Samsung Galaxy S8 release date, specs: fingerprint sensor on the rear?

It looks like Samsung will make major aesthetic changes on its next-generation flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S8, if the latest report to come out of rumor mills is anything to go by.

According to an industry insider that spoke to Naver, the fingerprint sensor will be moved to the back of the device because the home button, where it is traditionally placed, will be no more. The Samsung Galaxy S8 will be ultimately ditching the traditional home button so its front side will mostly be composed of its display and thin bezels.

This will make the smartphone the first in its lineup to eliminate the physical home button, which, as XDA Developers points out, a feature that Samsung has always used on its offerings.

However, the removal of the home button is not unprecedented in the mobile scene as many of the South Korean tech giant's competition already did so.

This also suggests that the Samsung Galaxy S8 will not make use of the newly unveiled optical fingerprint scanner by Synaptics. Instead of embedding it on the home button or mounting in on the rear, the fingerprint sensor by Synaptics will work from behind the display of a device.

Apart from a fingerprint sensor, the Samsung Galaxy S8 will also reuse the iris-scanning technology from the doomed Samsung Galaxy Note 7, making the flagship one of the few devices to make use of such biometric measure.

A dedicated camera will be used to make it work, which means that the selfie shooter will be separate from it.

There will be a few improvements here and there for the iris scanner fans saw briefly in the Note 7. In line with this, the Samsung Pass will also be relaunched for the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Meanwhile, previous reports suggested that the flagship will also ditch the headphone jack, following suit its rival, Apple, which took away the feature on the iPhone 7.

As for the release date, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is expected to come out early next year.