Samsung Galaxy S8 — Rumour Roundup

Rumours swirl and mix with wishful thinking

Samsung is all set to unveil the Galaxy S8 to the world in a few months. And, like it is with every new launch, there is a lot of gossip around the device and what the “upgrade” would entail.

Let’s help you get some clarity around what the most popular campfire talk is, at this time.

Following the hot trend of 2016, it seems that Samsung will ditch the 3.5 mm headphone jack on its Galaxy S8. Another interesting piece of conjecture that has been circulating regarding the S8 is that the company will bid farewell to the physical home button and instead go for a fingerprint scanner embedded into its new RGB Super AMOLED Quad HD display. There’s also talk of the USB Type-C making a return to Galaxy devices.

That’s quite a bunch of new functionality on the Galaxy S8.

Over the years, Apple and Samsung have dominated the smartphone market and it seems that both the companies have mutually encouraged each other. Very recently, Apple added a new water-resistant feature to its new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, this feature as we all know has been there on its flagship Galaxy S series from the past few years.

No 3.5 mm Headphone Jack

This time Samsung seems to have drawn inspiration from Apple and others like LeEco and Motorola that have dropped the 3.5 mm audio jack as there are rumours that on the new Galaxy S8, there’s no 3.5 mm audio jack port, perhaps in order to make space for a larger battery and to free up space in the smartphone to accommodate more components.
This move will also obviously push users to switch to wireless audio.

However, this is slightly ironical because if you recall the Samsung launch event of Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, then at that event Samsung took a dig on Apple’s decision of ditching the 3.5 mm audio jack as Justin Denison, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing, Samsung said , “Do you know what else it (Galaxy Note7) comes with? An audio jack. I’m just saying”.

Embedded Fingerprint Sensor To Replace Home Button

There have been rumours that the Samsung Galaxy S8 might have a near-bezel-less display, especially with minimal bottom bezels. One thing led to the other, and there were reports that the company will abandon the physical home button and the fingerprint scanner will be directly implanted into the screen.

Synaptics, one of Samsung’s suppliers of fingerprint scanners recently announced a new model of optical fingerprint scanners which according to Synaptics is suitable for “placement under the cover glass, including 2.5D glass, located in the front, bottom bezel of devices”. The Samsung Galaxy S8 with all the rumors and reports seems to fit this bill and you never know, the new optical fingerprint scanner might make its debut on the S8.

You might be wondering what’s such a big deal with the new fingerprint scanner?

The answer is that a tiny scanner can bring a lot of changes. The new sensor can work with wet fingertips, also making it waterproof, scratch-proof (unlike previous Galaxy sensors) and extra-durable because the sensor will be concealed behind the glass of the smartphone, while sidestepping electro-static discharge issues at the same time.
This also signifies a major change in terms of display as by increasing the screen-to-body ratio with minimum physical buttons impeding the spread of the display.

Since Synaptics has already made a lot of ground-breaking work in the field of optical scanner technology and it will be a welcome feature on the Galaxy S8 rather than employing a totally newer technology; however who’s to tell if Apple’s already signed on with Synaptics and thus taken it out of Samsung’s grasp?

However, there is a catch here. Synaptics has said that it will begin the mass production of the new sensor in Q2 of 2017 whereas Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S8 in late February, 2017. This means either the S8 announcement will be pushed as far back as April or Samsung might employ its own line of in-house capacitive scanners in the S8.

Additionally, there are also reports regarding the fact that Samsung is planning to change to RGB Super AMOLED Quad HD display from its Diamond PenTile pixel arrangement that it has used on its current and previous handsets. This change to the display will provide sharper images and thus improved media quality.

The difference between the two displays can be indicated by producing some simple numbers that point out the superiority of RGB display between the two.
The Diamond PenTile layout used on the Galaxy S7 Edge comes in at 7,372,800 pixels, while an RGB arrangement will produce 11,059,200 pixels on the Galaxy S8. Keeping this in mind, it seems that Samsung will stick to 2K Quad HD screens on the Samsung Galaxy S8 as opposed to the rumoured 4K display.

USB Type-C Port To Make It’s Comeback On Galaxy S8

The Note 7 was launched with Type-C Port and this has also fired rumors that the Galaxy S8 might also abandon the micro-USB 2.0 port in favour of USB Type-C Port. This will of course enable quick charging, faster data transfer and make it compatible with the company’s latest Gear VR headset.

As for other exciting news regarding the S8, the front camera on the S8 is also rumoured to feature autofocus functionality as per a recent trademark filing. Samsung is also gearing up to compete and will strive to launch the Galaxy S8 VR compatibility out of the box.

The smartphone will come with 6 GB RAM and Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 or Samsung Exynos 8895 SoC.

There are no reports regarding the price of the device and it is expected to launch at a press event in late February 2017 as Mobile World Congress kicks off.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.