Samsung Galaxy S8 to Come with an ‘All-Screen’ Design, No Physical Home Button

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Published 8 Dec 2016

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Samsung Galaxy S7 edge - camera/sensors view

Corroborating previous reports, Bloomberg today details that Samsung’s flagship for 2017, the Galaxy S8, will come with an “all-screen front” and lack a physical home button. Both variants of the Galaxy S8 will come with curved displays albeit in different sizes.

It is likely that Samsung will launch the Galaxy S8 in the same screen sizes as it launched the Galaxy S7: 5.1-inch and 5.5-inch. Both phones, however, will feature bezel-less displays that will make them more compact. The physical home button will also be removed from the bottom chin of the phone in favour of a “virtual home button” that will be buried beneath the display cover glass. It remains unclear from the report if Samsung will be completely doing away with the home button on the Galaxy S8 or switch to a capacitive home button similar to what Apple did with the iPhone 7 this year.

The report also states that Samsung will be launching the Galaxy S8 in March, though it could be delayed until April due to the strict testing procedures that the company is adopting post the Galaxy Note 7 debacle. As with previous years, some models of the Galaxy S8 will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chipset, while others will make use of the company’s own Exynos chipset.

Disappointingly, Samsung is planning on scrapping its plan of using a dual-camera setup on the Galaxy S8 due to the higher manufacturing costs associated with it.

The Galaxy S8 will also come with Samsung’s own digital assistant that will be powered by the technology that Samsung got it hands on from the acquisition of Viv Labs Inc in October this year. A report from last month had claimed that the Galaxy S8 will come with a dedicated hardware button to launch this new digital assistant from Samsung.

[Via Bloomberg]