2019 is shaping up to be a big year in the smartphone world, with the first commercially-available 5G handsets expected to launch, alongside a slew of other updates.
Samsung is no stranger to launching a number of products in quick succession, but 2019 looks set to be a bigger than usual year for the South Korean juggernaut.
We’ve already seen rumours of a new mid-range Galaxy Tab A tablet, but this is far from the biggest thing Samsung’s working on right now.
Samsung’s Galaxy S10
First things first, we know for a certainty that Samsung will be working on their next major top-tier smartphone release. Almost certain to be called the Galaxy S10, we’re expecting three variants this time around – a Galaxy S10 Plus, Galaxy S10, and a flat version without curved screen.
Samsung has avoided the notch thus far, and we’re expecting that to continue in 2019, with rumours of an Infinity O display with cutouts for cameras in the screen. We’ve already seen this – in the Galaxy A8 – but including the feature in the S10 range is a big statement.
Other welcome inclusions are wireless charging (and charging other devices wirelessly too), in-screen fingerprint sensor, three rear cameras and Samsung’s One UI built on Android 9 Pie.
https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/1062313739842654208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Screen sizes are rumoured to vary between 5.8-inches for the flat screen variant, 6.1-inch for the S10 standard, and 6.4-inches for the S10 Plus.
Storage sizes are less certain, but there are rumours the S10 Plus variant could range up to a whopping 1 Terabyte of built-in storage, something hitherto thought unnecessary for smartphones. That I’d like to see, but you can expect a phone with that much storage to be suitably expensive, well over the AU $2,000 mark.
When will we see them? Money is on a launch event ahead of MWC 2019 with the phones being shown off extensively during the show itself.
Galaxy S10 5G variant?
Samsung are widely anticipated to launch a 5G variant of the Galaxy S10, but with commercial networks not likely to have consumer-facing services much before the end of Q1, it seems less likely that Samsung will announce a 5G handset at MWC (as much as we’d like them to).
In all likelihood, we’ll see Samsung launch this at a later event – perhaps in March 2019 – a bit closer to the actual launch of 5G networks that consumers can use the phone with. Despite the inclusion of 5G, chances are this phone will serve most of its life working on enhanced 4G networks while 5G continues to be built around the world.
With so many phones coming, and 5G just around the corner, 2019 looks like a great year already, and we’re not quite there yet.
