Absolute frameless. Manufacturers of smartphones will compete for who will launch the device, where the screen will occupy 100% of the front surface or, at least, 99% of it. The first serious attempt is actually going to be done by Huawei at the end of 2018.
Autonomy. The low work duration has so far been the scourge of flagship level devices. At the moment, battery technology already allows the creation of relatively compact and capacious batteries. Speed can increase up to 5 Gbit/s.
Ubiquitous implementation of the artificial intelligence. In this case, complex tasks will be solved in the "cloud", and simple ones - directly on the smartphone using a Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
The switching to the LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.0 flash drives, which promises a significant increase The support of mobile networks of the fifth generation, because of which the data download in overall performance. For top-end models, the amount of RAM should increase to an incredible level of 16 Gb, which seems impossible right now.
The increase in the capacity of the built-in flash drive and the widespread rejection of MicroSD. The top versions of the smartphones are now equipped with 512 Gb drives. With such volumes, there is no need in expanding the memory.
The built-in directly into the screen the fingerprint scanner, not only for the expensive models. Apparently, by 2019, it will finally be brought to mind.
The emergence of the first smartphones with flexible screens. Samsung, Xiaomi and Oppo have already stated that they are going to launch them. Let's see how Apple reacts.
Distribution of smartphones with triple cameras, which will allow a 3-fold and even a 5-fold zoom.
Fast wireless charging will cease to be an exotic option, peculiar only to some models. The list is made in the order of their possible chronological appearance, no preference is made to these or those manufacturers. In the preparation were excluded from the model, the probability of which is still low.
Samsung Galaxy and Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus
Release date: February-March 2019
Type: flagship
Platform: 9820 Exynos/Snapdragon 855
Due to the low sales of the "ninth galaxy", the Korean giant will do everything to make the next model of the line as successful as possible. It is expected that the bet will be made on a new triple camera, built-in display biometric sensor and even more "frameless" design.
There are also rumors that Samsung plans to merge the Galaxy s and Note lines.
Huawei P30 and P30 Plus
Release date: February-March 2019
Type: sub-flagship
Platform: Kirin 980
Strictly speaking, the "spring" flagship Huawei p line are not flagships, as they are traditionally used last year's chipsets. In the case, of a P30 it will be a Kirin 980. Also, the manufacturer is not chasing the screen resolution, focusing on the camera.It is possible that Huawei P30 and P30 Plus will receive triple camera with optics from Leica, and ... five-times zoom without loss of quality, as well as dual front-facing with the ability to 3D scan faces.
LG ThinQ G8
Release date: March-April 2019
Type: flagship
Platform: Snapdragon 855
LG, which was previously at the forefront of technological progress, has been lagging behind its competitors for the last couple of years. However, the situation may change the output of the flagship LG G8 ThinQ, which will offer a number of chips that are absent from rivals.
There are rumors of a particularly elongated display with an aspect ratio of 9 to 20, 4K + resolution, occupying at least 95% of the available space. Also, the smartphone promises to get a dual front camera, protection standards IP68 and MIL-STD-810G, as well as keep the usual options such as 3.5 headphone Jack and microSD slot.
Xiaomi Mi 9
Release date: April 2019
Type: flagship
Platform: Snapdragon 855
Xiaomi is clearly aiming to release the first Chinese flagship in 2019, which will offer everything the same as the Galaxy S10 (frameless display, support for 5g networks, LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.0), but almost twice as cheap. Of course, some tradeoffs in terms of characteristics are possible.
At the moment, the company is targeting the European market, where it intends to "bite off" a significant piece of the "pie" from expensive brands. Also, Xiaomi plans to officially enter the market. And the new Mi 9 just fits in as a "weapon of mass destruction"
Apple iPhone XS (2019)
Release date: September 2019
Type: the full-screen smartphone
Platform: Apple A13 (?)
It is not yet clear, how Apple plans to name its smartphones in 2019. More or less, accurately it will be possible to answer this question only after the presentation of the new "Apple phones" in September 2018. It is also not clear, whether the company will go the conservative way, or will go to experiments.
As an example, we can recall the iPhone 6/6S/7/8, which looked a little different from each other. iPhone X, undoubtedly, proved to be a very successful smartphone, even despite its high cost. At the same time, it has a number of significant drawbacks, which the developers will undoubtedly correct in the following models of devices.
