Samsung Galaxy S9, S9+ arriving in April next year
The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ are undoubtedly the most eagerly-awaited upcoming smartphones of 2018. Speculations about their features and also leaks about the"radical redesign," including the under-display fingerprint sensor, 3D facial recognition, and no-headphone-jack design, have been doing the rounds. A fresh report now claims that Galaxy S9, S9+ would be shipped in April 2018, after being unveiled in February. Read more!
Rumored fingerprint scanner and facial recognition features
Leaks suggest that Galaxy S9 and S9+ would come with a front-facing (invisible) fingerprint scanner embedded into the display. However, some other reports claimed a 3D facial recognition feature, like iPhone X's FaceID, would be used instead of the in-display fingerprint reader.
Galaxy S9 series to feature Snapdragon 845 SoC
Chinese phone blog GizChina said Samsung Galaxy S9 series would be the first smartphones to come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. Both Samsung and Qualcomm are in talks regarding the chipset. But there's no word on when Qualcomm is going to supply the yet-to-be-launched chipset to Samsung and when the South Korean giant will start the mass production of the Galaxy S9 series.
Mass production delayed due to chipset supply issues
GizChina, citing some Samsung sources, claimed that Galaxy S9 would be announced in February, but will not go on sale before April owing to production issues. The mass production, supposed to begin in December, is facing trouble due to Snapdragon 845 chipset production. Previous reports, too, suggested Galaxy S9 would be launched at Mobile World Congress-2018 (from 26 Feb-1 Mar) in Spain's Barcelona.
Snapdragon 845, expected to launch in December
GizChina report claims: "Honestly, we have heard earlier the phone (Galaxy S9) will go on mass production in December. But there are some problems related to the SND845 chip production. So it turns out the Samsung Galaxy S9 launch should be pushed back to April."
Galaxy S9, S9+ rumored specs, and features
Leaks suggest that Samsung Galaxy S9 would sport a 5.8-inch Infinity Display. Galaxy S9+ is expected to come with a 6.2-inch display and a bigger battery. They would have a 12MP front camera and 16MP dual rear cameras Samsung may implement either the under-display fingerprint-sensor or 3D-sensing facial recognition and a rear-mounted fingerprint-scanner. Both the devices would be IP65/68-certified (water and dust resistant).
Galaxy S9 series run Android Oreo
Samsung Galaxy S9 series is expected to come with 6GB RAM and run on the latest Android 8 Oreo. Samsung is planning a radical redesign for the upcoming series. Some reports also claim that Samsung is ditching the 3.5mm headphone-jack on Galaxy S9, S9+.
Samsung to launch three new S9 phones next year?
While previous leaks said two Galaxy S9 variants are in the making, a recent report claimed that Samsung is working on another Galaxy S9 model, too. The third variant is reportedly a mini version of the Galaxy S9, with a tiny 4-inch display. So, there could be three new phones: the regular Galaxy S9, the bigger Galaxy S9+, and the Galaxy S9 Mini.
The Galaxy S9 Mini
The rumored smartphone is expected to come with the same Infinity Display but in a smaller size. Nothing about its features or specifications has been revealed yet. It could either be a real miniature of Galaxy S9 or a smaller device with downgraded specs.
