We’re still months away from getting to the next burst of 2018 flagship phones, but a report from Bloomberg this afternoon says one of the biggest of those phones may come sooner than expected. The Galaxy Note 9 is on track to be announced on August 9th, two weeks earlier than the Note 8 was announced last year, according to the report. Samsung reportedly intends to release the phone by the end of August.
If that happens, it’d give Samsung more of a head start against this year’s iPhones. Last year, the Note 8 only went on sale after the iPhone 8 and X had been announced in September, which could have depressed sales by losing would-be buyers to Apple’s new tech. Supposedly, Samsung had actually be hoping to announce the Note 9 even sooner this year, but a report earlier this week said that it was delayed from July due to last-minute design changes.
Bloomberg reports that Samsung plans to highlight an upgraded camera in the Note 9. That likely means the Note 9 will get the same dual-aperture trick that the Galaxy S9 picked upearlier this year, which was supposed to help the phone better expose for bright environments. The phone is also supposed to come with a new Qualcomm processor, presumably the Snapdragon 845, in some markets, which only makes sense for a 2018 Android flagship.
As always with these things, Bloomberg says it was warned that plans could still shift around the announcement date. But it’s easy enough to believe: Samsung announced new Note models near the beginning or middle of August in the past, so this is more of a move back to its previous release schedule.