Getting to know the Galaxy S9 is like unwrapping a present you think you've already opened. On the surface, it looks familiar, but once you peel back the layers, you'll notice the contents are new.
That's not to say that the changes between the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S8are insignificant. There's a ton of them, and you'll have to look carefully to spot them all, but when considered as a package, this update feels more incremental than monumental. At least, based on our brief time with it so far.
AR Emoji
There are a plethora of options right from the get-go, and their resemblance to actual gestures I would do in real life is uncanny. You can also make facial expressions, and the S9's front cameras will pick them up to be conveyed by your avatar -- just like you can do with Animoji.
Bixby
Another area where Samsung made major changes is Bixby -- specifically in the augmented reality Vision section. Besides interface tweaks that make Bixby Vision look more in tune with the camera app, Samsung also added three new modes -- Live Translate, Makeup, and Food. The previously available shopping and landmark recognition features are now individual modes, too.
The Live Translate tool uses Google's Translate service, and that has worked well for me in the past. So I'm not surprised that Bixby was able to quickly and accurately translate text in images in real time. What impressed me was Bixby's ability to read handwritten words -- especially when it correctly interpreted my ugly Chinese characters.
And everything else
Samsung built stereo speakers into the S9's front and bottom, which make it 1.4 times as loud as the S8, according to the company. The latest flagship certainly sounded noticeably louder than its predecessor during our demo, although we had too short a time with it to evaluate audio quality.
Samsung also tidied up the S9's front by trimming the bezel and masking the array of cameras and sensors above the screen. You won't really notice these differences until you look closely, but the effect is a slightly more minimalist design than before.
There are also some updates that you probably already expected. In the US, both the S9 and S9+ will have Snapdragon 845 CPUs, with the smaller phone packing 4GB of RAM while the larger handset carries 6GB. They'll ship with Android 8.0 Oreo, too.
Otherwise, the rest of the S9 remains largely the same as the S8. Their respective screens are the same size (5.8-inch and 6.2-inch), their batteries have the same capacity (3,000 mAh for the S9, 3,500 mAh for the S9+), they're just as durable and water-resistant as their predecessors, and will still support fast wireless charging.
Many of the new software features like Bixby and camera updates will ultimately become available for older handsets like the S8 and Note 8, as long as the hardware supports it. That means that if you're an S8 owner and don't feel the need for a camera upgrade, you could easily skip the S9 and not miss much.
It'll take more time with the phone before I can properly evaluate whether the S9's bundle of changes amount to more than the sum of their parts, but for now, Samsung's latest feels like an interim update.
AT&T has already announced it will sell the S9 on its Next installment payment program from $26.34 over 30 months. The S9+ will cost $30.50 each month. That works out to about $790 for the S9 and $915 for the S9+ -- expect the other carriers to come in at about the same price, give or take $50. In the UK, the Galaxy S9 will cost £739 while the S9 Plus comes in at £869.
You'll have a bit more time before you have to decide if you want to get the new flagships, though -- pre-orders start March 2nd, while the devices arrive March 16th.
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