With ample leaks and rumours about the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, there is little left to the imagination. We have perhaps already looked at the two phones weeks before their official announcement and also know most of their specifications. With less than a week left to their launch on February 25, we thought to compile all the things we have learnt about the 2018 Samsung flagships in the past few weeks and see how they shape up. The pieces of information presented here are entirely based on the leaks and there is definitely much more to these two handsets that we’ll get to know when they go official. So, here is the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ rumour round-up, final version.
A Marginally Improved Design
Samsung Galaxy S8 is without a doubt one of the best-designed phones from any smartphone maker and it even inspired many other smartphones that came after it. Having seen a bunch of press images of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, it appears that Samsung isn’t ready to make radical changes to the phones’ design, after all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Nevertheless, taking inspiration from the Galaxy Note 8, the Galaxy S9 duo will have a slightly boxier design, which shouldn’t change much. The bottom bezel has also been reduced a bit and based on the leaked images, the top and bottom bezels aren’t symmetrical anymore. Samsung will also be making the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ a couple of new colour options that include Coral Blue and Lilac Purple, besides Midnight Black and Titanium Grey.
Even with all its positive, there were a few shortcomings for which Samsung Galaxy S8 was criticised much. The most noteworthy of them all was its fingerprint scanner’s placement which was awkward for most. Having giant hands wouldn’t even help, you’d still need to adjust a bit to get your index finger reach the scanner without hitting the camera lens and smudging it. The Galaxy Note 8 made it worse with its dual rear cameras placed horizontally and the fingerprint scanner further towards the right. Samsung seemingly took note and moved the fingerprint scanner’s position to the centre, right below the camera. That’s an ideal position until under-display fingerprint scanners take over the smartphone industry, or facial recognition.
Dual Cameras
The first Samsung smartphone to have two cameras on the back was the Galaxy Note 8 and that feature will now be ported to the Galaxy S9+, too. But unfortunately, the Galaxy S9 will only have a single camera on the back, which makes us wonder if the Korean company is trying to imitate Apple in some ways. Besides the back, the Galaxy S9 duo might also get dual cameras on the front as well. Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) and Galaxy A8+ (2018) debuted with a dual-camera setup on the front.
Form the leaked image of Galaxy S9’s retail box, we had learnt that the phone’s primary camera will support variable aperture, which again, was introduced on another Samsung smartphone. The phone’s camera would be able to switch between f/1.5 and f/2.4 aperture based on the lighting condition. Its camera is expected to bring a 25 percent reduction in noise while taking shots in low light and will be able to take pictures in 10bit colour, up from 8bit used currently. Super slow-motion video recording at 960fps will also be a thing now, thanks to the new Exynos 9810 processor.
Here are the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ with dual aperture cameras, AKG stereo speakers and up to 6 GB RAM – (almost) all specs + a ton of official press pics & launch timing info here: https://t.co/Ec3iqWWbgp pic.twitter.com/eKXNo3VWCZ
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) 19 February 2018
Prominent Features and Specifications
While iris scanner has been present on Samsung flagships for years now, the company is planning to take it a step further and bring ‘Intelligent Scan’ to the two new Galaxy phones. This will be a new way of biometric authentication, besides the fingerprint scanner, which will make use of both facial recognition and iris scanning. The biggest advantage of the Intelligent Scan is said to be in low-light conditions where both facial recognition and iris scanner fail on Samsung devices. 3D emoji can also be coming along with the improvements made to the camera sensors on the front. Samsung is also expected to bring stereo speakers to the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, which will again use iPhone’s approach of using the earpiece as one of the channels.
In terms of the hardware, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are going to be the best in business. The Infinity Display on both the phones will get brighter and HDR10 support will be improved, however, their size might not change. In the US, the two phones will be powered by Snapdragon 845, while the rest of the world will get Exynos 9810 variants. The smaller Galaxy S9 will have 4GB of RAM, whereas the Galaxy S9+ will have 6GB of RAM. The battery capacity of both the phones is expected to remain the same as their predecessor at 3,000mAh and 3,500mAh, which should last longer than the Galaxy S8 series, given that the newer processors are much more power efficient.
Also Read: Exynos 9810 inside Galaxy S9 beats Snapdragon 845 on Geekbench
Price and Release Date
For now, we don’t have a clear word on the pricing of both the phones. But the rumours say that Samsung will price its upcoming flagships significantly higher than the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. Nevertheless, Samsung has scheduled an event for February 25 at 9 AM PST where we should get more details of its features and of course pricing. As per the information provided by Evan Blass, the Galaxy S9-series will be available for pre-orders from 1st March and will start shipping on 16th March.
See our full MWC 2018 coverage here.
