Real-life photo of a Galaxy S8 case leaked, let's analyze it!

Samsung's next flagship is to be unveiled in about two to three months and, naturally, leaks, rumors, and reports about what the device is going to be are pouring in. We've seen schematics, renders, alleged pictures, and even designs of cases for a device, which we are supposed to know nothing about. But hey, that's today's world-o-leaks.

What we have today is a photo of what is allegedly a real case for the Galaxy S8. Not a schematic, and not a render. While it still doesn't give us a 100% proof that this is what the S8 will be like, it shows that the maker has some confidence in their sources, as they decided to actually start forging these.

Now, case makers usually use early rumors and, supposedly, their own leaksters within supply chains in order to be able to make their product early. Some will also receive dummy devices (just a paperweight that has the same dimensions and looks as the final product) before a phone is launched, so that they can prep their case models up. However, we can't know whether Samsung has sent these out by now or not.

The paragraph above is there just to make sure that you treat this here as a regular “rumor” or “leak”, not confirmation for the Galaxy S8's shape. Now, what do we have?



Well, no dual camera, it seems, which used to be rumored at one point or another. Also, it's worth noting that the hardware buttons — power and volume — are all on the phone's left frame. Alleged photos of the S8, which we saw earlier this month, showed a device with a power button on the right and volume keys on the left.

On to the openings on the sides, we can spot a small circular one on the bottom that looks like a 3.5 mm jack. The headphone port has been placed in the same spot on older devices as well — at the bottom, slightly offset to the left, so that's more the reason to believe that this is the opening that this case is showing us.

To the right of it, we have a narrow and long slit. One could speculate that this is for the USB Type-C port, and that may well be the case, but we can't help but notice that there's an identical opening straight across this one — at the top frame of the case. Why would we need such a cutout on the top? Maybe the phone will actually have stereo speakers and maybe that's exactly how they would be positioned? Sure, you could say the top slit is for the microSD card or SIM card drawer, but these parts of the phone are used rarely, and case makers will always cover them up, especially on a case that also covers the phone's power and volume buttons, like this one.

So, that leaves us with the final opening — a square-shaped hole to the left of the alleged 3.5 mm jack. Now, some might say that looks like an S Pen hole, but we wouldn't say that makes much sense. Yes, the S8 has been rumored to have support for the Samsung-proprietary stylus, but only as an add-on accessory. Besides, Samsung has never placed the Pen on the left side of the device — it's always docked on the right, probably due to the fact that, statistically, most users are expected to be right-handed. Also, we are still missing a port for the charger. Could this small hole be it?

Either that, or this square opening is where the speaker is actually going to be, and our theory about the thin slits being openings for stereo speakers is a dud. In that case, the bottom slit would be where the USB Type-C port resides, and the top one would be... beats us. An IR port? We doubt Samsung would go back on that decision, but who knows.

Oh well, waiting for more info to leak out!