Samsung fans are eagerly looking forward to the Galaxy S9, which will be unveiled at the MWC on February 25. Samsung’s second flagship line, the Galaxy Note, will be refreshed in August or September this year. Even though the Galaxy Note 9 is several months away, we have come across tons of rumors about the phablet. Now folks at YouTube channel Concept Creator have come up with a stunning Galaxy Note 9 concept that flaunts a fully bezel-less design. It doesn’t have the iPhone X’s weird notch.
This is not an official render or a leaked footage of the device. The Galaxy Note 9 concept is the product of Concept Creator’s imagination of what the phablet might look like. The designers have not mentioned the phone’s specifications. The first thing you’d notice in the Note 9 concept is its massive, bezel-less OLED display. The screen covers the entire front panel of the handset.
There are tiny cutouts near the top of the screen for the ear speaker, front camera, iris scanner, and other sensors. The icons for network strength, WiFi, and battery are positioned on the right side of the ear speaker while the front camera, iris scanner, and other sensors are on the left. You can see a 3.5mm headphone jack, a loudspeaker, a USB Type-C port, and the S Pen stylus placed at the bottom.
The Note 9 concept phone has a metal and glass design. Its sides are curved from both front and back. The device sports a vertically-arranged dual camera system on the back. Missing from the rear panel is the fingerprint scanner, which is embedded under the display. The Bixby button and volume rockers are on the left side while the power button is placed on the right.
Concept Creator has imagined the Galaxy Note 9 concept in red, blue, and black colors. It’s too early to say whether the actual Galaxy Note 9 would look similar to this concept. The curves on the sides, and the rear panel look realistic. But the fully bezel-less display might still be some time away. The cutouts for the front camera, ear speaker, and other sensors could hurt the user experience. However, Samsung is already working on a phone with a completely bezel-free display.
A recently discovered patent filed by Samsung shows that the Korean company has figured out how to offer a bezel-less display without including an iPhone X-like notch. The patent describes tiny holes in the screen for the front camera, iris scanner, earpiece, and other sensors. The holes will be big enough to let the sensors work as intended, but they won’t be so big as to hurt the user experience.
The in-display fingerprint sensor also looks realistic. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has told clients that the Note 9 would be Samsung’s first handset to feature an optical fingerprint reader. The company has been working on the technology for years. Vivo has already unveiled a phone with an optical fingerprint solution. Samsung has also filed a patent with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for an in-display fingerprint scanner. The patent was filed in July 2017.
Samsung has also indicated that it would improve the S Pen stylus with the Galaxy Note 9. Though Samsung executives did not mention how they would improve the S Pen, patents filed by the company shed light on the enhancements Samsung could bring to the stylus. According to a recently unearthed patent, Samsung would allow the S Pen to work with your finger. On a smartphone, certain actions are easier to perform with your finger than with the S Pen. For instance, the patented technology could allow you to write text with the S Pen and erase the unwanted content with your finger quickly.
The Galaxy Note 9 will likely be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 or Samsung’s Exynos 9810 chips depending on the region. The US and China are expected to get the Snapdragon variant. Samsung will use the same processors in the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus as well. According to Korean media, the Galaxy Note 9 would also include machine learning chips to offer AI capabilities. Samsung is trying to catch up with Apple and Huawei, both of which have already added AI features to their flagship smartphones.
Though Samsung was late to join the AI race, reports suggest that its machine learning chips have already “reached the technological levels” of Huawei and Apple. We will get to see some of the AI features in the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, but the Note 9 is said to have far more advanced capabilities. The Note 9 is expected to be unveiled in August. It could go on sale in late August or early September.
