Samsung delays new phone; showcases tablets instead

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Samsung’s product showcase Sunday was notable for what’s missing: a new flagship phone.

Instead, Samsung is spotlighting new Android and Windows tablets after delaying the Galaxy S8 smartphone – an indirect casualty of the September recall of the fire-prone Note 7 phone. The new tablets will carry the Galaxy brand and come with many of the Note 7’s features, including the S Pen stylus and screens with rich colors.

Consumers will have to wait for details on Samsung’s next major smartphone. That’s partly so that Samsung wouldn’t have to share the stage with its smartphone rivals at the Mobile World Congress trade show, which begins today in Barcelona, Spain.

The delay also gives Samsung more time to make sure it has done everything right, given that any minor bug will surely draw outsized attention.

“The microscope is going to be firmly on Samsung,” said Geoff Blaber, an analyst with the research firm CCS Insight.

Samsung said the new tablets will go through extensive safety checks put in place after dozens of Note 7 phone overheated and in some cases exploded.

Those incidents prompted aviation authorities to ban them on flights; Samsung eventually killed the product.