If Samsung needs to rebound from the Galaxy Note 7 disaster, it has to pull all the stops to produce a truly impressive handset in the Galaxy S8. You must have heard this line repeated over and over as the new flagship nears its debut.
Recent rumors, however, suggest that the Note 7 may have triggered the opposite. That short of being a panic product, the S8 will be worse than what Samsung could have made it to be in the case where the specter of the phablet's failure is not hovering around to hold it back.
Smaller Battery
The latest leaks now claim that the S8 will be outfitted with a smaller battery module than originally planned. According to a South Korean source, the Galaxy S8 gets a 3,000 mAh battery, which will make it the same as the S7. The battery, of course, has been blamed for the Note 7's misfortune.
With the use of higher specs under the hood and even better screen technology, however, it is not going to be surprising if the battery life will get reduced.
Impact Of Stricter Production Process
A key change adopted by Samsung after its Note 7 investigation was concluded involves the introduction of more stringent testing and safety rules. For example, a number of components now have to be taken apart for inspection.
If the process has been implemented beyond battery, then the company will surely be forced to cut on features and innovations since inspections will take so much time. This is probably one of the reasons why the S8 launch has been delayed repeatedly.
Tepid S8 Hardware Change?
So far, unconfirmed rumors could only identify few radical changes such as the elimination of the home button and the repositioning of the fingerprint sensor. Much has been said about the purported changes to the hardware such as the increased screen real estate and possibly an even better design implementation. However, rumors still fail to capture any drastic redesign to date.
Leaked images of what appear to be actual prototype, for example, only showed portions of the handset. Those that showed the entirety of the device did not reveal any earthshaking appearance modification.
Even the 3.5 mm audio jack, which was rumored to be eliminated following the iPhone 7 lead, seems to have been retained. Noted mobile tipster Evan Blass also revealed that Samsung has stuck with the 4 GB of RAM, failing in its promise to set industry standard by making devices with 8 GB of RAM.
Users would probably say: but what more could you ask?
Well, remember that Samsung has not been shy about pushing the envelope in its handsets. It single-handedly introduced the phablet category and gave us the dual-edged display. Without the Note 7 disaster, it could have given us a much better S8 especially on the face of an iPhone 8 redesign.
