The Galaxy S9 is on its way, and this is everything we know so far about Samsung's next flagship.
Even today, there's no denying that the Galaxy S8 is still one of the best-looking phones on the market. Its Quad HD AMOLED Infinity Display is a thing of beauty, its camera takes excellent photos, and even Samsung's software is finally enjoyable for once. All of the greatness found with the S8 has put a lot of pressure and expectations on the S9, and although it probably won't be as big of an upgrade as the S8 was from the S7, it'll still likely be one of the best phones of 2018. Here's everything we know!
The Galaxy S9 will look a lot like the S8
If you were hoping for a big design upgrade with the S9, you better stop now before you get your hopes up too much. A CAD render of the Galaxy S9 reveals what will most likely be the final look for the device, and although it's not a big change from the S8, that's really not a bad thing. The S9 will have extremely tiny bezels around its display with a metal frame and glass back, but there is a change to the placement of the fingerprint sensor.
We still don't understand Samsung's reasoning for putting the fingerprint sensor on the S8 where it did, but with the S9, it will be placed below the camera lens. In other words, unlocking a Samsung phone with your finger will no longer make you want to rip out your hair. Woohoo!
Bezels are going to keep shrinking 😮
Speaking of that Infinity Display, the S9 is expected to make it even more impressive than it already is on the S8. The screen-to-body ratio of the Galaxy S8+ is still a thing of beauty at 84-percent, but according to a tip that SamMobile received, the S9+ will kick things up a notch with a screen-to-body ratio of 90-percent. A six-percent increase might not sound big on paper, but this will theoretically result in a virtually nonexistent bezel for the S9's chin and a top bezel that's even smaller than the bottom one found on the S8. I don't think we've ever heard anyone complain about the S8 having big bezels, so the fact that the S9 could reduce their size even more admittedly has us quite giddy.
The S9 could launch as soon as February
Before its announcement on April 21, the Galaxy S8 passed through the FCC in the U.S. in early March. All phones get certified by the FCC about a month or two before they're unveiled, and this can be used as a way to determine when an official announcement is coming.
The Galaxy S9 made its way to the FCC's doorstep on December 27, and this is a strong indicator that we'll see the phone announced in either late January or early February. Along with this, a list showing all Snapdragon 845-powered phones for 2018 indicates that the S9/S9+ are slated for a February launch as well. This is mostly speculation, but we'd be very surprised if we have to wait until March or April to get our hands on Samsung's latest.
Iris scanning improvements to take on Face ID
Samsung might have been first to market with face/eye scanning technology as a way for biometrically unlocking your phone compared to Apple, but it's no secret that Face ID is superior to Samsung's iris scanning technology that's found on the Galaxy S8. Unsurprisingly, Samsung will be improving its iris scanning system on the S9 to either meet or beat Apple's solution.
A report from The Korea Herald says that Samsung will be upgrading the front-facing camera on the S9 from 2MP up to 3MP, and this will allow for faster scanning even when users are wearing glasses or in dark environments. The time it takes to unlock the S9 using iris scanning will be shorter than the current one-second time ont he S8, and there will also be improvements on the software side of things to make iris scanning just as (if not more) secure than Face ID.
Only the S9+ will get dual rear-cameras
Only the larger S9 will get dual-camera love, but each will have a much more accessible fingerprint scanner.
Samsung's first phone to ship with dual cameras was the Note 8, and as expected, this is a feature that'll trickle over to the S9. However, only the larger Galaxy S9+ is reported to receive this treatment. The smaller S9 will retain a single camera, and while we don't expect it to take bad photos, this disparity between the smaller and larger variants is new for Samsung. On that same note, the S9+ will also receive a small performance boost with an upgraded 6GB of RAM compared to the S9's 4GB count.
Thankfully, no matter which variant of the S9 you choose, the fingerprint sensor will be moved below the camera and no longer horrible to use.
Don't worry – the 3.5mm headphone jack will remain
The 3.5mm headphone jack is here to stay 🙏
One trend we've seen throughout 2017 is the rapid removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. This is something that the likes of Apple, Google, Motorola, and HTC have all been more than willing to follow suit with, but we shouldn't have to worry about this with the S9.
Venture Beat's same source supposedly confirmed that the Galaxy S9 will keep the headphone jack, and this lines up with a leaked case render for the phone that shows a covered section for the coveted port. Additionally, the CAD renders mentioned above also show the S9 with this.
Battery increase of 200 mAh 🔋
There's not much to dislike about the Galaxy S8, but aside from the phone's awkward fingerprint sensor, one area that can be an annoyance is battery life. The S8's battery isn't bad, but it's also not the best we saw on a phone in 2017.
According to someone that supposedly has a test unit of the upcoming device, the Galaxy S9 will come equipped with a slightly larger battery of 3,200 mAh. That's not a huge increase compared to the S8's 3,000 mAh pack, but a larger battery is still a larger battery. Additionally, this larger pack should also be accompanied by Quick Charge 3.0.
512GB of storage?
Yep. When you go to buy a Galaxy S9 next year, you may very well have the option of purchasing one with 512GB of internal storage.
Samsung announced on December 5 that it had begun mass-producing the mobile industry's first 512GB chips, and although not directly mentioned, we wouldn't be surprised to see this extra storage make its way to the S9/S9+. Larger internal storage will always have the benefit over expansions with microSD cards, so with this much space to work with, it'll be interesting to see if Samsung tries axing the microSD card slot like it did with the S6 in 2015.
It's "unlikely" the S9 will be unveiled at CES
Samsung typically waits until after CES to hold a separate event for announcing its latest Galaxy S devices, but some rumors have popped up indicating that Samsung would take a different approach this year and give us a teaser of what to expect at Las Vegas this January.
However, according to a spokesperson from Samsung, "it is unlikely" that the Galaxy S9 will make any sort of appearance at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show. This is something we were already fairly skeptical about, but now we can finally lay those rumors to rest.
Updated 12/29/2017 – Added possibility of February launch.
