Samsung Galaxy Note 6 News, Release Date and Rumors: Smartphone First in Series to Have USB-C

By Jenn Loro - 03 May '16 12:56PM

In a highly competitive smartphone industry, leading tech giants are always ramping up their efforts to make sure consumers' desire for the next big thing will always be insatiable. Will Samsung's Galaxy Note 6 prove as a credible follow-up to the relatively successful Galaxy S7 earlier this year?

Reports churning out from various rumor mills suggest that South Korean handset maker, Samsung, is now paving the way for Galaxy Note 5's successor. In order to make the forthcoming phablet stand out in the sea of equally eye-catching rival brands, the company is doing some hardware and internal tweaks to make it sleeker and better.

Just recently, we have seen a stream of roundups from SamMobile indicating some hefty tech upgrades that will purportedly come with the release of Note 6 this year such as a 5.8-inch display, IP68-certified water-and-dust resistance feature, IR autofocus camera, a Snapdragon 823 SoC chipset enhanced processing power, and a generous 6GB of RAM offering.

If reports prove accurate, Samsung is rumored to be dropping its microUSB port and replace it with USB Type-C on the forthcoming Note 6 handset. The reports, however, cannot be confirmed in the absence of any official announcement from the company itself. The claim doesn't sound certain whether the device will make use of USB 3.1 to support HDMI on top of fast charging or not.

Does a shift to USB-C make any sense for Samsung?

For some observers, the alleged USB-C shift from MicroUSB is quite incomprehensible as it could involve a number of compatibility issues.

"One of the reasons Samsung gave for picking Micro USB over USB-C in its latest flagship phones - the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge - was that the company wanted to keep them compatible with the Gear VR headset. Adding USB-C would obviously break that compatibility, but if Samsung increases the size of the Note 6 screen to 5.8 inches that might not matter anyway," wrote Sean O'Kane of The Verge.

Currently, many of its rivals' high-end flagship devices like the LG G5, HTC 10, Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X now feature USB Type-C type port for accelerated charging for universal port insertion, iDigital Time reported.