Picture the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series sporting near tablet-size screens, which a new report said is the focus of Samsung's future smartphone plans. The current mantra appears - the bigger, the better handset.

"Users prefer bigger phones and they use them more often. Samsung will be more focused on larger phones," The Korea Times reported one Samsung supplier as saying, indicating too that upcoming handsets from the Galaxy maker will heed what consumers have been dictating - giant screen.

"Well-made phablets using bezel-less technology have been warmly received," the executive added.

The same report also hinted that work is now underway for the next edition that will refresh Samsung's exploding phablet franchise and the likely release will come in the early months of Q3 2013 or no later than September this year.

Citing its source, the Korean publication pointed to three possible specs that the Galaxy Note 3 will carry once it is unveiled - a 5.9-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen, the 8-core Exynos Octa 5 CPU and a flexible screen.

However, it is more likely that bendable screen will be excluded in the Note 3 release because Samsung Display, another division of the South Korean chaebol, "is having difficulty coping with demand."

The report ran in counter with earlier suggestions that the screen to come with the Note 3 will stretch to 6.3 inches though it presented a welcome development for Samsung Galaxy fans, the possible outing of the Exynos Octa 5 chip.

Octa 5 was first thought to be part of the Galaxy S4 menu that Samsung will preview on March 14 but it was reportedly set aside at the last minute to allow more adjustment works on the chip.

It was hinted in previous reports that Samsung engineers encountered issues in achieving the power efficiency level it aimed for the new chip architecture plus some overheating concerns, hence its shelving for the S4 rollout on April.

It looked like the Exynos glitch partly contributed to the perceived delays in the introduction of the Galaxy Note 3, which was believed to be part of the products that Samsung had scheduled to uncloak during the 2013 MWC in Barcelona last month.

Part of the Samsung's mid-year launch plans for the Note 3 is to address the growing number of competition capitalising on the emerging phablet segment. Apart from LG, ZTE and Huawei, Samsung will likely face Apple's take on the battle, a 4.8-inch iPhone 6 that reports said will be unwrapped in Q1 2014.