Samsung Galaxy A8S: News and rumors

Samsung has committed itself to building exciting, technologically innovative midrange phones, and one of the next to be revealed could be the Galaxy A8S, and it may give us a hint what the future Galaxy S10 will look like. Here’s what we know about the Samsung Galaxy A8S so far.

Design and screen

While the likes of Apple, Google, OnePlus, and others have all adopted the concept of the notch for their latest and greatest flagship phones, Samsung has so far steered clear of the trend. That, however, doesn’t mean Samsung doesn’t want to build phones with an edge-to-edge display. In fact, it does. But how can it do that without using a notch? Well, turns out it will build a phone with a hole in the display instead.

Samsung has teased a device called the Galaxy A8S, and it’s expected that this will be the first phone from Samsung with a truly edge-to-edge display, with a small circular cutout in the top left of the display for the selfie camera. Samsung also discussed this type of screen, which it calls Infinity-O, at its recent developer conference.

Samsung has published a new teaser image of the Galaxy A8S, showing exactly how the Infinity-O screen will look on the phone. The cutout is tucked neatly up in the top-left corner, and appears to only contain the front-facing camera. It’s not immediately obvious where other sensors usually placed in a notch or bezel have been placed.

It matches the look of a leaked piece of glass screen, or screen protector, that initially gave us an idea of what the phone may look like.

Another leak states the screen will measure 6.29 inches and have a Full HD+ resolution, and is potentially an LCD panel rather than one of Samsung’s own OLED screens. The circular pinhole will apparently measure 6.7mm in diameter, and may resemble the Samsung Galaxy S10. The same rumor states the Galaxy S10’s pinhole cutout will be 2 or 3 millimeters smaller than the Galaxy A8S’s cutout.

The cutout of Galaxy A8s front camera is 6.7mm big pic.twitter.com/gvcRvnek2L

— Max | SamsungMobile.News (@Samsung_News_) November 24, 2018

Specifications

Samsung’s Galaxy A series are midrange and upper-midrange smartphones. According to a late November leak, the Galaxy A8S will have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor with 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of internal memory, along with a 3,400mAh battery. It’s possible the Galaxy A8S will have three camera sensors on the back, ranging from 24 megapixels and 10 megapixels, to a third lens with 5 megapixels. The selfie camera inside the Infinity-O screen’s cutout may have 24 megapixels.

Release

When will the Galaxy A8S arrive? Samsung’s teaser states the phone will be announced on December 10, sooner than first anticipated. Samsung has not teased the phone through any other social channels outside Weibo, indicating it may release the A8S there first. Prices, and exactly when the phone will go on sale, are details still unknown.

Updated on December 4, 2018: Added in latest Samsung teaser image.