While Samsung had some presence at the MWC 2017, everyone knew not to expect any flagship smartphone reveal at or around this event. Well, if that was Samsung’s considered plan its now been spoiled as multiple reliable sources have today spilled some extremely sharp and clear images of what is said to be the Samsung Galaxy S8.
evleaks
Probably the best known smartphone leaker around was first off the blocks early today with a pin-sharp render of the Samsung Galaxy S8. Evan Blass cheekily pondered out loud to his 300,000+ Twitter followers “I think this is what you are looking for.”
Accompanying his Twitter text was an extremely clear picture of the Samsung Galaxy S8, reproduced above, much like one Samsung might use themselves, for advertising or promotional purposes.
With the Galaxy S8, Samsung is dropping the physical Home button and maximising the screen to bezel ratio as much as its technology will practically allow. You can see the wraparound screen like previous ‘Edge’ suffixed phones which has now reached prime-time and will be a standard feature. The only other things you can see are the protrusions of the side buttons, two on the left, one of them looks like a volume rocker, and one on the right in a space directly across from the space between the opposite buttons.
The evleaks screen shot hints at the launch date of the new Samsung. It is expected at the recently scheduled Unpacked event in New York City, on 29th March.
BGR
Tech site BGR followed up evleaks with its own pictorial broadside. Stating that “if Samsung isn’t going to unveil the new Galaxy S8 during Mobile World Congress this year, BGR will,” we got to see several clear Galaxy S8 pictures from a number of angles.
The images are clear enough, but the phone looks rather grubby and the otherwise shiny surfaces spoiled by scattered reflections. The photo showing the whole of the front of the S8 ‘confirms’ the slightly prior leak. Looking round the edges there’s not much to see but the bottom view shows a speaker, a USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
BGR states that round the back is a 12-megapixel Dual Pixel camera but we don’t get a shot of it. That means we don’t get confirmation of what might be an awkward positioning of the fingerprint scanner. The front is dominated by a 5.8-inch screen on the regular version of the S8, and the S8+ features even more screen real-estate with a 6.2-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED display. Other specs touted by BGR include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset in the US, with international models powered by a new Samsung Exynos processor. All models will feature 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, as well as microSDXC support.
Today was the last day of the MWC so the above leak timings are interesting. Could it be a cunning plan to help those tempted by rival flagships from the likes of LG and Sony (or even the Nokia 3310) to hold out a bit longer?