Samsung will launch the Galaxy Note 8 in September, according to a new report, and it will cost almost as much as the flagship iPhone 7 Plus.
Evan Blass, writing for VentureBeat, reveals that the Galaxy Note 8 will officially see the light of day in the second half of September, which means that this time, Samsung will not beat Apple to the launch of the company's latest flagship. Last year, Samsung rushed to introduce the Note 7 before Apple's iPhone 7 and it all turned out to be the company's biggest fiasco due to exploding batteries.
The Galaxy Note 8 will feature a 6.3-inch AMOLED display with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio, just like the Samsung Galaxy S8 series, although this time the South Korean company will go for a slightly larger screen.
On the other hand, Samsung plans to make a bigger difference between the S series and the new Note, so it will upgrade the RAM from 4GB in the models currently on the market to 6GB (the Korean version of the Galaxy S8 Plus also comes with 6GB of RAM). Power will continue to come from the Snapdragon 835 or Exynos 8895 processors, depending on the market, while the fingerprint reader will remain on the back, although Samsung will move it a little closer to the edge of the phone.
Just like Apple, Samsung has been considering integrating an in-display fingerprint sensor, but that technology won't be ready when the Note 8 hits the market in September. Apple will therefore be the first major company to put an in-display fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 8.
The Galaxy Note 8 will also come with a dual-camera setup, with the report claiming that Samsung will go for two separate 12-megapixel units with independent optical image stabilization. The cameras will be placed horizontally, while Apple will install them vertically on the iPhone 8.
In terms of the battery, which has become one of the crucial parts of a Samsung phablet after the Note 7 fiasco, the South Korean company will use a rather small 3,300 mAh unit, but it is believed that the company did not go for an increased capacity in order to avoid overheating, as happened with the previous generation.
The Galaxy S8 Plus will launch in Europe for €999, while in the US, it could cost around $900. That would make it almost as expensive as the top-of-the-line iPhone 7 Plus, which can be yours right now from Apple for $969.
