Samsung presents Galaxy A8s in China with hole in screen for front camera

Samsung has introduced the Galaxy A8s smartphone in China, the first phone with a hole in the screen. The manufacturer has made way for the front camera in the 6.4-inch OLED panel in the top left corner.

Samsung has put the A8s on its own site and announced the device during a live event. It is an OLED screen with a diagonal of 6.4 “and a resolution of 2340×1080 pixels. Samsung refers to the display as Infinity-O. The screen surface is approximately one hundred square centimeters, including the cutout for the camera.

The front camera is a 24-megapixel camera with f/2.0 lens. It is probably the same front camera as the one that appeared as a front camera in many phones last year: the Sony IMX576. Samsung previously used it in the Galaxy A9 Star.

There are three cameras on the back. It is a primary 24-megapixel camera, with an additional 10-megapixel camera with telephoto lens and a small 5-megapixel sensor to collect depth information for blurring the background. The soc in the phone is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710. Samsung equips the device with 6GB of memory and 128GB of storage. Samsung has not yet announced a price for the phone. The A9s, a more expensive model, costs 3499 yuan, currently converted about 443 euros. The A8s is probably slightly below that. The A8s will be released just before Christmas.

It is the first smartphone with a hole in the screen for the front camera, but more will follow. Huawei is presenting the Nova 4 with the same function this week and more new models are likely to come next year.

Update, December 17: This article first stated that the Galaxy A7 available in the Benelux has the same camera setup, but that is incorrect. The A7 has a wide-angle lens, the A8s a telephoto lens.