MWC 2017: Samsung to launch Galaxy S8 on March 29

Samsung Electronics on Sunday said that it will launch its next flagship smartphone on March 29. The phone is expected to come with Samsung’s newly developed digital assistant Bixby.

Samsung Electronics on Sunday said that it will launch its next flagship smartphone on March 29. The phone is expected to come with Samsung’s newly developed digital assistant Bixby. (via VentureBeat)

Korean electronics giant Samsung on Sunday said that it wiil launch its next flagship smartphone -- the S8 -- on March 29 this year at an event called Samsung Unpacked.

The company made the announcement after launching the Galaxy Tab S3 and the Galaxy book two-in-one device at a press conference in Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

According to Twitter tipster Ricciolo, the S8 is ready to be displayed and the Galaxy S8 will be priced at EUR 849 (roughly ₹ 61,700), making it more expensive than last year's premium Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge variant.

Watch: Samsung S8's speculated new display

He also said that the larger Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus will be priced at a whopping EUR 949 (roughly ₹ 69,000). Just to recap, the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge were launched at EUR 700 (roughly ₹ 50,900) and EUR 800 (roughly ₹ 58,100) respectively.

Samsung is expected to go all out with the S8 after its failure to launch the Note 7 successfully. To make matters worse, Apple, which is celebrating its 10th-anniversary, is also expected to come out with big-bang features for its iPhone 8 -- expected to be launched in the second half of 2017.

We all know what a phone looks like… or do we?
On 03.29.2017 #UnboxYourPhone pic.twitter.com/L2rTV4mMRn

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) February 26, 2017

The new S8 smarphone is expected to come with a 'Beast' mode. Samsung, which unveiled it in a trademark application, may launch the mode in competition to other battery-saving modes currently available in Android. The 'Beast' mode may be able to leverage greater processing power, graphical ability and increased memory of the handset.

The Korean giant is also expected to emulate Apple's strategy of adding an 'S' or 'Plus' variant with the upcoming flagship. It is rumoured to be making two Galaxy S8 sizes. One, called Galaxy S8, will have a display around five inches in size, just like its predecessor - the Galaxy S7. The other phone will be the company's first 6-inch phone.

The Plus is also speculated to arrive at the same time with a AMOLED display. However, experts claimed that the S8 Plus has similar overall footprint as the now-discontinued Galaxy Note7.

Watch: Samsung S8's speculated new display

According to a tipster on Weibo who has been accurate on previous calls related to Samsung devices, the Galaxy S8 will feature 8GB of RAM. In addition, it will also sport a UFS 2.1 flash storage chip as well as a dual-camera setup at the rear just like the iPhone 7 Plus.

Both the phones might be powered either by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor or an Exynos 8895. The devices are expected to run on Android 7.0 Nougat.

On 03.29.2017 we're pushing the boundaries one more time. #UnboxYourPhone https://t.co/0e9kY87B48 pic.twitter.com/pe2tTYN1x1

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) February 26, 2017

Samsung might also include its new AI-powered assistants reportedly named Bixby (male) and Kestra (female) with the Galaxy S8.

Speculations are adrift that Google is talking to the Galaxy device maker about making Google Assistant the only voice-activated personal assistant on the device.