Our clearest look yet at the Galaxy Note 9

A recently leaked photo (by @UniverseIce) of what is reportedly a screen protector for the Galaxy Note 9, reveals that Samsung's flagship phablet will continue last year's bezel-less design trend and will have even slimmer bezels at the top and bottom, with the latter being a noticeable improvement over the Note 8. As for the top bezel, it's also been reduced a tad, though it seems to have the same number of cutouts as the Note 8, indicating that the Note 9 have the same iris scanning capabilities as its predecessor.

If the Galaxy S9 and S9+ are anything to go by, we wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Galaxy Note 9, indeed, ends up looking almost identical to the previous model, from the front at least. The back, however, is a different story. We don't have any information about the camera setup on the Note 9 yet, but we'd like to think that Samsung has learned from its past mistakes and will be situating the fingerprints canner under the cameras, instead of to the side, just like it did with the S9 models this year. This is our guess of what the back of the Galaxy Note 9 will look like, though we have no leaked information to back it up at this point. It's just an educated guess:

Another thing that's still shrouded in mystery is the S-Pen. We know it's going to be there -- it's a staple of the Note lineup, heck, it's the reason for the name itself -- but what we don't know is whether Samsung will introduce any changes and improvements to the current formula. Our bet is it would be mostly the same, though it may be able to recognize more pressure levels for finer control over the writing.

All said and done, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will likely closely resemble the Note 8. Not that that's a bad thing, but if you were expecting the same jump as the one we saw from the S7 to the S8 and from the Note 7 to the Note 8, you're going to have to wait a bit more. The next big change seems to be in-display fingerprint readers and that's not coming to the Note 9 either. The first Samsung phone to get an in-display fingerprint scanner is expected to be the S10 next year.

So, what's your opinion on this largely unchanged design? Are you okay with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach, or do you want the next big change in smartphone design to come around as soon as possible? Well, we can imagine what the answer to this question would be, for the majority of people anyway, but still. Tell us what you make of all this in the comments below!