Samsung officially announced the release of the two phones in this year’s Mobile World Congress. Similar to the release of the S8 series, the Samsung Galaxy S9 was released together with S9 Plus. But for some few upgrades here and there, the S9 is basically the same as an S8. On appearance, the S9 body was built with aluminium frame with curvy edges to give it this aesthetic look. It weighs approximately 163g a little more than the Samsung Galaxy S8 with Corning Gorilla glass 5 installed on the front and back making it comfortable to handle.
On the display level, a 5.8 inch screen is installed on the Samsung Galaxy S9 with high resolution and superb viewing angles and quite brighter even on sunny days. The S9 and S9 Plus feature an extra-tall aspect ratio with minimal bezels between the screen and body of the phone.
Few upgrades on the Samsung Galaxy S9 are a reconfigured fingerprint scanner and the formerly single speaker inherent in the S8 has now been made a stereo pair which is quite clearer and sounds better than the single speaker in the S8. Pretty good to know that the fingerprint scanner has been restructured to a more convenient position on the just below the camera at back of the phone as most users complained of the Samsung Galaxy S8’s fingerprint scanner as being quite difficult to reach and minute in size.
The Samsung Galaxy S9, like other high end model in its segment and as part of the Samsung’s legacy, has a 3.5mm headphone jack (which is disappearing in some of today’s mobile phone models), wireless charging an water resistance (IP68) attribute.
To be at par with its major competitor, Apple, Samsung has introduced a novel combination of iris-scanning and face scanning that can be used to unlock your device as a complement the hitherto sole fingerprint scanner. This feature is also dependent on the lighting conditions of the environment you are in.
Processor upgrade: The S9 runs Qualcomm’s latest processor, the Snapdragon 845 with 4GB RAM to ensure you can multitask as much as possible and run applications simultaneously and effortlessly on your device.
Both the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus come with 64GB storage memory and supports microSD card support for additional storage expansion. The S9 is powered by a 3,000mAh battery while the S9 Plus is driven by a 3,500 mAh battery.
Another major upgrade, the 12 MP image lenses has improved image processing; it can take wonderful snapshots at night, in low-light and excellently better than the S8 as it can easily switch between f2.4 to f1.5 apertures to maintain balance and clarity under varying brightness level scenarios. It has the same 8MP front camera as the S8 with auto focus. The selfie camera applies some image enhancement to beautify the photo.
An innovation on the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus is the AR emoji, in semblance to Apple’s Animoji. It functions by scanning your face and then reproduces a 3D Bitmoji character that would closely resemble you. This is done using 100 points on your face and depends on your facial expression while scanning your face. You can then use it in while chatting as an emoji.
Another new feature in the S9 and S9 Plus is the Super Slow Motion mode added to the camera options and allows your device to capture over 900 frames per second with a maximum of 0.2 secs for the S9 and done at a resolution of only 720p. You can either trigger it manually or set it in automatic mode from your settings. Bixby is not new to the Samsung’s devices but has been revolutionized in these two high end models and quite faster. It is Samsung’s virtual assistant in semblance to Google Assistant.
Likewise, the Samsung Galaxy S9 plus is quite similar to the S8 plus with the same screen size. It is bigger than the S9 and also has a dual rear camera installed. It has a larger screen size than the S9 and has an expansive 6.2inch display screen with great resolution and viewing angles. The S9 Plus runs the same version of S9’s processor but spots whooping 6GB RAM allowing seamless application usage with great runtime experience and user satisfaction. Both offer an upgraded LTE modem that supports delivering packets of data in higher gigabit swiftness.
The Samsung Galaxy S9plus also gets a secondary camera for new portrait mode properties and zooming while snapping shots.
Overall, they both have good performance, stylish outlooks, run the latest Android Oreo, have fast charging capacity quite needed in this our clime, use USB 3.1 type-C and would prove to users upgrading from any Samsung Galaxy model from lower end models a goo option to work with.