The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 isn’t expected to be announced until around August or September of this year, but that hasn’t stopped the leaks from coming in fast and furious. There’s a new image of a Samsung smartphone that surfaced on Weibo this week, that looks a lot like the Galaxy S8 that was launched last month, but there’s no fingerprint sensor on the back. The flash and heart rate sensor have been moved to being below the camera, which is a position that was shown in various leaks ahead of the Galaxy S8 launch as well. The removal of the fingerprint sensor isn’t a huge surprise, after all the Galaxy S8 was supposed to have the fingerprint sensor on the front, under the glass. But the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor wasn’t ready in time, so Samsung had to put it on the back of the device.
Now obviously, we don’t know if this is indeed the Galaxy Note 8, or perhaps another smartphone from Samsung. But since it does resemble the Galaxy S8 quite a bit, it’s hard to think of it being another device. It’s also possible that this is a prototype and not a final version of the device. Since we are still a few months out, it’s likely that the company hasn’t decided on the final model just yet either. The Galaxy Note, in recent years hasn’t been a huge upgrade over the Galaxy S smartphones, other than adding the S Pen and a slew of features for the stylus. So it’s quite possible that the Galaxy Note 8 will be very similar to the Galaxy S8, which isn’t a bad thing. Considering the amount of good press and reviews the Galaxy S8 has been receiving.
The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to be announced at an Unpacked event in August, and it should be available ahead of IFA which is the first week of September. In recent years, Samsung has pushed the Galaxy Note launch up a bit, so it can beat the iPhone to store shelves. Hopefully this year they don’t rush as much, seeing as the Galaxy Note 7 is no longer being sold.