Getting to know the Galaxy S9

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 S8 are 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.

Camera

ar emoji

slow mo

Like I said, there are many small changes in the Galaxy S9, but the bulk of them have to do with the camera. This should come as no surprise -- Samsung has been teasing some of the new features for a while now. Right off the bat, this is the first Galaxy S flagship with dual cameras (and dual optical image stabilization). The setup here is similar to the Note 8: two 12-megapixel cameras with one wide-angle and one telephoto lens, and it offers similar extra tools like Dual Capture and Live Focus (a la iPhone's Portrait Mode).

A dual lens setup is only one of a slew of new camera features for the S9 and S9+. They both come with something the company is calling "Dual Aperture" which sounds like it allows for two openings on a single lens. But really, it's one aperture that jumps between two f-stops -- f/2.4 and f/1.5. That last one is the widest aperture on a smartphone yet

the wide max aperture helps the S9 and S9+ let in more light, which makes for brighter and clearer images in the dark

The picture that the S9 snapped in these conditions was surprisingly noise-free, thanks to what the company named "Super Speed Dual Pixel." It combines the dual pixel technology that was introduced with the S7s and adds dedicated processing and memory to enable multi-frame noise reduction using 12 separate images per photo you shoot. Thanks to the RAM built into the sensor, the S9 is able to stitch those together quickly, resulting in hardly any delay between pressing the shutter button and the picture showing up.

The S9 and S9+ can also shoot some serious slow-mo. Samsung took a page right out of Sony's playbook, adding 960fps video capture. That'll create clips that are four times slower than the S8 could take (at 240fps). Or, in real-world terms, 0.2 seconds of actual time will be slowed down to about 6 seconds of playback.

AR Emoji

Another camera-related feature is AR Emoji -- Samsung's answer to Apple's Animoji. So far, I find the S9's version more fun, mostly because it creates an emoji of my face and not an impersonal, generic one (although I do love me some talking poop). You can use the S9 to create a cute cartoon version of yourself by taking a photo of you staring straight forward. The phone was better at reproducing my likeness than Bitmoji or any other app I've used.

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.

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. 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.

source - samsung /yahoo