When fall smartphone launch season grows closer the tech world turns into an ocean of hungry sharks. One sniff of blood and in the water and we allow our animal instincts to take over. That’s basically the best way to describe the latest leaked photo of the Galaxy Note 8 rear cameras. In the grand scheme of things, this photo isn’t really that exciting. But it’s leak season! All conventional sensibilities go out the window! So, without wasting another moment of your time, here’s the leaked photo that shows off the Galaxy Note 8 rear cameras:
Feast your eyes upon it! Take a moment to admire those stunning roof panels! Okay, in all seriousness, this actually a pretty solid photo. Trusted leaker, Evan Blass, shared this photo on Twitter. While it would be nice to have a full library of perfect photos that show every angle; that’s not really realistic when capturing an unreleased flagship smartphone in the wild. Plus, we have already had plenty of leaked renders this summer that show off the Galaxy Note 8 from all angles. This leak is a real-life photo that we can compare to renders and rumors as the official launch date grows closer. So, let’s dive in and see what this photo tells us.
Clearly the Galaxy Note 8 is in some kind of protective case. This is very common when executives, developers, and testers take the phone out into the real world. It helps disguise the device from casual onlookers. Unfortunately for whoever owns this smartphone shown in the photo; Evan Blass is far from just some casual onlooker. He is THE leak guy. Whoever took this photo, whether it was Blass himself or a trusted associate, clearly noticed the phablet with a dual camera sensor. This leaked photo lines up very well with what we have seen in renders this year regarding the Galaxy Note 8 rear cameras. We see the dual camera sensor alongside a dual flash and, on the far right in the case cutout, there is a fingerprint sensor.
It’s nice to see we have some confirmation that Samsung appears to have seen the error in its ways with the Galaxy S8 and S8+ fingerprint sensor. If you own one of those devices or you have been following some of the commentary online then you know the fingerprint sensor is in a very inconvenient spot. On the Galaxy S8 and S8+ the fingerprint sensor is placed right next to the camera sensor. This inevitably leads to some smudged camera lenses and blurry photos. While the fingerprint sensor is still very close to the Galaxy Note 8 rear cameras, the flash has been placed in between as a sort of buffer. There will still be some smudges but hopefully they are confined to the area around the flash and the camera sensors go relatively un-smudged.
Obviously this leaked photo doesn’t give us a sense of how the Galaxy Note 8 rear cameras will work when in action. However, there was a leak of Samsung marketing materials recently that should help fill in the blanks for us. Some of the new features of the Galaxy Note 8 camera were shown online. In them, we can see that the Galaxy Note 8 will boast 3x optical zoom. Most smartphone cameras use digital zoom when you try and capture an image at a distance. Optical zoom allows for much better quality in zoomed photos. The details in a photo taken using optical zoom are sharp and clear while digital zoom photos tend to have blurred lines between objects and their environment. The Galaxy Note 8 rear cameras should allows for better low-light photos as well. Having two camera sensors allows the Galaxy Note 8 to take in more light with each photo which will help brighten up photos in low-light situations. However, the most interesting leak from the Galaxy Note 8 camera features material is the distance and height measurement of objects. Because dual camera sensors take an image at two slightly different angles, they can perform complex measurements that a single camera sensor simply cannot. While it’s unclear how this will be used, I have to imagine they were showing off the potential uses of the camera in an augmented reality application. We know Apple is making a big push in the AR space this fall and it only makes sense that Samsung would as well.
We shouldn’t have to wait much longer to see what the rest of the Galaxy Note 8 looks like. Samsung is expected to officially reveal their newest flagship device near the end of the month with pre-orders starting at the beginning of September. People who are itching to get their hands on the device should have them delivered by mid-September, assuming there is no major delay between now and then. This is Samsung’s big opportunity to make up for last year’s less-than-awesome Galaxy Note 7 launch. What do you think of the device so far? Will it be worth the cost of admission or is there something else grabbing your attention this fall?
