The final specs of the Galaxy Note 8 have been published, and we’ve even seen some colors of the upcoming handset, but photo leaks are always welcome in the minds of buyers.

Specs can be juicy, but the handset’s design will also be a make or break point for the device around announcement time. That being said, new photos have leaked of the apparent Galaxy Note 8, showing off square corners as well as the S Pen. First, there’s the date of “Monday, August 7” on the Always On Display, which means that the device is being used currently by those familiar with the handset’s unveiling and that the device is soon to arrive on the market. The magic date is August 23, which is when Samsung will first showcase the upcoming device. The instructions telling the user to “Double tap to learn how to use the Always On Display” are a dead giveaway to the AOD feature that has become famous since the arrival of the Galaxy S7 models.

The front of what is reportedly the Galaxy Note 8 shows a software home button that has become a trademark of Galaxy smartphones, a sign that Samsung isn’t going back to hardware home buttons again. The back of the handset shows a familiar placement for a fingerprint sensor, though Samsung has moved the heart rate monitor from the far left to an adjacent position to make room for a new dual rear camera setup. Evan Blass has already leaked press photos of the device, but the new ones have leaked from tech site MyEverydayTech. The site’s leaked photos have appeared thanks to DrClaw77 over at social media site Reddit.

The volume rocker and Bixby buttons have made their way to the Galaxy Note 8 as well, a sign that Bixby, the Korean giant’s new AI, is not an experiment but an investment. Samsung recently unveiled the resurrected Galaxy Note 7 as the Galaxy Note Fan Edition (FE), with the device featuring Bixby home and reminder functions.

The USB Type-C charging port can be seen at the bottom of the back cover, a reminder that this charging trend isn’t going anywhere, and this should prove to be good news for Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ owners who are already considering trading up to the expected handset.

The S Pen photo shows the digital stylus that Samsung wants you to call “an intelligent S Pen” rather than “a stylus,” as it is capable of doing many things that normal digital styluses just can’t do. With the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, Samsung provided baked-in S Pen capabilities such as glance, magnify, and word translation, but this year’s Galaxy Note 8 is said to bring full sentence translation and currency conversion with the new and improved water-resistant S Pen.

The Galaxy Note 8 photos shown here are in the famous Midnight Black color that we’ve seen on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. We know that the Galaxy Note 8 will come to market in Midnight Black and Maple Gold first, with colors such as Deep Sea Blue and others to follow shortly after. These photos of the handset confirm what we already know, but you can bet there’s more to be revealed between now and the official announcement. Stay tuned!

SOURCE [DrClaw77 on Reddit]