If you were intrigued by rumors of Samsung making a cheaper version of the Galaxy S8, then good news: it’s a real phone. Bad news? It’s probably going to be locked away in China as the Samsung Galaxy S Light Luxury.

Simple naming aside, the new phone carries a lot of hallmarks from the original device, and should it ever make it to the wider world could be pretty popular.

The 18.5:9 long screen is back, coming in at 5.8-inches, and it’s also IP68 dust-resistant. That’s pretty similar to the Galaxy S8, and it even retains the irritating Bixby key – showing Samsung isn’t letting up on trying to make that a ‘thing’.

The iris scanner and poor placement of the fingerprint scanner remain, and we doubt they’ve been upgraded in any way… so that could be an issue should you somehow manage to buy this phone, as neither worked particularly well in our test with the Galaxy S8.

Same but different

There are some key differences though: the battery is 3000mAh (and wirelessly chargeable), it’s coming with Android 8 right out of the box – and there’s a lot less power here too.

The device is powered by the mid-range Snapdragon 660 chipset, clearly to help save the cost. It’ll also be less of a drain on the battery (as will the display, which will be capped at Full HD resolution).

There’s an 8MP camera on the front, and a 16MP snapper on the back, with f/1.7 aperture for good low light photography. The Galaxy S Light Luxury looks pretty neat stacked up against the original Galaxy S8, and will probably be around 20-30% cheaper too, while coming in black and burgundy colors and packing AKG headphones in the box.

And one final curiosity: in China, the name of the phone is the S Light Luxury… but the URL says S Lite, so clearly there’s been some debate over the name. We doubt it would be called the S Light Luxury in other countries anyway, so that should hint at the real name.

Source: techradar.com