Samsung Galaxy S9 & S9+ official with dual-aperture super slow-mo camera

Samsung has just unveiled its new flagship smartphones – Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ in its Unpacked event at MWC 2018. Having he design, the new flagships are packing with the new hardware inside – Most importantly the camera.

Galaxy S9+ has some distinct elements from the other as it’s the larger one. Both have the same design as predecessors with curved Gorilla Glass front and rear with metal frame inside. Both the phones, though maintain their display sizes, have their top and bottom bezels further cut down around half a millimeter. However the newer phones are heavier and thicker than the last year’s counterparts.

The so-called Infinity display also present with Super AMOLED panel and Quad HD+ resolution with 18.5:9. They still maintain their pixel densities as 570ppi and 529ppi respectively as there is no change in the display sizes of 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch.

If you want to hear about some visual change then, it’s only the iris scanner which is not much visible in the top bezel. Samsung has also moved the fingerprint scanner to more appropriate location below the camera.

Hardware

The proprietary SoC Exynos 9810 will be powering up the devices in most regions whereas the shipments in China and USA will contain the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845. Both the chipsets are currently the latest in the market. The former chip has an Octa-core processor with two custom Mongoose cores clocked at 2.8GHz and six cores of Cortex-A55 clocked at 1.7GHz. The same chip runs a monster Mali-G72 GPU with 18-cores. On the other hand the Qualcomm’s SD 845 also has an octa-core Kryo 385 processor and Adreno 630 GPU.

Memory wise, both the devices still maintain their 4GB and 6GB RAM modules respectively. As well the internal storage options remain the same 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB. Micro SD card slots now support up to 400GB extended storage capacity.

Related: Galaxy S9 vs Galaxy S9+ Side by Side Comparison

Reimagined Camera

Now there comes the factor that we have been hearing for quite a few weeks – Reimagined Camera. It’s probably the only element that new Galaxy smartphones carry this year.

The main camera in both the Galaxy S9 and S9+ maintains its resolution as 12-megapixels but is absolutely a new thing. It has a super speed dual-pixel auto focus imaging sensor. On top, the lens has a variable aperture that can switch between f/1.5 and f/2.4 for dark and well-lit environments respectively. In addition, the camera also has OIS (optical image stabilization).

Galaxy S9+ gets double doze with an additional Telephoto auto focus camera with same 12MP resolution and OIS. However it has a fixed aperture of f/2.4. It’s most probably the same one as in Galaxy Note 8.

8MP front-facing camera seems to be the same as the predecessors with auto focus sensor and f/1.7 aperture.

Now Galaxy S9 brings to you the 960fps super slow-motion footage after one year of Sony Xperia XZ Premium. Both the Galaxy S9 and S9+ can record 720p footage at this super speed of 960 frames per second. Whereas 1080p and 4K videos support 60fps at maximum.

Software and Other Features

Both the phones run Android 8 Oreo software with the latest Grace UI. The camera supports AR Emoji that lets you create your own emoji. “AR Emoji uses a data-based machine learning algorithm, which analyzes a 2D image of the user and maps out more than 100 facial features to create a 3D model that reflects and imitates expressions, like winks and nods, for true personalization.”

IP68 rating for water/dust resistance, Galaxy S9 and S9+ have premium AKG stereo speaker by Harman with support Dolby Atmos. Both have 3000 and 3500 mAh battery capacities respectively and come with fast-charging and wireless charging.

Pricing and Availability

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ will be available starting in March 16, 2018 in select markets and will be offered in Midnight Black, Titanium Gray, Coral Blue and a new hue, Lilac Purple. Samsung will reveal the prices later.

Samsung has published US unlocked prices at samsung.com as Galaxy S9 to cost USD $719.99 and Galaxy S9+ to cost $839.99. The company is offering a trade-in purchase value for a wide range of devices – almost any smartphone.