A new leak suggests Samsung is working on a new budget phone with a massive 7,000mAh battery, surpassing the capacity on nearly any other phone out there – including top-end flagships. And it may launch before the end of 2020.
The phone may be called the Samsung Galaxy M12, or alternately the Galaxy F12 given their reportedly similar model numbers, as the leak by 91Mobiles states. This would make it a follow-up to the M11 budget phone, which was released in India in June and announced for the UK in October.
The leak even had a series of images showing the supposed rear of the phone, which clearly has a quad rear camera block (or triple rear camera and a flash):
While the M12’s potential 7,000mAh battery is the highlight, topping the 5,000mAh capacity of the M11 and actually matching the size of the Samsung M51’s battery, the leak has more alleged specs to share: a 6.7-inch display, and at least a triple rear camera (48MP + 8MP + 5MP) and 16MP selfie camera. It could be all powered by a Samsung Exynos 9 Octa 9611 chipset with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.
These rumored Samsung Galaxy M12 specs easily surpass the M11’s 6.4-inch display, Snapdragon 450 chipset, triple rear camera (13MP + 5MP + 2MP), 3GB or 4GB of RAM, and 32GB or 64GB of storage.
Budget phones: a generation ahead?
There are budget phones, and there are big-battery budget phones. To stand out from the competition, companies have expanded capacity on some more affordable handsets, and for good reason: so long as phones are functional, battery life is usually the biggest concern.
Motorola’s Moto G line is a good comparison, with the latest Moto G8 Power (known as the Moto G Power in the US) a prime example with its 5,000mAh capacity – an amount usually reserved for flagship phones.
Obviously, an M12 with a 7,000mAh battery would blow the competition out of the water…at least for now, as next year’s phones may exceed that 5,000mAh in capacity. But most important is the real-world effect: how much longer would the M12 last than comparable handsets? An extra day of battery life is a big seller, but we’ll hold off until we can test it in the real world, assuming it does indeed pack an unprecedented 7,000mAh capacity.