The Samsung S9 and S9+ keep their Bixby button for Samsung's AI assistant and gain a few new smart functions like seeing instant translation through the camera. — dpa
More light, more volume, more speed: Samsung wants to distinguish its top smartphone Galaxy S9 from its predecessor, the S8 – and its brand new camera might just help it do that.
In a first for flagships, the wide-angle 12-megapixel main camera can adjust its aperture for daylight (f/2.4) and darker lighting conditions (f/1.5), resulting in 30% less image noise in the dark than the S8, according to Samsung, which presented its latest flagship at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
To make the image-stabilised camera extremely fast, and enable super-slow-motion videos with up to 960 frames per second, there's also memory directly on the image sensor.
New dual camera, old curved screen
The S9+ is also the first smartphone of the Galaxy S series with a dual camera, adding a telephoto, image-stabilised 12-megapixel camera (f/2.4) with two times magnification, while the cheaper S9 model has to make do with just one rear camera. The job of the selfie camera continues to be handled by both models with a mediocre 8-megapixel sensor (f/1.7).
Samsung is keeping its high dust- and waterproof rating of IP68 from the S8, as well as that same, impressively large screen, curved at the edges with 18:9 displays with Super AMOLED technology and Quad HD resolution (2960 x 1440).
The display of the S9 is 5.8 inches while the plus model brings it up to 6.2 inches. The cases have become a touch thicker with 8.5 millimetres. The fingerprint sensor has now also been moved to a more ergonomic position below the camera, rather than beside it.
Super slow motion and AR emojis
In the phone's new super slow-motion mode, a 0.2-second recording gets stretched out into a 6-second film at a whopping 960 frames per second. To help with such recordings, you can simply point the smartphone at an area where you expect a quick movement – such as the splashing water from a bursting water balloon.
The smartphone detects the movement and starts recording automatically. From the super slow motion video it can then easily make GIF animations for social networks or texting.
AR emojis, made using augmented reality, are today’s hot trend. With AR emojis, you can "replace" your face with that of an emoji on the screen and use the camera’s face recognition software to speak as the emoji.
Samsung's voice assistant Bixby is now to do even more on the S9. If the camera is aimed at signs or menu cards, a translation will pop up in the display. Bixby can also find out where you are from the image information of buildings, and then display the your location.
Twice the volume with stereo AKG speakers
For hands-free music listening, Samsung has installed Harman AKG stereo speakers in the S9, meaning the S9 models should sound almost two and a half times as loud as the S8. And, of course, there's still an analog headphone input, an increasingly rare sight in these times of wireless headphones.
The in-house eight-core processor Exynos 9 has become a little faster. There are 4 GB RAM on the S9, and 6 GB on the S9+. Internal storage is set at 64 or 256 GB in size and can be expanded by memory card.
For the wireless interfaces, Samsung uses ac-WLAN, Gigabit-LTE, Bluetooth 5.0 LE and NFC. As with the S8, charging works wirelessly via the Qi standard or via the USB-C port.
Samsung has also announced a new Dex docking station, in which the S9 lies flat and virtually becomes a PC, to which you can have a monitor, keyboard and mouse connected.
The Galaxy S9 comes in black, blue-grey and purple, with Android 8.0 (Oreo) and 64 GB of storage from March 16. The cost is around US$800 (RM3,138), with the plus model costing around US$100 (RM392) more. Also, if you choose the models with 256 GB of memory, you have to pay a further US$100 on top. — dpa
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