Samsung is trying hard to keep the Galaxy S8 under wraps but it looks like there won’t be much to reveal with leaks we’ve seen so far. This time, a case maker may have accidentally jumped the gun even before Samsung has announced the official launch date for the upcoming Galaxy.
UAG which makes rugged cases for various popular smartphone brands had recently published its new casings for the Galaxy S8. There are 4 translucent Plasma Case options and 3 Pathfinder series which comes with a solid colour.
The sample phone pictures accurately match the earlier leaked renders. The dual curved display dominates the front of the phone with no physical home button and navigation at the bottom chin. Meanwhile, the back gets a familiar looking camera module with its flash and heart rate sensor next to it.
The Galaxy S8 is also shown to have a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor which is placed next to the camera. While this would make it inconvenient to unlock when the phone is lying face up, the off-centre placement also means it trickier to locate as you take the phone out from a pocket.
At time of posting, UAG has removed the Galaxy S8 listing but you still can access it via Google Cache.
If you’re unconvinced, @evleaks has dropped another leak of the Galaxy S8. The picture above appears to be a sample case photo from case maker Speck. It looks similar with UAG’s images except that it didn’t carry Samsung’s branding in front.
This isn’t the first case makers have leaked smartphones ahead of their device announcement. Back in 2015, Spigen had started selling Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+ cases a week before the devices are officially announced.
With that, it looks like the removal of the iconic home button for a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is more or less confirmed. Even @evleaks is willing to place a wager on it.
The Galaxy S8 won’t be revealed at the upcoming MWC 2017 event. Instead, it is likely that Samsung will announce it at a separate event towards the end of March.
