rear fingerprint scanner, desktop OS mode

The Guardian has published one of the most detailed leaks of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 yet, and knowing that you're tired of parsing through a million articles on this phone, let me break down the major news into bullet points.
  • A claimed retail launch of April 21st (this could be specific to the UK, as The Guardian is a UK publication)
  • Display sizes are somewhere between 5-6" (yeah, not helpful, guys)
  • Headphone jack is intact
  • Displays are curved, nearly bezel-less "infinity" screens, with almost no room on the front for even a Samsung logo.
  • Fingerprint scanner is now on the back of the phone (I believe it's next to the camera module, off to the side).
  • Iris scanner from Note7 is present.
  • Storage now starts at 64GB, microSD card remains.
  • USB-C
  • New Gear VR and Gear 360
  • Similar camera to last year's phones, improvements only "incremental."
  • Unspecified chipset, but Guardian hedges on Snapdragon 835.
  • A dock and software that turn the phone into an Android "desktop" operating environment called DeX.
Whew, that's a lot to take in, so let's break it down - starting with the most obvious stuff. We already had a good feeling that the headphone jack was sticking around. A Snapdragon 835 seems all but a given (at least for some regions) at this point - because Samsung snapped up the first round of supply. The iris scanner, USB-C, microSD, and curved displays with minimal bezel are all also something we should have expected by now.
Moving on to the more interesting bits, it's good to hear Samsung is setting 64GB as the base storage tier on its phones - it's a no-brainer and may force Apple and other competitors to step up. The actual size of these new curved screens is unclear, but some rumors have pegged the bigger phone's as being larger than last year's 5.5" S7 edge - maybe 5.7"? A retail launch in mid-April sounds about right based on what I've heard, though the 21st seems a bit late according to my sources with knowledge of US plans - we could see it up to a week earlier here.
Moving the fingerprint scanner to the back of the phone is something I'd been hearing for a long time now, but The Guardian doesn't disclose its exact placement. What I've been told is that it will be adjacent to the camera module (off to the side, not below it), which could be rather awkward depending on the ergonomics of these phones. I've heard nothing about Samsung's mythical in-screen fingerprint reader, and The Guardian doesn't mention it, either, so I wouldn't get your hopes up on that.
The real interesting piece is definitely this "DeX" thing, which appears to be an ape of Microsoft's Continuum. The Guardian doesn't provide many details, but it sounds like you'll be able to plug the S8 into a physical dock and have it output an Android-based desktop environment to an external display. I have to say, I'm extremely skeptical this will be any good (resizable windows in Nougat haven't suddenly made Android a desktop OS, no matter what anyone tells you), but I am absolutely curious to see what Samsung has brought to the table here.
We'll be waiting a while yet, though - the S8 won't be at MWC, so I expect we won't be hearing official news from Samsung for a couple of months at least.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linktree’s free workaround lets you add multiple links to your Instagram bio

Image
Instagram only gives you one opportunity to link to outside resources inside its photo sharing platform. This might not be a problem for a majority of the users, but for those wanting a little more customization and even more options, it leaves much to be desired. Enter  Linktree , a free tool for Instagram designed to improve traffic to your outside link, be it a blog, portfolio, or store. How it works is fairly straightforward. After connecting Linktree to your Instagram profile, you’ll receive a single link to place in your Instagram bio. Once that link in place, you can customize what it’s linked to within your browser, be it a single website, or a collection of sites you’re looking to direct followers to Say you’re a photographer who’s using Instagram as a marketing tool for your wedding photography. Using Linktree, you can direct Instagram followers to your blog, your portfolio site, and even your other social media accounts. Until now, you would’ve been stuck choosing b
Read more

EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE PIXEL 4, THE MOST-LEAKED PHONE EVER

Image
Google’s  Pixel 3 might have been the  most-leaked phone in history . Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos, photo comparisons, even a full review of the device. Surely, for the Pixel 4, Google would clamp down on leaks to leave some surprises for its debut on  October 15th , right? Let’s just say, if that was the plan, it didn’t exactly work out. We’ve now seen the Pixel 4 XL from every angle and in three different colors. At least seven different sources have touched this phone, many of them confirming the same specs. We not only know which cameras it’ll have, but also what they may be capable of, including air gestures (go figure). That doesn’t even count information Google has already shared  on purpose. So if you want to know almost everything about the Pixel 4 nearly a month before it’s announced, buckle up. We’ve sifted through all of the rumors and information we can find to compile everything we know — and everything we
Read more

Our favorite iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad in 2018

Image
As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to look at some our favorite apps of the year. While not all of these are brand new, many of them popped up onto our radar for the first time in 2018, and are definitely worth the attention. Others are some of our favorites that are still best-in-class despite having been around for some time now. We aim to do things differently at TNW, and as such you’re not going to find the recommendations you’re probably used to seeing: Gmail, Skype, Dropbox, and the like. Instead, we want to focus on the best-of-the-best that you may not have heard of, and others that are just special enough to warrant a mention. As always, we’d encourage you to share some of your favorites in the comments below, or on Facebook. Enlight Pixaloop (Free Pixaloop  is one of my favorite apps on the market. Unlike typical image editors that allow you to remove red eye or apply a filter, Pixaloop allows you to create stunning photo animations with a few clicks on your
Read more