Everyone saw the Macbook Pro announcement last week, right? Apple has made the controversial design decision to bring the iPhone notch to some of its laptops, minimizing bezel space but introducing an awkward cutout on the display area. Now, Samsung is apparently working on bringing the same idea to tablets. The reliable leaker, Steve Hemmerstoffer, aka “OnLeaks,” has created renders of the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra design, and it basically looks like someone cut off the top half of a Macbook Pro, complete with that weird notch.
According to OnLeak’s information, the base-model S8 Tab is expected to be an 11-inch tablet, a “Galaxy Tab S8+” will be 12.4 inches, and this notched behemoth, the Tab S8 Ultra, will have a 14.6-inch display. The renders only cover the Ultra model. The base-model S8 design leaked in a separate post, showing a more traditional design with slightly thicker bezels housing a camera module. The Ultra model features dual rear cameras, a USB-C port, quad speakers, and no headphone jack.
As usual, Hemmerstoffer’s information is based on CAD files covering the location of everything (including this crazy notch), but some of the finer details could be different. This report notes that there will be magnetic connectors on the left side of the frame, but it’s not clear what those will look like.
Notching a tablet is a pretty strange idea. Was anyone calling for smaller bezels than what you get in something like the leaked S8 Tab design? You hold a tablet by its bezels, so the goal shouldn’t be a zero-bezel device like on a smartphone. The move will get Samsung some attention, though.
We’re currently overdue for a flagship Samsung tablet launch—the Galaxy S7 Tab launched in August of last year, so the S8 Tab line should be out any month now.
