Samsung Galaxy S8 will be 'all screen' on the front, report says

We've heard a few rumors about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 phone. It might have a larger, 4K screen and no headphone jack.

But a new report from Bloomberg says much bigger changes are in the works for Samsung's new flagship. The Galaxy S8, it says, will ditch the physical home button for an all-screen design on the front.

The home button would become a virtual one, buried inside the OLED screen, Bloomberg says quoting sources familiar with the matter.

The report has no further details about the phone's specs, but does say the phone might come out in March or April of 2017, possibly due to tougher testing procedures which Samsung is employing to avoid another Note7-like fiasco.

The report echoes numerous rumors that Apple's next iPhone will come with a similar, all-screen design.

If the reports are true, neither of these phones would be the first to feature such a design: Xiaomi's Mi Mix has incredibly thin bezels on the front, with the front camera being moved to the bottom and the standard top speaker being replaced with a piezoelectric one. And Sharp's Aquos Crystal had a similar design back in 2014.

As futuristic as they look, both these phones have a number of issues such as the awkward positioning of the front camera and unwanted screen touches. If Apple and Samsung can come up with better solutions for these problems, we might finally get a truly exciting new development in the somewhat stale smartphone market.

Samsung has officially announced its Galaxy S8 in November. The only official bit of info on the phone so far is its new digital assistant from Viv Labs -- an AI company whose founders built Siri and which got acquired by Samsung in October.