An alleged sketch of the Galaxy Note 8 leaked online on Tuesday, showing a device with a dual camera setup entailing two lenses arranged in a horizontal manner on its back plate. The sketch that can be seen above this writing suggests that the upcoming phablet will sport a dual-LED (dual tone) flash unit placed to the right of its two sensors and to the left of a fingerprint scanner. The image also hints at the existence of a USB Type-C port and 3.5mm audio jack, as well as a single bottom-facing speaker, Bixby button, and a volume rocker.
The latest leak mostly corresponds to a major report from last week that contained a wide variety of details on the Galaxy Note 8, indicating that the South Korean original equipment manufacturer opted against a vertical camera setup and put more distance between the main imaging system of the device and its fingerprint scanner, one of the main gripes that consumers had with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. While Samsung was reportedly planning to commercialize optical fingerprint scanners embedded into mobile display panels with the Galaxy S8 series, that technology is now supposedly set to even miss the Galaxy Note 8 and is unlikely to be implemented into a Galaxy device prior to the release of the Galaxy S9 lineup next spring. The Seoul-based company is thought to have run into a number of technical issues when trying to integrate such a scanner into its display modules, ranging from opaque circuitry to brightness imbalance issues, previous reports suggested.
The newly leaked image of the Galaxy Note 8 is said to be based on factory schematics and depict the design of the final product, though it doesn’t show the phone’s S Pen and instead has the device displayed with an empty stylus slot in the right corner of its bottom edge. The handset itself is said to boast a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED display that’s similar to that of the Galaxy S8-series products, boasting a nearly bezel-less look with curved edges and an 18.5:9 aspect ratio. Samsung is expected to officially reveal the phablet between the second half of August and early September, industry insiders previously said, adding that the Galaxy Note 8 should be available for purchase within weeks of its announcement. More details on the upcoming Android flagship will likely follow soon.