With the release of the new S9, there has been a bit of controversy about the changes made, or rather how few there seem to be. Physically the S9 has remained largely unchanged from the S8. With the same screen and almost identical body size, the biggest changes take a closer look at the S9 to see where the importance is.
These changes are mostly small ones that together make the difference. Starting with the camera, the S9 got an improvement in the rear camera, while the front camera remains unchanged. the S9 now supports 960fps slow-motion capture @ 720p, which is on par with current flagship phones. Also new on the video side is 4K recording @ 60fps compared to the 30fps of the S8. Shifting to photography, the S9 is 12MP like the S8, but now supports dual aperture of either 1.5 or 2.4 F-stop. This is an automatic feature that can be manually toggled for those photography enthusiasts. Next to the rear camera is, of course, the fingerprint sensor; which on the S8 was awkwardly placed in line with the rear camera. Samsung learned from this and has relocated it below the rear camera instead, as is the case with most rear-mounted fingerprint sensors. The rest of the changes Samsung made to the S9 were largely suggestions from the community. You’ll find the S9 Now has slightly faster LTE capabilities than the S8. The S9 also supports expandable memory up to 400gb where the S8 had 256gb. Finally, there is an almost imperceptible change to the physical dimensions of the S9: it is 1.2mm shorter, 0.6mm wider, 0.5mm thicker, and 8 grams heavier in comparison to the S8. So why the slight change? Samsung decided to bolster the structural integrity of the phone. With thicker front glass and aluminum in the bevel, the durability of the phone has actually taken a significant improvement. The small change results in greater drop and bend resistance.
So is the S9 worth the upgrade? These numerous small changes don’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things, and perhaps they’re not. When it boils down to it; unless you need more expansion than the already good 256gb, or are a photography enthusiast whose main camera is their phone, this probably isn’t worth it to you. The relocation of the fingerprint sensor is nice, but with Iris Scan and Face Recognition that doesn’t carry as much weight. When it comes down to it, as long as you’re happy with your S8 you may want to wait for the S10 to be released, which will most likely be in February of 2019. Whether your interest is in the S9 and the price drop that will eventually follow the release of the S10 or the S10 itself.