With CES 2018 coming to a close, we’re officially in Samsung Galaxy S9 hype mode. All we are going to hear about for the next several weeks leading up to MWC is going to be the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. And that all kicks off today with what may or may not be a picture of the box that’ll wrap around Samsung’s next phone.
The image showed up at reddit over night and resembles Samsung packaging in many ways. Well, I should clarify that it resembles non-US Samsung Galaxy packaging, since this doesn’t match up in almost any way to what we see on Samsung phones here. It does match-up to UK packaging, though, and so we’re talking about it today.
The box suggests that the regular Galaxy S9 will sport a 5.8-inch display when measured as a full rectangle or 5.6-inch when measured with rounded corners. It’ll have a resolution of Quad HD+ and is a Super AMOLED display. The box also suggests a “Super Speed Dual Pixel” 12MP camera with optical image stabilization and a max aperture of f/1.5. There is a note there about “Super Slow-mo” with no reference to what that means, as well as an 8MP AF Selfie Camera. Additionally, we’ve got stereo speakers tuned by AKG (earphones too), IP68 water and dust resistance, Iris Scanner, 64GB storage, 4GB RAM, and wireless charging. A lot of that matches up to previous reports.
What’s really interesting here is the suggestion that the 12MP camera will have a variable aperture along with OIS. We won’t know what “Super Speed” means, but the F1.5/F2.4 aperture suggests a camera similar to the shooter in Samsung’s ridiculously expensive W2018 flip phone, which did have an F1.5/F2.4 camera. That camera was smart enough to shoot at F1.5 in bad lighting and then switch to F2.4 in good lighting.
The “Super Slow-mo” section likely has to do with the camera, but the random mention of it here without reference to anything is kind of odd. It also seems odd that Samsung would separate out the stereo speakers mention without slotting it in next to the earphones line, both of which are tuned by AKG.
Something seems fishy about it all to me, but nothing sticks out as being the “Gotcha, that’s fake!” mistake. If this is all legit, then the camera on the Galaxy S9 may be insane.
Your thoughts?
LOL, so many arguments on why one phone is better than another lol. Like these companies care or are going to pay you for your loyalty. Just get the phone you like and stop trying to convince others that the phone you have is better. Just be happy with the phone you have and appreciate the variety of choices that android has.
I hope the S9+ gets the 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. Outrageous if it doesn’t considering the prices.
It’ll get the 6GB of ram, but it’s highly unlikely to get a 128GB version stateside. Samsung and other OEM’s usually don’t bring high capacity models to the US because of how cheap 99% of Android customers are, even ones buying flagships. That’s why guys like me have to buy iPhones when we want lots of fast storage.
Not even, iPhone may offer 256GB of flash, but we also have a micro sd slot for 2566gb plus the internal.
Notice I said fast storage. The fastest microSD cards top off at 100mbps. The internal storage of most Android flagships with UFS 2.1 is 550-700mbps. The iphone’s Storage is about 5x the internal storage of Android flagships at 2500-3000mbps due to it utilizing NVME storage with Apple’s proprietary storage controller they use in their industry leading macs. To boot most Android flagships disable adoptable storage. In addition the vast majority of Android users either don’t know their phone supports microSD or don’t care or use it. The majority of Android users who do opt for a microSD card opt for a cheap lower end 32GB or 64GB card. The iPhone has 4x the competitions storage without even updating their storage this year. Even with a year to catch up to Apple (the iPhone 7 debuted the 256GB option) Android OEM’s cheap out again. Every single component in the iPhone X is drastically better than every Android flagship on the market, and likely up until the end of 2019. In the meantime Apple will widen the gap even further.
my phone is locking up and stuttering like the guy who got struck by lightning in The Great Outdoors. I’m sick of it and I think I’m finished with Samsung. I think I’m either going to switch to the pixel 2 or an iPhone.
Wait for the Pixel 3 XL this year.
is that coming in the next 2 or 3 days? Because that’s about as long as my phone has left to live before I tee it up and smash it with a driver.
What model?
S7
The iPhone X is the best phone on the market right now. The 8 plus is even better than any other Android flagship on the market.
I currently have a gold 8 Plus and Exynos Note 8. I would say my Note 8 is leaps and bounds better than my 8 Plus, and I’m currently on stock at the moment (OEM lock appeared not long ago, going to flash Magisk and restore my Nandroid ROM backup).
Every time I use my Note 8’s display, then use my 1080p iPhone 8 Plus, my eyes feel like they are struggling. Not that it matters much (as I don’t use it as much), but the wireless charging on the 8 Plus is PAINFULLY slow with that terrible 7.5-watt wireless charging coil. Performance and speed from a consumer perspective (meaning benchmarks aside) are about the same for both.
I’ll be more specific about my use case for the iPhone 8 Plus, though. I use it mostly for its 4K at 60fps capability (as I create YouTube content, and I need a simple companion device to my professional 4K cam that can shoot that high of a resolution and frame rate for post-editing slo-motion that doesn’t cost $4000) but even the camera is better on the Note 8 in terms of HDR. Granted, I shoot my videos flat so that I can color grade later, but at least the Note 8 can TRULY shoot with a flat gamma with HDR off, while the 8 Plus still has some colorization on its raw footage.
I held and played with the iPhone X, iPhone 8+, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL yesterday. I had no idea that the iPhone X was so (comparatively) small. It’s the same size as my Galaxy S7 but lighter. And it’s substantially smaller than the 8+ and Pixel 2 XL. I was ready to buy it and then realized I’d be laying out almost $1300 for this phone. So I told the guy helping me I needed to think about it a little longer. The Pixel 2 is basically half the price of the iPhone X. If I had managed to catch the $300 off sale (especially in combination with the $250 Target gift card that was being offered), it would have been a no-brainer for the Pixel 2. But I missed it. I even went to Target (as the gift card promo was still in effect yesterday) but they were all out of the larger capacity models.
Still have some thinking to do…
Why is it better to shoot with a 2.4 aperture vs a 1.5 ? I thought bigger opening in the lense means more light better photo regardless of the situation ?
It’s not unless you want more depth of field and possibly more sharpness, depending on the lens design and the impact of diffraction. With sensors as small as they are in smartphones, the larger the aperture, usually, the better!
no fingerprint reader or headphone jack? Fail.
Those aren’t listed on the boxes of the S8/Note 8 either, so that doesn’t mean it isn’t included.
“Includes headphones tuned by AKG”
The variable aperture camera makes sense for this year, since both the iPhone X and Pixel 2 have finally surpassed the 2-year-old one they used in the Note 8, and lower cost models are starting to catch up as well. It really held up remarkably well against the competition for those 2 years, but if they want to keep people looking at their stuff they need to do more than what they did last fall, and this is a very good way to do it.
I guess the question is will the second camera on the S9 plus also have that ability. It could go either way, and it’s not really needed for depth of field anymore since two aperture settings alone are capable of doing that.
What do you mean finally for the Pixel? The Nexus 6P and original Pixel already surpassed Samsung. I agree with you on the iPhone though.
I’m generally disappointed in Samsung phones to pass every year, but 2017 did have me the most intrigued in years.
Not that the S8 or N8 cameras were trash, but I am hoping they really up their camera game, if for no only reason than to push to Google to up their game as well.
This thing could cook you breakfast, walk your dog and pay your bills and you’d still find a way to say the pixuhl is “better” because “muh pure androidz”.
Or it’s because the Pixel has a better camera, better software, receives timely updates, and most importantly, fits their needs better.
If you prefer Samsung phones, that’s great. Keep buying one. ????
Could be, but let’s be honest. None of those are the reasons.
True that. None of those were enough to keep me from sending my Pixel 2 XL back, either. 🙂
Those are exactly the reasons why you’d go with a Pixel over a Samsung. Like, literally to the letter. ????
Too bad you don’t have a job with Google as much semen as you drink from them. Stop embarrassing yourself with this Google crap nobody wants another worthless boring iPhone idiot. The S9Plus will be an excellent handset to add to my S8Plus and Note8 at home base in March. Don’t be jealous because you can’t afford to keep up with technology.
Except the 2XL looks/behaves nothing like an iPhone.
I have absolutely no doubt that the S9+ will be another great device from Samsung. I can more than afford to buy Samsung phones if i wanted to, but I’m not interested. Although their software has gotten better, i don’t like it as much as what the Pixel offers, and the infinity display doesn’t interest me at all either.
Samsung’s software sucks. But hey if you like that junk more power to you. Don’t worry about what other people like.
Don’t worry about what other people like.
I’d rather use an iphone than a samsung. Which is sad.
Looks like all you dual speakers folks may finally be getting your wish from Sammy’s flagship for once.
Leaks so far show that they are end-firing rather than front facing, so they still won’t be satisfied. 😛
If you root your phone you can easily obtain dual speakers now.
Yeah, but with every mod and ROM that I have used, they are slightly asynchronous. Not that big of a deal for some, but it drives me crazy on my Exynos Note 8.
Also, Samsung are such a**holes when it comes to Knox (especially for the Exynos versions) these days that unlocking the bootloader and ROMing (or even just using systemless root like Magisk) is incredibly annoying and unnecessarily tedious.
As nice as this phone feels and looks, I realized after taking a dip on the Sammy side of Android that my freedom is more important than being forced to flash the official Samsung binaries, and suffer a 7-day waiting period for the OEM lock to appear again every time I have to reboot my phone, or if the battery dies. I thought I’d outgrown the need to root, but I guess not. I really should have just stuck with buying a Pixel XL 2.
Been waiting a while for them to copy Apple on that front.
Samsung could have copied HTC since HTC new Boom Sound setup was a speaker in the earpiece and a bottom firing speaker.
they all copied HTC.
now let me see that S9+ box.
scratch that, just let me see the phone!