The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was announced in August 2017 and hit stores in September, but we might see the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 slightly earlier in the year, as Samsung is apparently already working on firmware for the phone.
SamMobile reports that firmware builds with version numbers N960FXXE0ARB7 and N960FXXU0ARC5 are both being tested.
OK, that might not sound super exciting, but the timing of these tests is, as the company didn’t start testing firmware for the Galaxy Note 8 until early April.
That’s only a couple of weeks difference, but as SamMobile notes, the company also started testing Samsung Galaxy S9 firmware two weeks earlier than Galaxy S8 firmware tests had started the previous year, and it went on to announce the S9 around a month earlier, in February rather than March.
July rather than August
So this suggests a similar schedule could be planned for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, meaning the phone might be announced two weeks or more earlier in the year than the Note 8, potentially bringing it up to July.
We wouldn’t count on this at all, as the evidence so far is slight, but it’s a possibility.
Whenever we see the Note 9 though it should be worth the wait, as at the very least it’s likely to be a larger, stylus-toting alternative to the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, but some rumors suggest it could be a major upgrade, with a fingerprint scanner built into the screen.
