Leaked Galaxy View renders: home button not included

Samsung teased the Galaxy View some weeks ago, hinting at what a grand design it has planned for – presumably – the last part of the year. The product is expected to be a giant 18.4-inch tablet, yet in light of naming conventions, is seemingly not intended to be a follow-up to last year’s Galaxy NotePRO 12.2. Today SamMobile has obtained and published what appear to be official press photos of the new tablet. Let’s take a look and analyze each of the main talking points:

Based on the two pictures above, it would appear that the Galaxy View will have a handle build into the back side of the tablet. This makes sense given the large form factor, and indeed has been used before, such as in some of Sony’s final VAIO offerings. It appears to have a curved shape and allows the tablet to either recline or have a more up-right position.

The above two pictures point out something pretty peculiar: there is seemingly no home or capacative buttons to be fond along the bottom bezel. These have long since been a standard Samsung staple, and as such the View would join the few and now-forgotten Galaxy Note 10.1 , Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, and Galaxy Tab 7.7, to do without them.

It seemingly makes sense again, given that the device in question is so large and thus the idea of someone trying to use the buttons to navigate might be somewhat cumbersome. In their place look to be the default Android navigational buttons (blurred, in the left image), though there is a mysterious square on the bottom left-hand corner: don’t expect TouchWiz to be gone.

The last two leaked pictures indicate that the device looks to be relatively thin, and will have several ports along the right side, including what looks to be USB and a headphone jack.

Despite some claims, the benchmarks leaked a short while ago do indicate there is a front-facing camera, and indeed the small artifact located near the center of the top bezel (right picture) would offer additional – yet unofficial – confirmation. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any chance of getting a rear camera.

Speaking of specs, here are the GFXBench score result that was covered earlier:

Given the large screen size of this tablet, some have raised question as to why Samsung would only use a FHD display on something this large, yet paradoxically uses a QHD panel on a tablet with an 8.4-inch display. Ultimately we won’t know the full details and total spec listing until the product is officially unveiled by Samsung.

The device is definitely going to enter a rapidly expanding – and crowded – “big tablet” market with the iPad Pro, Microsoft Surface 4 and Surface Book, however Samsung is by far the largest offering. It remains to be seen as to if this is intended as a productivity device or not.

What do you think? Does the Galaxy View look quite nice with the hinge? Has Samsung made the right decision to apparently remove the front buttons? Leave us your thoughts in the comments!