New Galaxy S9 Leak Reveals Samsung's Curious Choice
The latest leaks about the Galaxy S9 suggest the later is being considered.
DJ Koh, president of mobile communications business at Samsung, speaks about the new Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The images on SlashLeaks represent the output of a CAD design, and as such rate pretty low on the confidence scale in terms of ‘this is what the Galaxy S9 will look like when it is launched.’ There’s every chance that this is one of a number of test designs used by the South Korean company to assess form factors - a process every manufacturer will use. No doubt Samsung will have a small run of hand-built devices in various form factors to assess options. This may not be the final design, but I’d be confident it is a design that is being looked at.
In which case lets apply Taniyama-Shimura and look at this potential design.
It’s worth noting that the design does match up with recent leaks around next year’s flagship. It retains the ‘bezel free’ design and the lack of a physical home button on the front of the device. This has moved the fingerprint sensor to the rear of the presumptively named Galaxy S9. That sensor sits below the camera. The camera itself has a dual lens setup, and the shape of this isolated unit echoes the styling of the dual lens/flash/sensor on the Galaxy Note 8.
The front of the device shows Samsung’s by now familiar approach to the curved edge screen with another of its ‘Infinity Display’ units stretching from side edge to side edge, while reducing the top and bottom bezels. And yes there’s a button for Bixby on the side.
DJ Koh Samsung President Mobile Communications Business introduces the new Samsung S8 and S8 Plus during a news conference on March 29, 2017 (Photo: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images)
Of all the options that the South Korean company could take for the Galaxy S9, this design is the safest. If you were looking for the minimum viable upgrade of the hardware and design, this is it. It would be the first Galaxy S to come with a dual camera (which, coupled with Samsung’s latest patent, would be a significant upgrade), it would be the first Android handset to come with the SnapDragon 845 chipset (and would retain that advantage for some months), there’s no sign of a 3.5mm headphone jack, and it would allow Samsung to focus on Machine Learning and software advancements as the key selling points.
This is the Galaxy S9 that gets you safely on to first base. There may be more features on the way (such as a screen mounted finger print reader) but if you wanted the ‘lets make sure we keep selling enough handsets’ option, this is it.
Now read more about Samsung’s plans to improve the quality of its camera lenses…
">Like the majority of smartphone manufacturers, Samsung will be iterating on its existing designs to discover the next flagship handset. The question now is which path to take… go all out and innovate like crazy, or take a safer path with less adventure but more reliability? The latest leaks about the Galaxy S9 suggest the later is being considered.
DJ Koh, president of mobile communications business at Samsung, speaks about the new Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The images on SlashLeaks represent the output of a CAD design, and as such rate pretty low on the confidence scale in terms of ‘this is what the Galaxy S9 will look like when it is launched.’ There’s every chance that this is one of a number of test designs used by the South Korean company to assess form factors - a process every manufacturer will use. No doubt Samsung will have a small run of hand-built devices in various form factors to assess options. This may not be the final design, but I’d be confident it is a design that is being looked at.
In which case lets apply Taniyama-Shimura and look at this potential design.
It’s worth noting that the design does match up with recent leaks around next year’s flagship. It retains the ‘bezel free’ design and the lack of a physical home button on the front of the device. This has moved the fingerprint sensor to the rear of the presumptively named Galaxy S9. That sensor sits below the camera. The camera itself has a dual lens setup, and the shape of this isolated unit echoes the styling of the dual lens/flash/sensor on the Galaxy Note 8.
The front of the device shows Samsung’s by now familiar approach to the curved edge screen with another of its ‘Infinity Display’ units stretching from side edge to side edge, while reducing the top and bottom bezels. And yes there’s a button for Bixby on the side.
DJ Koh Samsung President Mobile Communications Business introduces the new Samsung S8 and S8 Plus during a news conference on March 29, 2017 (Photo: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images)
Of all the options that the South Korean company could take for the Galaxy S9, this design is the safest. If you were looking for the minimum viable upgrade of the hardware and design, this is it. It would be the first Galaxy S to come with a dual camera (which, coupled with Samsung’s latest patent, would be a significant upgrade), it would be the first Android handset to come with the SnapDragon 845 chipset (and would retain that advantage for some months), there’s no sign of a 3.5mm headphone jack, and it would allow Samsung to focus on Machine Learning and software advancements as the key selling points.
This is the Galaxy S9 that gets you safely on to first base. There may be more features on the way (such as a screen mounted finger print reader) but if you wanted the ‘lets make sure we keep selling enough handsets’ option, this is it.
Now read more about Samsung’s plans to improve the quality of its camera lenses…
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