The future of Samsung's premium Note-branded smartphones has been in doubt following the Note 7's unfortunate tendency to spontaneously catch fire, but the South Korean electronics goliath has all but confirmed we'll see a Note 8 next year.
In a statement made on Monday, Samsung said that South Korean customers who trade in their Note 7 for an S7 or S7 Edge will be able to swap to an S8 or Note 8 smartphone next year through an upgrade program. According to Reuters, Note 7 owners who want to take advantage of the program will only have to pay half the price of the S7 to get their hands on either the Galaxy S8 or Galaxy Note 8 when the phones become available.
Samsung has yet to confirmed whether Australian Note 7 owners - well, hopefully now ex-owners - will be eligible for the same sort of upgrade. The company says that the availability of the program will vary from market to market, but every country is looking at its options.
While a discounted phone sounds like a great "make good" for potentially unhappy owners Note 7, the bigger news is the confirmation that Samsung is sticking with the Note name. We've previously speculated that Samsung would axe the Note name, and rebrand them as a new part of the S8 family. S8 Plus, or S8 Pen, for example.
Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S8 in late February or early March next year. That being said, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the phone's development has been delayed by two weeks, as engineers work to determine the cause of Note 7's overheating issues.
Alex Choros
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