Samsung Galaxy Note 8 release date: virtual reality support expected to come; skips MWC 2017 appearance?

Galaxy Note 7 made a significant downfall when millions of users got dismayed by its battery problems. Samsung, however, is determined to rise from the fall with the Galaxy Note 8 coming this year.

The company will make its Note series grand again. The Galaxy Note 8 is believed to have a big leap of specs as compared with the current model, possibly earning the customers' trust once again.

Rumors are rife that Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will have a 3,840 x 2,160-pixel resolution and a 4K active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display, which has already been featured in the Sony Xperia Z5. It is also possible that Note 8 will have virtual reality (VR) support as the gaming and mobile markets are keen about VR support at this time. In an article by Forbes, the Note 8 may be the tight competition of Apple's iPhone 8, which is said to have an OLED screen instead of the usual LCD one. iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus still sport the latter screen.

The game changer, perhaps, is the artificial intelligence (AI) bot that Samsung is allegedly developing for its future devices, which already includes the Galaxy Note 8. Known as Bixby, the digital assistant is comparable to Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana. The bot developed by Viv is also expected to come out to the upcoming Galaxy S8.

Both Samsung Note 8 and Galaxy S8 are said to have separate launch dates. Some enthusiasts believe that the South Korean company will introduce the upcoming devices at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 in Spain, but others say that both devices will not appear at the event. Instead, a separate event will take place to introduce the smartphone in the market, aside from another event to launch new devices.

Aside from Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S8 and Surface Phone, the next-generation Surface Pro 5 is also expected to be launched soon.