Everybody, including critics, fans, and Samsung itself, are wholeheartedly betting on the Galaxy S8 to prove as the company’s big comeback from the unfortunate Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. Everybody is now trying to channelize their attention to Samsung’s next year flagship, and so there have been a multitude of leaks and speculations around the smartphone. Apart from what is already known about the Galaxy S8, the most interesting bit is that the smartphone will come with its own Siri-like AI digital assistant. And the latest development to this is that the Galaxy S8 will feature a button dedicated to launching the AI digital assistant. And featuring that button, in turn, could lead to a delay in the smartphone’s launch.
Essentially, rather than using just speech to fire up the device’s virtual assistant, Wall Street Journal reports that it is more likely that customers will be able to use a hardware shortcut button to trigger the feature. “The latest internal prototypes of the premium Galaxy S8 handset include a button on the side edge of the smartphone that would be used to launch a beefed-up virtual assistant,” says the report. However, this may not turn out to be true, given that sources told the publication that “prototypes aren’t final and could change.” And, the fact that Samsung hasn’t yet agreed on how the AI assistant would work could indicate that the company may not be ready yet to launch the flagship handset at the Mobile World Congress in February 2017 as was expected. In turn, the launch may be pushed to April 2017.
A month ago, Samsung acquired Viv Labs, the startup that created Siri, which is now a part of Apple iPhones, iPads and the MacBooks too. While Samsung Galaxy smartphones already feature S Voice assistant, it is not on par with its competitors. However, the AI assistant integration will help Samsung compete with the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.
According to Reuters, Samsung may expand the AI digital assistant to its other devices as well, including wearables to make every Samsung user’s life connected to their own personal assistant, that will learn everything about them. While Samsung has not yet specified the features of the Viv AI digital assistant, it did mention that third-party developers will be able to integrate their services and interact with the assistant. Some reports suggest that the new assistant might be oddly called Bixby.
“Even if Samsung doesn’t do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease,” Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee Injong had told Reuters.
As for the Galaxy S8, we have quite a handful of leaks and rumors about it. The latest leak suggests that Samsung Galaxy S8 might feature a Xiaomi Mi MIX-like design. A recent report by The Investor suggested that the Galaxy S8 could feature a bezel-less, or edge-to-edge display and would be based on organic light-emitting diode technology.
The report further quotes Samsung’s Park Won-sang, a principal engineer at the display-making unit of Samsung, as saying, “Samsung Display would roll out a full-screen display whose display area ratio (a scale that measures space taken up by a display on the front part of a handset) reaches more than 90 percent next year.” He further said that Samsung may go for smartphones with display ratio up to 99 percent. As of now, smartphones have display area ratio around 80 percent.
Other leaks have also suggested that the Galaxy S8 is likely to feature a 5.5-inch 4K panel with dual-edge curved display. It may be powered by two chipsets – a Snapdragon 830 for the US and Exynos 8895 in other regions. Samsung has already begun mass production of the chipsets, and they will be based on 10nm process. The smartphone could be available in 6GB and 8GB RAM variants.
In the photography department, the Galaxy S8 could take advantage of Snapdragon’s clear sight technology to bring dual-camera setup at the back. It is likely to be home grown and engineered by SEMCO. Some reports hint at dual camera setup including 16-megapixel camera with RGB (color) sensor and 8-megapixel camera with a monochrome sensor.
On the connectivity front, the Galaxy S8 could come with a USB Type-C connectivity port, along with 4G LTE + VoLTE, Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi 802.11ac. Armed with a 4,200mAh battery, fast charging and wireless fast charging features are expected too. Other features such as a fingerprint scanner, an iris scanner, water and dust resistance and hear rate sensor are also expected on the Galaxy S8. On the software front, the Galaxy S8 could run on Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box.
0 comments: