We list some of the best features of Samsung’s latest flagship duo – the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+, including powerful cameras and refined internals.
“We list some of the best features of Samsung’s latest flagship duo – the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+”
Samsung hit the nail on the head with its flagship smartphone offerings of 2017, namely the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ ( review). The duo shipped with impressive specs and a jaw-dropping design which even to this date, is hard to top. However, at MWC this year, Samsung unveiled the successors of its last-gen flagships in the form of the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+, which might not seem like massive upgrades, but do come with some interesting features and improvements. If you were wondering what the smartphones have in store for you, then here are the top five features of Samsung’s latest offerings.
Seeing how Samsung hit the ball out of the park with the design of the Galaxy S8 duo, the company has made little-to-no changes to the design of the S9 and the S9 Plus. Both the smartphones continue to feature an all-glass design with dual curved edges on the front, however, this time around, the handsets feature a more ergonomic grip along with noticeably smaller bezels on the top and the bottom of the display. Moreover, following the criticism received for the ill-placed fingerprint sensor beside the camera on the Galaxy S8 smartphones (and the Note8 too), Samsung has repositioned the sensor below the camera module on the Galaxy S9 and the S9+. Lastly, along with the usual colour options, buyers will be able to pick the S9 siblings in a brand new lilac purple hue.
Samsung has improved the optics on its latest flagships too and both the S9 as well as the S9 Plus ship with dual-aperture f/1.5-f/2.4 cameras, allowing users to shift the aperture depending upon the shot. One can use the wide f/1.5 aperture when they’re shooting in low light and can switch to the f/2.4 aperture for taking shots in well-lit scenarios. In fact, with f/1.5 aperture, Samsung’s latest offer the largest aperture opening on a smartphone.
Another noteworthy change this time around is that the Plus variant of the Galaxy S9 comes equipped with a dual-camera setup at the back, comprising a pair of 12MP sensors. The S9 on the other hand, ships with a single 12MP sensor. That said, the primary cameras on both devices come with OIS along with a combination of laser and dual-pixel autofocus technology. For selfies, both the handsets come equipped with an 8MP f/1.7 front snapper.
As is expected of a flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S9 duo comes equipped with the latest, high-end processor in the market for an uncompromised performance. Depending upon the region, consumers will either get the Snapdragon 845 variant or the Exynos 9810 variant of the device, both of which are octa-core chipsets built using 10nm fabrication. The S9 duo differ in the RAM department, with the S9 shipping with 4GB of RAM, while the larger sibling offering a beefier 6GB RAM. Storage on both devices stands at 64GB, which can be expanded further using a microSD card.
Interestingly, both the smartphones also come equipped with an NPU (Neural processing unit), the likes of which we’ve already seen on smartphones like the iPhone X ( review) and Huawei’s Mate 10 Pro.
Samsung’s latest flagship duo isn’t just about the best hardware – they also boot the latest Android software too, in the form of Android Oreo. For the uninitiated, Android Oreo brings with it a host of useful features such as Picture-in-Picture mode, smarter autofill framework as well as latest security patches from Google. Moreover, since the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ run a custom skin, dubbed Experience UX on top of Android, the devices will come with some Samsung-specific features too such as an improved Bixby voice assistant and so on.
More and more manufacturers are shifting their focus to facial unlock and the latest smartphones from Samsung are no different. Much like last year, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ with a plethora of biometric security options including an improved Iris scanner and a more capable facial recognition system which has been bettered owing to the presence of the NPU. Samsung has also bundled an Intelligent scan mode with its latest smartphones which will automatically switch between facial recognition and the iris scanner depending upon the surrounding environment, ensuring that the smartphones always unlock.
The front cameras on the S9 duo also offer Animoji-like feature dubbed AR Emoji, which maps the user’s face and creates virtual emojis which can be sent as animated messages.
So, there you have it, these are some of the best features of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and the S9+. As always, make sure to stay tuned to our blog for a more in-depth coverage of the smartphones along with everything else being launched at MWC 2018.
