Something to look forward to: The Samsung Galaxy A8s will debut in China tomorrow, but almost everything about the phone has already been revealed, largely by Samsung’s own doing. It will feature a Snapdragon 710 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and is expected to land at about $450. Choosing an IPS display over one of Samsung’s own brilliant OLEDs would be disappointing – if not for that intriguing camera cut-out.

Pinhole. Black hole. Polka dot. Pimple. Mole. The wide variety of names for the Infinity-O display – which stretches beyond what would be appropriate to write here – expresses the wide variety of opinions on it. In all likelihood, that’s why Samsung decided to debut the feature on a midrange device; to test the waters. Rather unfortunately, however, the focus on the hole has detracted from what’s otherwise a pretty solid device.

Based on official renders Samsung sent into China’s version of the FCC, TENAA, the Galaxy A8s will feature three rear cameras. According to various sources, they’ll be 24mp, 10mp and 5mp, one of which being either wide-angle or telephoto.

The selfie camera quality is reportedly unaffected by its situation and will be a solid performer at 24mp. A pretty standard battery is included, either 3,300mAh or 3,400mAh depending on who you ask.

Official images given to the Chinese telecommunications regulatory body TENAA reveal a surprising deviation from Samsung's normal design language.

2018-12-09-image-5.jpg

While earlier rumors claimed the device would be the first Samsung phone to drop the headphone jack, newer leaks suggest that Samsung changed its mind on customer feedback. We’ll have to wait and see.

The screen is mostly pretty decent, a 6.39” affair with a reasonable FHD+ resolution. Samsung’s decision to use an IPS screen may protect S10 sales and make sense business-wise, but it doesn’t come without compromise. The bezels on the sides, top and bottom of the display are all larger than they could have been. Also, reports say that the camera hole will require 1-2mm of dead space around it, bringing it to a pretty large 6.7mm.

On the left, an official teaser image posted by Samsung to Chinese social media platform Weibo. In the middle, a leaked image of a third-party screen protector shows how large the dead space around the camera is. On the right, an official image given to the FCC shows just how much screen space the hole uses.

2018-12-09-image-3.jpg

According to Onleaks, the device will come in three colors: a silver to black gradient, blue, and green. The Galaxy A8s has been registered in the US and China, with availability expected sometime in February though no official date has been set yet.

 

source