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Real-life photos of Samsung’s top-secret NEW phone leaked – and it might look better than the iPhone

PHOTOS of Samsung's next smartphone have reportedly leaked online weeks before the mobile's official release.

Posted to Twitter on Monday, the pictures purport to show the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, a beefy handset rumoured to hit shelves in August.

South Korean firm Samsung hasn't even acknowledged the Note 20 exists yet, but is expected to unveil it during a live-streamed event next month.

Now leaked images of the device have made it to social media via US YouTuber .

It follows a hilarious blunder last week in which Samsung appeared to accidentally post a picture of the Note 20 to its official Russian website.

"Small Bezel," Jimmy Is Promo wrote in his tweet. He followed it up with the hashtags "Note 20" and "Galaxy Note 2 Ultra".

It's not clear where Jimmy got the photo, but the phone in the image lines up with previous leaks and rumours about the Note 20.

The images show a large phone with squared-off edges and a shiny, black finish.

Like all of Samsung's Note series phones, the gadget has a stylus that users can wield to tap the screen in place of their finger.

A triple camera array pictured on the back resembles the three snappers on the rear of last year's Galaxy Note 10.

That nodule featured wide-angle and telephoto zoom lenses on top of the main camera – though Samsung may shake this array up for the Note 20.

On the front, the mobile appears to boast Samsung's edge-to-edge "Infinity-O" display with a single, "pin-hole" selfie snapper in the middle.

Samsung has yet to acknowledge the new image. The firm typically doesn't comment on leaks and rumours.

Samsung is rumoured to be working on as many as three versions of the Galaxy Note 20.

Here's what you need to know...

Samsung is a major South Korean company made up of many businesses that operate globally
It's known locally as a "chaebol", which means "business conglomerate"
It was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company
But over several decades, it branched out into food processing, insurance, textiles and retail
It wasn't until the late 1960s when Samsung entered the electronics industry – for which it's best known in the west today
It also launched businesses in construction and shipbuilding in the 1970s
Today, Samsung's most important sources of income are its smartphones and computer chips
The firm accounts for around a fifth of South Korea's total exports, and roughly 17% of the country's GDP
More than 320,000 staff are employed by Samsung globally
And in 2017, Samsung turned over the equivalent of £174billion today in revenue

They include an entry-level model, a larger Note 20+ and a souped-up Note 20 Ultra – the device the leaked photos are thought to show.

Rumours suggest the Note 20 Ultra will come with a 108-megapixel camera and cost somewhere in the region of £999 / $1099.

Of course, there's no way to confirm that the images actually shows the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, so take them with a pinch of salt for now.

It's possible the picture shows a concept mobile, rather than anything Samsung is directly working on.

We'll likely know more about the Note 20 when Samsung officially unveils it. The firm is expected to do so during an event in early August.

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