The Samsung Galaxy S8 will be announced inside the first quarter of 2017. A release date will follow shortly thereafter and most believe this handset – or series of handsets, as there’s meant to be three models – will be one of the biggest selling releases of 2017.
We know quite a bit about the Samsung Galaxy S8 already. We also know that, after the Galaxy Note 7 debacle, Samsung needs a very successful launch and massive sales. The company lost A LOT of money in 2016, so it stands to reason that it will aim to recoup all of it early on with a trio of impressive flagship phones.
One of the latest bits of information about the Galaxy S8 concerns its Bluetooth capabilities. According to Sam Mobile, the Galaxy S8 will be one of the first handsets to utilise the newly announced Bluetooth 5.0 standard. Now, this isn’t earth-shattering news. I don’t think anyone has ever bought a phone based on its Bluetooth capabilities, but in this context it is rather significant.
Why? Simple: Samsung is doing an Apple and ditching the traditional headphone jack on its Galaxy S8, so having a more potent and up to date Bluetooth standard implemented makes sense, as performance will be improved dramatically, meaning less dropped audio and less judder.
Bluetooth 5.0 Features and Advancements
"Key updates to Bluetooth 5 include longer range, faster speed, and larger broadcast message capacity, as well as improved interoperability and coexistence with other wireless technologies,” noted the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).
It added: “Key feature updates include four times range, two times speed, and eight times broadcast message capacity. Longer range powers whole home and building coverage, for more robust and reliable connections. Higher speed enables more responsive, high-performance devices. Increased broadcast message size increases the data sent for improved and more context relevant solutions.”
The update also has IOT at its core, as SIG believes Bluetooth will be vital to the adoption, implementation and evolution of the Internet of Things in 2017 and beyond.
“The global wireless connectivity market is growing rapidly, with an anticipated 10 billion annual IC shipments by 2021,” said Andrew Zignani with ABI Research. “The introduction of Bluetooth 5 will create new opportunities in various verticals of the IoT market by reducing complexity and cost and giving manufacturers greater flexibility in targeting multiple applications and use cases.”
