KOREAN PHONE MAKER Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are now available, having launched globally on 16 March. The flagship duo look near identical…
KOREAN PHONE MAKER Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are now available, having launched globally on 16 March.
The flagship duo look near identical to their respective Galaxy S8 and S8+ predecessors but, on the specs front, offer upgraded 10nm innards, a toughened chassis and a new camera with variable aperture and the ability to capture ‘Super Slo-Mo- video footage.
We’ve rounded up everything you need to know about picking one up below.
Specs – 148x69x8.5mm, 163g / 158x74x8.5mm, 189g – 5.8in / 6.2in QHD+ Super AMOLED curved display (570ppi / 529ppi) – Samsung 10nm Exynos 9810 CPU (4x 2.7GHz, 4x 1.9GHz) – 4GB RAM / 6GB RAM – 3,000mAh / 3,500mAh batteries – 64GB / 128GB storage with microSD expansion up to 400GB – Cat 18 LTE support (1.2Gbps download speeds) – Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, front-facing iris scanner – 12MP Dual Pixel camera with OIS (f/1.5, f/2.4) / Vertical dual rear-facing camera, 8MP front-facing camera – Bixby AI assistant with dedicated button – USB-C, 3.5mm headphone jack – Stereo speakers – Wireless charging support – IP68 water and dust resistance – Built-in FM radio – Updated DeX Pad – Midnight Black, Titanium Gray, and Coral Blue, Lilac Purple variants
Release date The Galaxy S9 and S9+ will be available, as expected, from 16 March in the UK. Those who pre-ordered early received their smartphone a week early on 9 March.
Price For those looking to pick up a SIM-free device, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ are available to pick up from Samsung direct for £739 and £869, respectively.
Carphone Warehouse is offering the Galaxy S9 on tariffs with EE, iD, O2, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone. For the Galaxy S9, the best deal we spotted was a £49 O2 tariff with 20GB data, which comes with a £99 upfront fee. The biggest Galaxy S9+ can be picked up on the same deal, but will set you back £66 a month.
Mobiles.co.uk is not just promising to double the memory of your Galaxy S9 or S9+, but is also offering INQ readers a free £25 gift card for Pizza Express, Currys or M&S. Simply visit this link, enter your email address, and then pick up your Galaxy S9. Mobiles is offering the smartphones on a range of deals with EE, O2 and Vodafone, and SIM-free.
Over at EE’s website, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is available from £58 per month with an upfront cost of £50, a deal which gets you 4GB monthly data. The Galaxy S9+ is available on the same 4GB tariff, with the monthly cost increasing to £68.
O2 has started taking orders for the Galaxy S9, with prices starting at £44 per month for 1GB data with an, er £209.99 upfront cost. This price increases to £49 per month for the Galaxy S9+.
Sky Mobile is also offering the Galaxy S9 and S9+. The Galaxy S9 can be picked up from £28 per month, and data plans range from £5 for 500MB and £20 per month for 10GB. These same tariffs are available for the Galaxy S9+, which comes with a starting price of £33 per month.
Three, which is chucking in 12 months of Netflix for free, is offering the Galaxy S9 from £40 per month with an upfront cost of £99, a deal that’ll bag you 1GB monthly data. The Galaxy S9+ is available on the same plan for £45 per month.
Virgin Mobile is offering the Galaxy S9 on a 36-month contract from £31 per month with no upfront cost with 1GB data . £34 a month will get you 3GB, while Virgin’s most-expensive £40 tariff comes with 40GB data. The Galaxy S9+ is also on offer from £36 per month.
Vodafone has is recommending its Red Extra 16GB plan, which costs £59 per month and £29 upfront. The Galaxy S9+, naturally, will set you back more on the same 16GB tariff.
Latest news 22/6/18: Carphone Warehouse has bagged itself an exclusive on the ‘Titanium Grey’ Galaxy S9 and S9+, and has started taking pre-orders before it starts shipping on 29 June. The grey-hued S9 Samsung Galaxy S9 is available from £36 a month with a £29 upfront, a deal that bags you a hefty 26GB data. The Galaxy S9+ is, naturally, more expensive.
16/5/18: Samsung has launched a new iPhone-esque ‘Sunrise Gold’ version of its Galaxy S9 flagship, which will be available to pre-order in the UK from 22 June before it goes on sale on 29 June. The firm has also shown off a new Burgundy Red edition, but this will only see a release in Korea and China.
9/4/18: Samsung has confirmed that it’s new DeX Pad, launched alongside the Galaxy S9, will start shipping in the US next month. The firm said on Monday that the puck-shaped DeX Pad, which is also compatible with last year’s Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, S8 Active and Note 8, is now available to pre-order at its US website for $99, but it’ll also be bundling the accessory with Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus handsets. UK availability has not yet been announced.
3/4/18: Samsung’s homegrown Exynos processor is reportedly causing poor battery life for Galaxy S9 owners.
Strategy Analytics recently carried out a battery life test comparing the Exynos-powered Galaxy S9 against some of its top competitors, and out of seven phones that were tested, it ranked in sixth place. AnandTech also saw similar results in its testing, with the Snapdragon 845-powered S9+ delivering 10.48 hours of battery life while web browsing on WiFi, and the Exynos model just 6.80 hours.
23/3/18: A growing number of Galaxy S9 and S9+ users are complaining of touchscreen issues. Over on Reddit and Samsung’s own support forums, users have noted that their handset’s screen is suffering from “dead zones”, which sees their phone failing to register touch input.
One user moaned: “Picked up an s9+ on T-Mobile and having weird issues with the screen registering touches. I seem to get a fair amount of phantom ones and swiping on the keyboard is a mess.”
While some have said they’ve been able to fix the issue by performing a factory reset, others haven’t had such luck.
Samsung has said that it’s aware of the issue, and has encouraged those experiencing issues to contact it directly.
22/3/18: According to data from Music Magpie, owners of Apple’s four-month-old iPhone X are rushing to trade-in their £1,000 smartphone for a Galaxy S9. The website claims to have seen a 184 per cent increase in iPhone X trade-ins since the Galaxy S9 was unveiled at the end of February.
It ain’t just iPhone X owners who are switching to Samsung, according to the stats, as Music Magpie says that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 are the second and third most popular handsets being traded in, closely followed by mobes from BlackBerry and Motorola. 20/3/18: The Galaxy S9 and S9+ are at a lower risk of cracking that the iPhone X, according to SquareTrade .
The insurance provider put the Samsung flagships through their paces and found that, although the S9 cracked when dropped from a height of six-feet, the handsets scored breakability scores of 71 and 76, respectively. This pales in comparison to the iPhone X’s score of 90, however, with SquareTrade labelling Apple’s latest flagship the “most breakable” iPhone ever.
14/3/18: We already know, thanks to iFixit, that the Galaxy S9 won’t be easy to repair, but we know now that it won’t be that easy to break, either.
JerryRigEverything has put the Samsung flagship through its paces in a hardcore durability test ( below) which found that thanks to its strengthened glass and reinforced frame, the S9 shouldn’t pick up scratches too easily. While the phone’s fingerprint sensor and painted aluminium sides picked up marks fairly easily, it took a level 6 pick to scratch it the screen at all, with deep scratches only coming from level 7.
The Galaxy S9 won’t succumb to bending, either, and the screen even managed to recover from exposure to a flame, albeit with limited permanent damage.
12/3/18: The teardown team at iFixit have been quick to pull apart the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ and, unsurprisingly, they earned themselves a low repairability score of just four out of 10 – less than the iPhone X’s six out of 10 score. While iFixit applauded the design of the S9 as a “welcome respite” from its usual destructive teardown, it notes that the glass design leads to double the crackability while strong adhesive makes it difficult to access the handsets’ internal components.
iFixit also got up close with the handsets’ cameras and notes that Samsung’s iris scanner system is “pretty much exactly the same” as on the S8.
9/3/18: Galaxy S9 pre-orders are down 50 per cent compared to last year’s Galaxy S8, according to analyst Jeff Johnson of Arthur Wood Research. Reported by Fast Company, Johnson claims smartphone buyers are “upgrading at a much slower pace as features are falling on deaf ears”, adding that smartphone sales as a whole “are starting to decline at an accelerating rate.”
8/3/18: Samsung is offering owners of the iPhone X, Apple’s £1,000 flagship smartphone that came out less than four months ago, er, $350 if they trade-in their handset for a Galaxy S9 .
First spotted by CNET, this is a really, really terrible deal. If you’re looking to ditch your iPhone X, flog it on eBay for £800 instead, and you can then spend that on any phone you like.
The same, awful deal isn’t on offer in the UK. Samsung is offering Brits a £206 discount on the S9 if they hand over their iPhone 7, though, or £150 for an iPhone 6S.
7/3/18: Just as it did for the Galaxy Note 8, Samsung has released a demo Experience app that allows you to try out some of the Galaxy S9’s features. There are four main sections – New Camera & More, S9 Accessories, Helpful Applications, and Device Specifications – all of which give you a virtual experience of what the Galaxy S9 and S9+ have an offer. The app is compatible with all devices running Android 6.0 and above and is available to download via Google Play.
6/3/18: Benchmarking tests show that Samsung’s Galaxy S9 fails to match Apple’s two-year-old iPhone 7 in the performance department.
AnandTech tested the version powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 9810 chip, and described the results as “awkward”. Not only was the S9 beaten by both the iPhone 8 and iPhone X in every test, but it was also bested by the iPhone 7 in three of them.
The website speculates that a firmware issue could be to blame for the lacklustre benchmarking results, and notes that a Samsung spokesperson confirmed that the demo unit that was tested was running “special firmware for MWC and that might not be optimised.”
5/3/18: Samsung introduced ‘Intelligent Scan’ alongside the Galaxy S9 and S9+, a supposedly smarter version of the face unlock tech that debuted on last year’s S8. While it’s faster than last year’s iris scanning tech, security researchers have noted that it’s no more secure.
Jan Krissler of hacking group Computer Chaos Club, which last year fooled the S8’s iris scanning-tech using photographs, says his group isn’t interested in trying to crack Intelligent Scan as there’s nothing new.
