The Samsung Galaxy A8s is a triple-lens powerhouse that drops huge hint about the Samsung Galaxy S10
Samsung goes big on cameras in its phones, again.
Samsung has unveiled its latest camera phone, the beautiful Samsung Galaxy A8s. We say beautiful, because it is completely notch free.
Instead of the black bar that's adorned many a smartphone in 2018, it has what some are calling a pin-hole camera on its front, others a hole-punch design.
Samsung, however, is calling it the Infinity-O display that's is 6.4-inches (2340 x 1080 pixels) in size and that tiny hole houses a front-facing 24MP f/20 selfie camera.
Flip the phone over and its back has three lenses. There's the 24MP main sensor (f/1.7 aperture) a 10MP telephoto lens with f/2.4 and a third for depth sensing - it's 5MP with f/2.2 aperture.
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Specs-wise, it's a fairly standard affair. There's a 3,400 mAh (with fast charging), Android 8.1 Oreo. This is all powered by a Snapdragon 710 chip and 6 or 8GB of RAM. Storage is 128GB but with a microSD card, you can expand up to 512GB.
Samsung Galaxy S10 hint
While we are expecting bigger specs and a much larger camera array on the back of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10, there is one big hint in the design on the S10 in the design of the A8s. You've guessed it, it's the Infinity-O display.
The notch looks to be a thing of the past and this new pin-hole setup is very likely to house the selfie camera of the S10. The thing is, this setup doesn't really allow for depth sensing or anything like that so it will be interesting to see how Samsung get around that with the Samsung Galaxy S10.
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It's looking increasingly likely that it will go down the 48MP route, too. We've seen this biggest hint yet that Xiaomi is set to launch a phone with a 48MP camera and Honor had its official unveil of the 48MP Honor View 20 recently.
That phone had, you've guessed it. a pin-hole, all-display front too - so already the Samsung Galaxy S10 has a major competitor for the best camera phone crown.
A technology journalist who has been in the industry for 17 years, Marc is the former editor-in-chief of TechRadar and has also steered the ship for technology brands including T3, Tom's Hardware and Tom's Guide, and is currently the director of Shortlist Media and co-owner of Shortlist.com.
An expert in the field of camera phones and mobile tech, Marc has been a long-time specialist when it comes to phone reviews, hands-on coverage, reviews and rumors. As a frequent visitor to big trade shows like CES, he has also had boots on the ground for the latest camera announcements and breaking developments in fields such as 8K video.