Samsung, which suffered a severe dent to its brand with the ill-fated Galaxy Note7, is pinning hopes on the Galaxy S8 series to turn things around for the company, but going by recent reports, fans might be heading for major disappointment.
The recently leaked images of the Galaxy S8 series indicate that Samsung, in a bid to free up more space on the front panel, has ditched the physical home button-cum-fingerprint scanner and repositioned the bio-metric sensor near the rear camera module. This has apparently angered many fans.
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Many feel that it would be a flawed design, which will lead to the camera's outer lens cover getting dirty. It is being said that unable to see the rear fingerprint sensor, people might accidently touch the camera and leave sweaty finger smudges.
Now, specifications of Galaxy S8+, understood to be the successor of Galaxy S7 edge, has been leaked online. It is expected to further infuriate fans over the device's sub-par internal hardware.
Prolific Twitter spy Evan Blass (@evleaks) has got hold of the Galaxy S8+ spec-sheet, which reveals that Samsung's upcoming flagship phone will feature a 6.2-inch (full rectangle)/6.1-inch (rounded corners) Quad HD (2560x1440p) super AMOLED screen with Iris scanner and 8MP camera on the front with IP68 water-and-dust resistant certifications and wireless charging technology. It will have a 12MP Dual Pixel main camera on the rear. The phone will also support Samsung Pay, earphones by AKG and Knox security.
Under the hood, it will have Android OS (most probably v7.0 Nougat), 64GB RAM and just 4GB RAM, that's really disappointing considering that rivals like OnePlus 3T, Huawei Mate 9 and among others have 6GB RAM, which is also expected to come in other flagship phone in 2017 as well.
Samsung Galaxy S8+ spec sheet. Impress your friends, confound your enemies...with knowledge. pic.twitter.com/lHrHge8BUa
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 22, 2017
Samsung also unnecessarily crams the phone's storage with useless apps and also heavily customises the Android OS, which apparently affects proper functioning of the device, particularly if the RAM is not sufficient.
If Samsung plans to put a cap on the number of pre-loaded apps and simplifies UI on Galaxy S8 series, 4GB RAM might just well be enough to make the phone run smoothly with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835/Samsung Exynos 9 series 8895 (depending on the region of sale) CPU chipset.
The presence of the Iris scanner on the front panel might also save Samsung from fans' brunt over the ill-advised repositioning of the fingerprint sensor on the rear. People will be more curious to explore the new bio-metric sensor on the front to unlock the phone more often and make it a common practice in the long run to avoid using the fingerprint sensor, which also sometimes lead to unintentional touching of the camera lens' outer glass cover.
Well, we just to have to wait one more month to see what Samsung has to say on Galaxy S8's design and internal hardware.
Samsung is expected to launch the generic Galaxy S8 and the bigger Galaxy S8+ on March 29 and release them in the market on April 21.
Watch this space for latest news on Samsung Galaxy S8 series.