By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
On the surface, the new Samsung Galaxy S9 and its larger brother, the S9+, seem to look identical to their predecessors from last year. The near edge-to-edge display is still there, as is the tapered metal frame sandwiched in luxurious glass.
Samsung's gone for two extremes in colour this year. Canadians will have to choose between the austere yet elegant Titanium Silver or the striking Lilac Purple. Samsung Canada says there's a 60/40 split on pre-orders between the two colour choices. Do you like Audi grey or are you going for a Lamborghini purple? Depends on your style.
Despite the similarity in appearance, the new Galaxy S9 features reinforcements all around. 20 per cent thicker front glass strengthens this phone's weakest point. The rim around the edge of the Galaxy S9 reportedly has a stronger grade of aluminium which is less prone to deformation when dropped.
The sides are similarly thicker and can absorb 20 per cent more shock if it is dropped, sparing the glass from impact. All-in-all the new Galaxy S9 is slightly thicker than its predecessor but it is also more resilient.
In the hand, the Galaxy S9 feels like a delightful premium device. It feels completely seamless and the melding of glass and aluminium is the best we've seen on a smartphone in this category. I would still wrap these rascals with a good case,
The display is beautiful and immersive. Samsung says it has the highest colour accuracy and has set records for colour gamut contrast ratio and viewing angle tolerance. Watching YouTube videos of various trailers proved that this display is superb and will show detail and depth you simply miss on inferior OLED displays.
Samsung has also augmented the stereo speakers thanks to AKG Harman's collaboration. I played some Dolby Atmos video demos and was blown away by the separation and clarity. Of course, you can't expect much bass on a device this thin, I'm still impressed Samsung matched that amazing display with stunning sound. There's also a headphone jack, a welcome rarity in 2018 flagship smartphones.
The star of the Galaxy S9's feature set is the camera which now features a variable aperture. Designed just like the human eye, the Galaxy S9 can switch between a wide F1.5 mode and a F2.4 mode. This means better low-light photos, with more detail as well as bright and clear photos in daylight.
Throw in all the computational features as well as Samsung's prodigous array of post-processing and filter options and you have yourself a serious camera option in a tiny package.
A shot from the galaxy S9 shows an ability to capture detail in complex shadows and lighting conditions
This is the same photo above at 100 per cent
The Galaxy S9+, being larger, also gets an 2X zoom by way of a second camera. That sleek beast also has an additional 2 GB of RAM under the hood, for a total of 6 GB.
Samsung has built some fun into the camera as well. There are now AR Emoji which do feature cute characters just like Apple's saccharine Animoji. The piece de resistance here is that you can create your own emoji based on your face. Now, your mileage will vary, but I was able to get a reasonable emoji version of myself in a few easy steps.
This feature and the ability to create gifs and stickers with your face might have a longer expiration date than just animated bears or talking poop. Good move Samsung.
The killer feature for me is the super slo-mo recording with up to 960 frames per second on 1080p HD resolution. The current super slo-mo on other devices taps out at 240 frames per second, and is already quite impressive but Samsung's implementation blows that out of the water.
I'm still testing the camera functions as I've only had the phone for a couple of days, but I can already see it has superlative photographic abilities. That F1.5 aperture is like having an expensive prime lens on tap and I can't wait to see what it can do.