Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Rumors, leaks and everything we know so far

A year on from the exploding, disastrous PR meltdown that was the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung is back to reaffirm itself as the leading big-screen smartphone maker.

Many thought the Galaxy Note name would die, taking its final breath of acrid, burning battery smoke on the day Samsung announced it had canceled production of the seventh-generation Note for good.

But no, as Samsung mobile chief DJ Koh said back in January, the company would produce a successor, and it will be called the Note 8.

Fast-forward to July and Samsung sends out an invitation to a media event in Berlin - an invitation sporting what looks very much like the outline of a new Note handset and its faithful sidekick, the S Pen stylus. "Do bigger things", it read.

Then, a whole 22 days before Samsung takes to the stage in Berlin, the notorious (and often accurate) technology leaker Evan Blass tweets out what appear to be PR or marketing images of the Note 8. Undisguised, unobscured and with two colour options, the image, below, shows the Note 8 from every angle. While far from the last piece of the jigsaw, the image will perhaps remain the largest.

What follows is what we know, what we think we know, and what we expect of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

When will the Samsung Note 8 be launched?

Samsung's 23 August media event in Berlin is almost certainly where the new Note will be revealed. As we said above, the invitation even features an outline of the Note and its S Pen stylus. The only reason the phone won't be revealed on 23 August is if Samsung has another Grade-A disaster.

When will the Samsung Note 8 go on sale?

The Note 7 was launched at the start of August 2016 and went on sale at the end of the month. Should the Note 8 arrive on 23 August, we can expect to see it hit the shelves around the middle of September.

How much will the Samsung Note 8 cost?

It was claimed by Blass, writing for VentureBeat in June, that the Note 8 will cost a chunky €999, which is around £890 or $1,200 - a huge amount by any measure, no matter what features it has and how much storage is included. Bear in mind that the S8 currently costs £689 from Samsung itself (often the most expensive place to buy a new Galaxy), and an extra £200 for the new Note seems like a big ask.

Why might Samsung demand such a premium for the Note 8? This is what we know - or what has been rumoured by some of the more reliable members of the smartphone rumour mill - so far:

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will have a 6.3in Infinity Display

Strip away Samsung's marking spiel and that means a screen which curves at its left and right side, when held in portrait, and stretches close to the top and bottom edges of the handset. A bit like an infinity swimming pool.

At a claimed 6.3in, the Note 8 will be just 0.1in larger than the S8+, which in turn has 0.4in on the regular S8. The Note, according to Blass, will have the same, elongated 18.5:9 screen ratio as the S8, and use the same AMOLED display technology.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will have an S Pen stylus

It should go without saying, given the S Pen is right there on the Note 8 launch invitation, but we thought we'd hammer the point home once more. What sets the Note range apart from Samsung's Galaxy S range - and just about every other smartphone, come to think of it - is the pop-out stylus.

What at first feels like a gimmick quickly morphs into an incredibly satisfying way of interacting with a smartphone. Tapping at the screen and scribbling or sketching on the display still feels like something from the future, years after the S Pen first arrived in 2011. Samsung often increases the S Pen's sensitivity with each new Note, so that's something to look out for with the Note 8 - that and the ability to write underwater, which was new with the Note 7.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will be powerful... but with a conservative battery

No prizes for guessing that Samsung will up the smartphone performance ante with the Note 8. We're expecting to see use of the Exynos 8895 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, depending on where you buy your Note, and either will be paired up with 6GB of RAM. This should comfortably give it the performance edge over the S8 on paper, but will it make a difference in the real world? We'll have to wait and see.

Where the Note 8 might fall down - although not as catastrophically as the Note 7 - is with battery life. It is claimed Samsung will play it safe, cutting capacity down from 3,500mAh to 3,300.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will have an awkwardly-placed fingerprint reader

Samsung will follow the Galaxy S8's lead with the Note 8, moving the fingerprint reader from the front to the back. With the removal of the physical home button below the screen, Samsung could have taken the Sony route, fitting it to the side, but instead opted for the back, next to the rear camera. This is an awkward location on the S8, and it looks like the Note 8 will be equally hindered as users accidentally smudge the camera, or miss the sensor entirely.

A great camera

In better news, the rear camera is set to grow a second lens. Each will sit in front of a 12-megapixel image sensor and we can expect Samsung to develop a shallow depth-of-field shooting function like Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus. Finally, next to the two lenses sits a flash and heart rate sensor.

That's all for now, but we can expect to see many more leaks between now and Samsung's 23 August event.