It’s that time of the year, Mobile World Congress 2018 and Samsung releasing another device to take the mobile world by storm — or will it?

Quick Thoughts

The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus look stunning and carry over essentially all of the outside features from the S8 and S8 Plus, except the camera is reportedly improved and the fingerprint sensor is under the camera lens system this year, which is where it should have been since this design was drafted last year (way to backtrack Samsung).  Hardware is something that Samsung has been getting right for years now and it should come as no surprise to anyone that this thing looks solid as a rock.

Expect the normal array of colors with an all new Lilac Purple version upon release.  The display is still beautiful, as should be expected from Samsung with it’s patented Infinity display, which happens to look better than the iPhone X’s ugly notch, sorry.

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Camera

Let’s talk about the major change in the 2018 device, the camera.  And it’s not just your regular camera, it is one that can shoot in multiple apertures, which is notable because smartphone cameras are usually fixed; which could lead some shots appearing soft — well Samsung aims to fix that this year — hands on tests will tell.  The amazing part is that when taking pictures, you can see the lens shifting to a different apertures to capture images in, which is perfect for light and dark shots — being more narrow in increased light and opening up more in low light.  It is notable and impressive that this is the widest aperture (f 1.5) ever included in a smartphone.

Lastly, AR Emoji, which utilizes the front-facing camera, allowing you to take a picture of yourself and creating a lifelike emoji of yourself that you can send to your friends.  Just like Animoji on iPhone X before, I wonder how many days it’ll take new Galaxy S9 owners to forget about.

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Services

Smartthings and Samsung Health.  We’ve seen how the health apps work, and Samsung is stepping it up this year with sensors to help check blood pressure.  Camera integrations with Bixby to let you scan in foods and log caloric data into the Health app.  Additionally, with Smartthings, which is huge for those who are integrating connected devices in their lives, will be baked right in.

Check out a condensed version of the S9 event below:

Source: The Verge

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Final Thoughts

You should be very impressed with this device.  The hardware is essentially flawless now with an improved camera, which was already one of the best.  However, the only thing that could hamper the experience would be Samsung’s version of Android and how it will hold up over time.

Hands on coming soon as  this device will be hitting stores on March 16th!