Galaxy Note 9: All the rumors on specs, price and release date

Now that we all know the Galaxy Note 9 has an official Aug. 9 launch date: Aug. 9, we are able to actually dig into the rumors of how Samsung’s subsequent huge cellphone may wow us …or disappoint. Let the true hypothesis can start.

The Galaxy Word, which is designated by its trademark digital stylus, represents the end result of Samsung’s know-how for the yr. The Word is often the cellphone that Samsung saves its finest know-how for, with a purpose to battle the iPhone and Pixels, and thrust in entrance of consumers when the vacations roll round.

Rumors are nonetheless a jumble at this level — will the Word 9 have an underscreen fingerprint reader or will not it?! — however what is for certain is that the Galaxy Word 9 might want to progress past the already wonderful Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus if it may. 

The juiciest rumor by far factors straight on the Word’s signature element, the factor that makes it totally different and extra highly effective than any Galaxy S cellphone: the S Pen stylus. One leaker claims that theNote 9’s S Pen goes to lastly be taught some abilities that transcend writing, drawing and navigation.

Maintain studying for my ideas, plus one of the best rumors which can be constructing forward of the official Word 9 launch. Test again usually! This checklist updates as high quality new rumors emerge.

Learn: Six things the Galaxy Note 9 should have

Editor’s notice: This text was initially revealed June 13 and updates often.

Is that this the Galaxy Word 9 with a yellow S-Pen stylus?

Earlier this week, the all the time prolific, principally correct leaker, Evan Blass tweeted a pic of what’s supposedly the Samsung Galaxy Word 9. Back and front! 

Past the anticipated twin digicam array and rear-mounted fingerprint reader, of notice (heh) is the S-Pen stylus. It is yellow, which truly contrasts properly with the blue physique of the cellphone within the pic. And is smart given the invite pic used for Samsung’s upcoming Aug. 9 Unpacked event.

Confirmed: Samsung’s announcement is ready for Aug. 9 

The rumors had been spot on. Samsung’s “Unpacked” launch event will take place on Aug. 9 in Brooklyn. I might say there is a 99.99 p.c probability that the system in query would be the Word 9 that launches Aug. 9. Good symmetry, eh? 

9/9 at 9 a.m. would have been even higher, however with the iPhone launch usually across the identical date in September, enjoying rooster with Apple is dangerous enterprise. Samsung would not dare put itself ready to lose that recognition contest. Usually, Samsung likes its Word telephones to go on preorder nicely earlier than Apple even pronounces its subsequent spherical of iPhones.

Aug. 9 is early for a Word launch, which often occurs on the finish of the month moderately than the start. Final yr’s Word eight was introduced Aug. 23. However, there may be some precedent for an early unveiling. The Word 7 unveiling occurred Aug. 2, 2016. Critics pointed fingers on the rush job as one motive that Note 7 units literally burst into flames.

We’ll attempt not to attract too many parallels concerning the early Word 9 launch.

Sadly, the invitation does not present a heck of loads of clues about what we’ll see contained in the cellphone. It focuses on a button, rendered in a yellowy gold colour. This could possibly be a button on the facet of the cellphone, or it may present a close-up of the S Pen stylus itself. Mysterious, certainly…

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Samsung, this is what the Word 9 wants

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It can virtually certainly be known as the Galaxy Word 9

That the Word 9 shall be known as the Word 9 is not essentially a given.

Simply because the final cellphone on this collection was the Word eight and the one earlier than was the Galaxy Note 7 doesn’t suggest Samsung would not skip a quantity to rename its cellphone. Samsung did skip 2016’s Galaxy Word 6 in favor of the Word 7 identify; some suspected it was to match up numerically to the iPhone 7.

However one indication that Samsung’s sticking with the basic development comes from frequent gadget leaker Evan Blass, who tweeted that the Word 9’s mannequin quantity is SM-N960U and its inside identify is Crown.

Word 9’s S Pen may assist you to take images and management music 

The Galaxy Word’s built-in stylus attracts and writes with four,zero96 ranges of stress sensitivity. It additionally helps maintain your display screen clear by navigating you round. The S Pen is already a sensible pen that is rumored to get smarter with the Word 9, however not simply because it is a pen.

Based on Twitter leaker Ice Universe, the Word 9’s S Pen shall be a Bluetooth-connected system that can be capable of function a distant management for different features that don’t have anything to do with writing. For instance, perhaps you’d be capable of click on the pen to take a photograph when your cellphone’s on a tripod, or advance your musical observe. 

I might be completely satisfied if Samsung made the highest of the S Pen pressure-sensitive sufficient to erase errors, such as you would with an analog pencil. (Cue the “again in my day” diatribe.)

No matter Samsung does with the S Pen, it is going to be important that the motion is not straightforward to unintentionally set off. As a result of that actually could be annoying.

The Word 9 may flip its twin cameras on their facet

Twin cameras on the Word 9 are just about a positive guess. The Word eight was Samsung’s first cellphone so as to add portrait mode, and the Galaxy S9 Plus has the setup, too. Samsung’s shifting ahead right here, not backwards.

A picture from OnLeaks and @91Mobiles reveals a Galaxy Word 9 with side-by-side cameras as an alternative of a vertical stack as we see on the S9 Plus. (For extra on cameras, scroll to the want checklist under.)

Will the Word 9 have a notch? Doubt it

Google has embraced the trend of Android notches, however that does not imply Samsung will. The cut-out display screen design provides you a “bigger” display screen to work with by extending the edges of the display screen up across the cut-out the place the digicam lens, speaker and different sensors dwell.

However there’s an especially excessive probability that Samsung will maintain the Word 9 notch-free and as an alternative use the Word as a technique to mock the iPhone X and different notched Android telephones.

In spite of everything, the notch was an essential a part of a recent Samsung ad that slammed iPhone speed, and Apple’s flock typically.

That mentioned, a patent software does exist for a Samsung phone with a notch design. Then once more, so does a notch-less one, with holes cut into the display as an alternative of a display screen cut-out.

It will most likely have a headphone jack

The Galaxy Word and Galaxy S telephones have been protected thus far, and Samsung execs have publicly said that they are pleased with the headphone jack. Samsung additionally usually ships its AKG wired earbuds together with the Galaxy telephones contained in the field.

It may are available these 5 colours

One rumor from German website All About Samsung means that the Galaxy Word 9 may are available black, gray, lavender (just like the Galaxy S9’s “lilac purple”), vibrant blue and brown. A few of these shades may have iridescent qualities just like the Galaxy S9 telephones and different Samsung fashions. 

Primarily based on previous Galaxy telephones, I feel it is a fairly good guess that the Word 9 will keep the shiny end Samsung appears to savor, one that may alter the cellphone’s colour while you flip it within the gentle.

The Word 9’s rumored in-screen fingerprint reader is not trying good

Many rumors (like this one from Korea’s The Investor and this one from leak tweeter Ice Universe) counsel that the Galaxy Word 9 would have a fingerprint reader baked into the show, very like the Vivo X20 Plus UD (worst cellphone identify ever) and the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS (wait, I take that again).

I actually, really need this to occur.

Nonetheless, the present phrase is that Samsung’s pulled the characteristic for now, and can save the in-screen fingerprint reader (now reportedly an ultrasonic fingerprint reader for the Galaxy S10. That will be a disgrace, because the Word collection usually leads the best way with Samsung’s new options.

On the flipside, Samsung cannot afford the embarrassment of a mistake if the in-display sensor is not safe sufficient for dependable sufficient for each day use. Finally, having this characteristic work nicely is best than being among the many first.

As an alternative, a fingerprint reader on the again

Rumors again up the bodily fingerprint sensor dwelling under the digicam. The prolific Ice Universe tweeted that the Word 9 and Word eight will look almost indistinguishable, and in addition posted a leaked case that’ll allegedly fit the Galaxy Note 9 that encompasses a cut-out for an oblong fingerprint reader, Samsung’s most well-liked form. Needless to say a case maker may simply create renders primarily based on rumors and hypothesis; this is not essentially the true deal.

Nonetheless, centralizing the fingerprint reader could be a great choice, and one that might overwrite the Word eight’s most annoying and unnecessary design flaw.

Will the Word 9 have a foldable show? Not bloody seemingly

The opposite characteristic assured to place the Word 9 up in lights can also be the least seemingly by far.

We all know that Samsung’s engaged on a foldable cellphone, and has gone far sufficient to use for a patent on a couple of design eventualities. I might be surprised speechless if that had been to truly occur (for the report, rumors counsel we cannot see a foldable cellphone from Samsung till 2019).

In a nutshell, it is not Samsung’s type to take such an enormous danger on its Word cellphone. The tech big is much extra more likely to launch a separate foldable cellphone to check the waters and collect suggestions for figuring out kinks.

Samsung has lengthy cited Galaxy Word customers as amongst its most loyal, and any difficulty with a foldable Word may completely alienate consumers who’ve already been burned by the Word 7 fiasco.

Galaxy Word 9 may mimic the Word eight

So what may the Word 9 appear to be? The Word eight. Hypothesis factors to a Galaxy Word replace that is bought comparable dimensions and design to final yr’s mannequin, however once more, with a fingerprint reader that sits under the twin digicam array, not off to the facet because it does within the Word eight.

A doable render of the Galaxy Word 9 shared by cellular tipster Ice Universe means that the Word eight and Word 9 are nearly indistinguishable, including that the brand new Word could possibly be 2mm shorter than the Note 8.

Bixby AI software program lives on

Samsung’s Bixby software is now a fixture on the corporate’s excessive finish Galaxy telephones, which implies its presence is a foregone conclusion even when the top of Samsung Analysis’s AI Middle hadn’t mentioned we might see an upgraded version on the following flagship cellphone, whether or not you wind up disabling Bixby or not.

Bixby may choose up higher natural-language processing, improved noise cancelling and quicker response instances.

Keep in mind that Bixby 2.0, the present model, is not only for Samsung telephones. That is Samsung’s imaginative and prescient for its whole ecosystem of units, just like the best way that Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa AI sidekicks push into the house by means of sensible audio system and different units.

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Siri vs. Google Assistant vs. Bixby

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I might count on to see the Bixby button return to the left facet of the Galaxy Word 9, and I might be overjoyed if Samsung allow you to program this key to do one thing apart from open Bixby, although I critically doubt it will occur.

Learn: 10 Bixby tricks you need to know

What a few Samsung model of Apple’s FaceID?

By the point we predict the Word 9 will launch, it will have been virtually a yr because the iPhone X debuted with FaceID, and nonetheless no direct competitor to problem Apple’s safe stage of face unlock. The Word 9 could be Samsung’s probability to reply.

The Galaxy S8 telephones and newer provide you with a couple of choices for unlocking your cellphone along with your face, however solely considered one of them, iris scanning, is safe sufficient for cellular funds. That is a reasonably good bar as this stuff go.

Iris scanning harnesses a unique know-how than Apple’s FaceID, which makes use of a 3D front-facing digicam and 50,00zero infrared dots to map your face and confirm that you’re you. 

The Galaxy Word 9 represents a chance for Samsung to pop in a 3D digicam, too, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor that I count on Samsung to make use of (the Galaxy S9 already does) helps Applelike know-how.

There’s little doubt that Samsung and others will need to use a 3D digicam, however after dropping a  lawsuit and being forced to pay Apple $539 million for patent infringements, I can not blame Samsung for eager to tread fastidiously.

Will Samsung repair AR Emoji to tackle Apple’s Memoji for iOS 12?

Gawd, I hope so. Samsung made 3D avatars first, by means of its AR Emoji characteristic within the Galaxy S9 digicam. However the unsettling pictures creeped us out and Apple’s new Memoji avatars in iOS 12 are already higher at some essential issues.

Samsung can work to repair AR Emoji in two methods. The primary is thru software program fixes that add extra customizations. The second is that if that Word 9 will get a 3D digicam, which might give Samsung’s emoji-creating engine extra knowledge to seize on to when it scans your face to make your avatar.

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Learn: How the Galaxy S9’s worst feature was made by Oscar winners

The Word 9 will not launch with Android P

Sorry, but it surely’s a given. Google’s Android P software replace does not even have  a reputation but — it will develop into Android Popsicle or Pudding or one thing by the point it arrives on its first cellphone later this yr, almost certainly in fall across the time that the Google Pixel 3‘s introduced.

However the Galaxy Word 9, and a heap of different Galaxy telephones, together with the S9 and S9 Plus, are positive to get the ultimate Android P software program within the following months. Sadly, Samsung is not identified for significantly well timed Android updates.

Word 9 digicam want checklist

Samsung’s industry-first dual-aperture lens on the Galaxy S9 will certainly come to the Word 9 as nicely, however I feel the corporate may take the know-how a step additional by bringing dual-aperture to the front-facing digicam as nicely.

The aperture helps decide how a lot gentle your photograph will get, and usually talking, the extra gentle you get in, the higher. A twin aperture front-facing digicam may assist mechanically make selfies brighter, even and not using a flash blinding your eyes.

Hopefully Samsung will even repair the Galaxy S9’s digicam app, which too simply switches between digicam modes when you do not intend it to.

Samsung plans to improve the Word 9’s digicam, according to Bloomberg.

Word 9 worth: How a lot will the following Galaxy price?

Telephones do not get cheaper. In actual fact, the Galaxy Word eight price considerably greater than the Galaxy Word 7 in some markets.

We will count on the Galaxy Word 9 to hover in the identical ballpark because the Galaxy Word eight, although costs may creep upwards on account of the dual-aperture digicam.

Different rumored Galaxy Word 9 specs

Perla Shaheen contributed to this report.