If there are two things Smartphone users want to have in the next few years, it's a bigger, longer lasting battery and a better front facing camera. Of course, both are essential upgrades: more juice means more usage and a new front snapper means more selfies. While the battery innovation is essentially there, the hope for a new front facing camera is still in the pipe dream.
Samsung is planning to change the way we take selfies. Several sources claim that the company's next flagship Smartphone, the Galaxy S8 will sport a front facing camera with autofocus. The "relatively rare" feature, Slash Gear said, came from Korean bound website etnews. According to them, Samsung is mulling on giving the S8's front camera with AF actuators - add-on hardware that automatically adjusts the lens "to keep the picture in focus."
The "rare" idea, as Phone Arena pointed, is because of the fact that for so long a time, people have been accustomed to have their selfies captured by fixed focus front cameras. Although some units like the Sony Xperia XA Ultra, Huawei Honor 7, Motorola Moto X Pure and the aptly named Asus Zenfone Selfie have single LED in front, an autofocus camera will be suitable for subjects "at a distance greater than arm's length." This means that taking your group selfie with a selfie stick will produce clearer and sharper pictures instead of the boring and sometimes dull images that we get today.
Another fact is that most OEMs tend to forget the front facing camera. Traditional front shooters also need less money to mass produce, and it doesn't eat up much space in the Smartphone itself. If Samsung really wants to include AF on the S8 front camera, then it will most probably up its megapixels and cram it into the remaining bezel the device will have. The company will also have to risk selling the Galaxy S8 at a higher price since they threw in new hardware.
