The Samsung Galaxy S11 is coming out in just three months, so we’re not that far away for the official release, and luckily the S11 will actually be one of the biggest changes that Samsung has ever made to their products!
We’re getting some gigantic camera improvements, the displays are getting even better, alongside some unique and exclusive features.
So get that popcorn ready and here’s everything we know so far about the S11, on the Design, Display, Camera, Performance, Special Features, Battery, Release Date & Price!
DESIGN
Ok, so starting off with the design, unlike Apple Samsung is actually updates the design of their phones, every single year.
The big redesign is usually every two years, but we still get some small changes with every new generation. For example the S6 was the first Galaxy S smartphone that came with a premium build of glass on the front and back, and a metal frame. The S7 was a more refined version of the S6, the S8 had a brand new design, the S9 was a more refined version of the S8’s design with slightly thinner bezels, and the S10 was a brand new design once again. Therefore it makes sense for the S11 to be a more refined version of the S10, rather than a completely new design.
IceUniverse reported on the 27th of October that the design and configuration of the Galaxy S11 has been finalised and the leak season will now begin.
BenGeskin’s S11 renders (Back) compared to the S10’s (Front)
BenGeskin posted a render of how the S11’s will compare to the S10, and as you can see, they’re taller than the S10’s and all of them have a single central camera module now, rather than the module to the right, that the S10’s had, and the dual camera module to the right that the S10+ had.
In terms of the models there will be three S11’s. So just like with the S10’s we would have the S11e, the S11 and the S11+. MySmartPrice reports, based on information received by leakster Ishan Agarwal, that the S11 and S11+ will come in Black, Grey and Blue, while the S11e will come in Blue, Grey and Pink. These are some very interesting choices. I’m quite surprised to see Samsung remove White from their offering, as White and Black have always been the default colours. Grey would probably be the one that would be the equivalent to the White colour the most. So I’m guessing that it would have some sort of shine to it, similar to the back colours of the Note 10, where if you look at it from an angle, it would turn into a different colour. I personally believe that all the colours on the S11’s would come with that glowing shimmer effect that changes based on how the light hits it.
But that’s pretty much it when it comes to the design. We’ll have a very similar look to the S10’s, just longer, with a central camera module and no more headphone jack, but a 2nd speaker grill on the bottom instead. The microSD card slot will still be there as well.
DISPLAY
Moving on to the display, EvLeaks, one of the original leakers has posted some details about these.
Apparently, the S11e will come with a 6.4” display, the S11 will come with a 6.7” display, while the S11+ will come with a gigantic 6.9” panel. Now these are actually a very big jump from the S10’s, that came with a 5.8” in the case of the S10e, a 6.1” display in the case of the S10, and a 6.4” display in the case of the S10+. So it seems like the smallest S11, the S11e, will actually be bigger than the S10+.
Our renders of the S11 showing the new screen sizes
Now, there are a few contradictory reports on the S11e’s display size, where some reports are saying that it will come with a 6.4” display, and some are saying that it would be a 6.2”. Evleaks even mentioned that himself. My guess is that it will be a 6.2” panel, otherwise the jump in the display size would be just too dramatic and people who just preferred having a smaller display, would be out of luck if that’s the case.
Now, the good news is that the phones will not be getting any wider, instead they will be getting taller. Luckily Samsung’s OneUI is actually optimised for one finger use, and having all the UI elements accessible from the middle of the display will help in making these gigantic S11 phones more easily usable.
Now, because of that taller display, we will also be getting a wider aspect ratio of 20:9 compared to 19:9 which was what we had on the S10 and the Note 10. It won’t be as wide as the Sony Xperia 1, which has a 21:9 aspect ratio, but it will be close. This will make it much better for watching wide aspect ratio videos and movies, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung launches their own Galaxy Movies store or something along those lines.
The patent granted to Samsung for SAMOLED found by LetsGoDigital
But regardless of that, Samsung will very likely call this display AMOLED Cinema or something along those lines. Now, LetsGoDigital actually found a patent that Samsung had just been granted this week, on a display called SAMOLED. Samsung already has their Super AMOLED branding, so this could either be a new branding, or it could just be Samsung next generation of displays. We’ve seen the current generation being introduced with the S10, and this generation featured a much higher brightness of over 1000 nits alongside a physical cutout in their display, for the camera module. The Note 10+ featured the Samsung generation of AMOLED panel that the S10 had and even the iPhone 11 Pro’s had the exact same panel.
Now, EvLeaks has also stated that all three models will have curved-edge displays, unlike the S10e from last year which was the only one with a flat panel. And the bezels are also getting thinner this year, even thinner than the ones we had on the S10. The S11e will probably have thicker bezels, at least when it comes to the top and the bottom ones, just so that it looks more inferior to the S11’s considering the lower price that the S11e will have.
CAMERA
Now, when it comes to the camera this is actually where the biggest change will be.
In our Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Review, I did mention an interesting fact that not a lot of people seem to have been aware of, which was that the fact that Samsung has actually had the exact same sensor specs, since the Galaxy S7. Yes, Samsung did indeed have the switchable aperture with the S9, and the dual and triple lens camera module with the S9 and the S10, but the main module has actually remained the same since the S7 from 2016.
The headline from Samsung’s Newsroom reporting the 108MP sensor (Source: Samsung)
However, in August 2019, Samsung has unveiled their brand new 108MP smartphone sensor which is actually a very big deal. Not only does this have some insanely high level of detail with nine times more resolution than the current 12MP sensor, but the sensor itself it 1.91cm In size, compared to the 1cm sensor that we had before. So this sensor is almost twice the size of the current one and it does need to be bigger, because otherwise the pixels would be so small in that 108MP sensor, that low light shots would look unusable.
This is actually pretty much confirmed at this point. XDA developers have even found code in the OneUI 2.0 beta, specifically in the Samsung camera app itself that shows support for a resolution of 12000x9000 photos, or 108MP photos if you do the math, and also support for that 20:9 aspect ratio that I was talking about before.
Now the only question that remains is, is Samsung going to use this 108MP module as the main module, or are they going to use it as a secondary module? Well, realistically they will probably use it as the main module, but I’m keeping my hopes high that Samsung will actually just use it as a secondary module and still keep a 12MP main module for low light shots. I only say this because the 108MP sensor will be noticeably worse in low light than even the Galaxy S7, unless of course Samsung does some magic in software and they release a new night mode, specifically designed for this new 108MP sensor.
Our concept showing the 108MP sensor integrated into the 4 camera module set up
On our concept, we actually added the 108MP module as an extra module, meaning we’d have four modules; the 12MP night mode module, the zoom module, the wide angle module, and the 108MP module
Also, just so that you’re aware, you won’t be taking 108MP photos with this camera. You will very likely be able to do that in the Pro-Mode, but regular shots will just use that massive sensor to capture more detail and the final image would still be around 12-16MP. Otherwise, taking 108MP photos will just murder your storage.
But apart from that, now would also be a really good time for Samsung to add 6K or even 8K video recording to this, as the CPU does indeed support that. This would definitely the biggest camera change that we’ve ever had in a Samsung phone.
And we have seen some reports that the zoom capabilities would be greatly improved as well, with possibly a 3x optical zoom camera from the 2, and the remaining zoom would be achieved with that 108MP sensor, which means you will have around a 10X lossless zoom and even up to 30-50X with digital zoom, so very similar to what Huawei did with the P30 Pro.
When it comes to the Front Camera, if you’re worried about the lack of a depth sensor that the S10+ had, you don’t need to worry about that, since the Note 10+ had pretty much the same quality front portrait mode shots as the S10+ did, with just a single camera.
PERFORMANCE
Now, when it comes to the Performance, same as before, we’ll be getting two different CPU modules.
The US & Canada variants will come with the new Snapdragon 865, while the International models will come with the Exynos 990.
The Snapdragon 865 hasn’t been officially unveiled just yet, it’s expected to be unveiled in early December, but according to the leaks the CPU performance will be increased by 20%, while the GPU will get a 17% to 20% bump from the 855, so that’s an even smaller jump from the 855+.
The Exynos 990 is essentially the 9830, just with a different name. Now this one has been officially unveiled and it does support up to a 108MP camera, up to 8K30 video recording, as well as LPDDR5 memory.
Now, Samsung will be dropping their custom Exynos cores from future Exynos processors, but that’s a story for a whole different article.
RAM wise, 12MP of RAM is pretty much what the S11+ will come with and then 8GB and 6GB are expected on the S11 and S11e.
SPECIAL FEATURES
So aside from the camera and display, there’s not a lot else in terms of special features.
We are getting 5G once again and EvLeaks reports that the S11e and S11 will come in both 4G and 5G variants, while the S11+ will only come with 5G. This means that the S11+ will be one crazy expensive phone.
The headphone jack is likely to be removed from the S11, but that will mean an extra speaker grill
The headphone jack is being removed, just like on the Note 10. Unfortunately, with the Note 10, we didn’t get any headphone jack adapter in the box. I really do hope that Samsung does include one with the S11, especially since the Galaxy S series is more popular. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy a separate adapter yourself, or stick to wireless headphones. Speaking of wireless headphones, Ishan Agarwal reported for mysmartprice that the Galaxy Buds 2, with the codename R175, are in development and that they will come in Blue, Pink, Black and White. I do hope that Samsung adds Active Noise cancellation to the Galaxy Buds 2, so that they can compete with the AirPods Pro’s, fingers crossed that they also keep the same price, in that case they would be by far the best wireless headphones on the market.
Even if we do lose the headphone jack, we do get an extra speaker grill, so the sound quality would be further improved with the S11.
And finally we haven’t included this in our concept but the S11’s will very likely feature the same TOF depth sensor on the back, just like the Note 10+ did. This is for improving the portrait mode photography with the back camera and for AR.
BATTERY
The battery likely for the new S11 (Source: SafetyKorea)
It does seem like we would be getting some very big improvements to the battery. GalaxyClub found a listing on SafetyKorea of a few unreleased Samsung smartphone batteries, and they have the model number ‘EB-GB980ABY L’, which could really be any Samsung phone to be honest. However, when you consider the S10 model numbers, these were SM-G970, 973 and 975. So it would make a lot of sense for the S11e’s model number to be SM-G980, and in that case this battery leak would be for the S11e.
And this appears to be a 4000mAh battery, which would be a gigantic leap from the 3100mAh battery that the S10e had, which means that the S11+ should approach 5000mAh.
Now another improvement that’s we’ll see here is the SuperFast charge that the Note 10 got. The 45W fast charging which is the fastest fast charge on any smartphone to date.
RELEASE DATE
In regards to the release date, the unveil would be as usual in Mid-Late February, while the delivery and the in-store release would be in early March. This has been confirmed by EvLeaks as well.
PRICE
And finally, when it comes to the price, these would not be cheap phones by any means.
The S11+ should cost around the same as the Note 10+ does now, so $1100 if not even $1200. While the S11 should be around the same price as the S10+, so $999 and the S11e should be around $650, $100 more than what the S10e costs. The prices haven’t been leaked, these are my personal predictions based on what Samsung has priced their phones in the past.
So if you don’t care about the camera that much, and you don’t need that insane new 108MP sensor, then picking up an S10 or an S10+ is actually a very good idea. They have the same design, mostly the same display and an even smaller form factor.