Two years ago today, Samsung announced the Galaxy A-series lineup for 2016, while the 2017 roster waited for its namesake year, before going official on January 2, 2017. The 2018 models apparently won't meet the 2016 schedule and we won't be surprised to see them arrive with the new year.

One of them, at least, will be getting a new name, a recent photo leak on Weibo indicates. With an internal designation SM-730, you'd expect that to be the next A7, but it will enter 2018 as the Galaxy A8+ (2018).



Leaked live photos of an alleged Galaxy A8+ (2018)

The change seems justified - the new phone has what appears to be a tall display, Infinity display as Samsung likes to call it. The Galaxy S8 pair and the Note8 have an 18.5:9 ratio, but an earlier leak suggested a slightly more conventional 18:9 aspect for the A-series. Obviously, we can't tell the difference from these photos.

It would have been nice to see a photo of the back of the handset - word on the street is that there will be a fingerprint sensor on the back, a centrally placed one for a change.

We'll know it all for certain soon enough, perhaps within a month?

Source (in Chinese)