Pressure-sensitive displays while rare on smartphones, are not exactly an elusive feature. Apple and Huawei have incorporated them in their flagship devices to varying levels of success. And recently, Chinese mobile fast pacer Xiaomi has been on that pressure-sensitive display vibe with some of its latest smartphones.
While the iPhone continues to rock 3D Touch, the wider implementation of Force Touch which the company first deployed on the Apple Watch, Huawei has eerily gone silent since releasing a version of the Mate S phablet with a similar pressure-sensitive display, The company’s latest Mate series smartphone, the Mate 9, lacks a variant with a pressure-sensitive display and there’s not even an ounce of a rumour anticipating such a model. Not in the foreseeable future.
After having held out for a while, Samsung may be convinced that it now has the capacity to bring to the market its own smartphone with a pressure-sensitive display to take on Apple’s iPhone (it’s had the tech for a while now since Samsung Display has been supplying Huawei with pressure-sensitive displays).
Now that the Galaxy Note 7 went the way it went, there’s mounting pressure on the company from industry watchers, fans and shareholders to bounce back in a big way and features like a pressure-sensitive display will go a long way in giving the Galaxy S8 the attention its maker craves now that iris scanners and the like are no longer the latest fad.
While this latest rumour focuses on Samsung alone, we don’t expect to be shocked if several other device makers were linked to such plans as well. After all, someone has been hard at work to make sure this goes mainstream.
Whether this turns out to be true or not, it is really hard to tell at this moment since we’re still a few months away from the usual February launch of “the next Galaxy”. Still, our appetite is being whetted proper after it went up in flames not long ago.
