Samsung reportedly planning to release just one flagship line next year

One of the biggest theories we’ve seen surrounding the fallout from Samsung’s Note 7 recall is the potential that the company would ditch the Note branding ─ something I don’t doubt at all ─ however, according to a report out of Korea, that cut may be a bit more drastic.

A Korean news outlet (via The Korea Herald) is currently reporting that Samsung is planning to streamline its flagship portfolio in order to focus on ensuring better quality on its main flagship line, the Galaxy S lineup.

The reports claim that this adjustment is largely due to the tight release schedule which Samsung has to keep up with in order to release both flagships each year, in turn impacting quality.

A representative from one of Samsung’s partner firms stated that “Samsung has not notified suppliers” of any plans to ditch the current two-flagship strategy.

The obvious assumption based on this report is that Samsung may ditch the Note category as a whole, but I’m not confident that Samsung would ditch this form factor entirely after the success from previous Note devices. It would also be terrible for fans of the Note considering there is no true replacement on the market today. Alternatives like the S7 Edge and LG V20 hit a lot of the right features, but they don’t manage to replicate the Note’s most unique feature ─ the S-Pen. If Samsung were to ditch this category, I have to imagine that we’ll see the S-Pen pop up in another device, maybe even a “Plus” variant of the S line like we saw on the Galaxy S6, but that’s just speculation…