Samsung hints hard about dual Galaxy Note 8 cameras in its latest ad
It's clear when you know what you're looking for.
Samsung has all but confirmed that the Galaxy Note 8 will have a dual-camera setup when the phone launches in New York in five days' time. A new video for South Korea (below) teases features that are unmistakably the result of two cameras.
The Note 8 is rumored to be Samsung's first dual-camera phone, an important addition in a landscape where dual cameras are all but a given for premium phones. Samsung would be one of the last major handset makers to add a two-lens system, along with Google's Pixel refresh. LG, Apple, Huawei, Motorola, Asus and even up-and-comer OnePlus already sell phones with two lenses. The two cameras are useful for portrait mode, for adding extra detail to pictures and have implications for more accurate augmented reality.
In Samsung's video, a woman holds both of her hands to form binoculars in front of her eyes, before the video cuts to the person she's looking at and blurs the people in the background. This is a direct reference to the bokeh effect, which Apple popularized on phones with Portrait Mode on the dual-camera iPhone 7 Plus -- it focuses on a subject while artfully blurring out the background.
Another photography reference comes at the end of the video when the camera shows a shot of a woman standing in a field -- complete with borders at the edges of the frame -- and then zooms out to show that she is far away. This may point toward an optical zoom feature that could be achieved with a dual-camera phone.
It's worth noting that both an optical zoom and depth of field effect were recently listed as features for a dual-camera module on the Samsung Electro-Mechanics website. Since Samsung has yet to put a dual-camera module in any of its phones, some speculate that the listed module may end up on the Note 8.
The Galaxy Note 8 is important because it's Samsung's most premium phone of the year, and a chance at redemption after last year's Galaxy Note 7 was recalled and then recalled again due to explosive batteries. Since then the company has made an effort to ensure the safety of its phones, but the fate of the Note 8 could show us how well Samsung has earned back that trust with buyers.
Will the Note 8 get all these features and more? CNET will be on the ground in New York on Aug. 23 to cover the Samsung event live.
Samsung declined to comment on this story.