How difficult is it to recover from a particularly challenging position in the market when one of your flagship products experience a complete failure upon release, so much so that the defect is so serious it needs to be discontinued, pronto? That is exactly what Samsung experienced, with their Galaxy Note 7 being extremely combustible so much so that it is a federal crime to bring one aboard an aeroplane. Well, the smartphone has been discontinued for obvious safety reasons since then, and Samsung has renewed its marketing efforts for the earlier flagship devices of the year, namely the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. Having said that, we are pretty sure that the upcoming handsets from the South Korean conglomerate would be following a similar naming convention, which would be the Samsung Galaxy S8. The Galaxy S8 has been whispered to make its way to the market some time in February 2017, and a trickle of information on its hardware specification has been revealed.

In an effort to ensure that the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco is well and truly behind them, Samsung looks set to start off 2017 with a bang with the Samsung Galaxy S8, not to mention yet another model that will bear a slightly larger frame, which would be known as the Galaxy S8 Plus. Yes, this is a slight tweak in the naming convention when you think about it, especially when Samsung has been doing pretty well so far in terms of the “edge” naming convention. Why take on the “Plus” suffix when it might prove to be too close to Apple? After all, Apple has their iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, so this might be seen by some as though Samsung is copying Apple.

Additional details concerning the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus have leaked out, and it does seem as though your ears are going to be the ones that benefit -- since Samsung is widely tipped to include stereo speakers from Harman to the devices. Originally floating around as a rumor that Harman stereo speakers will debut on the 2018 version of the Samsung Galaxy S series (most probably the Galaxy S9 and Note 9), it looks like plans have been fast tracked and brought forward for the Harman stereo speakers to appear on the next generation Galaxy S8.

This would certainly place Samsung’s next generation flagship devices to be on par with other flagship models that boast of stereo speakers, although the likes of Chinese smartphone manufacturers such as Xiaomi have already done stereo speakers some time back, but without the weight of brand names like Harman.

The Galaxy S8 is tipped to arrive with a 5.7-inch display, while the Galaxy S8 Plus will obviously sport a larger display at 6.2-inches to reflect its namesake. The Galaxy S8 Plus is widely believed to feature a bezel-less display, while the Galaxy S8 ought to carry the curved edge display. In terms of pricing, we do expect them to retail for the same as current generation flagships, and Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, Spain, could be the platform of choice for the devices’ announcements.