Samsung's Galaxy S9 may be released as early as March — here's everything we know about the phone so far
- A recent leak suggests Samsung's Galaxy S9 smartphone will go on sale in mid-March.
- Samsung has already confirmed it will announce the smartphone late next month.
- Current rumors about the Galaxy S9 say it will have many subtle updates.
We may now know when Samsung plans to launch its new Galaxy S9 smartphone.
According to a C-level executive at a major casemaker, the go-to-market schedule for Galaxy S9 / S9+ is as follows:
Launch - 2/26
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 16, 2018
Pre-orders - 3/1
Ships/releases - 3/16
Evan Blass, a well-known tech informant, says he learned from a C-level executive at a smartphone-case maker that the Galaxy S9 and larger Galaxy S9 Plus will be available to preorder on March 1 and will go on sale on March 16.
Samsung has said it will announce the phone late next month, during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Before Samsung confirms all the details then, here's what we know about the Galaxy S9 so far.
Samsung has not said when it will release the Galaxy S9, but it did recently confirm its unveiling in February.
This makes Blass' claim of a March release for the Galaxy S9 quite plausible. His reported schedule is very similar to Samsung's past smartphone releases.
Though the Galaxy S8 was delayed until April last year because of safety concerns, the Galaxy S7 was announced in late February 2016 and released in mid-March, as were several older devices in the Galaxy-S series.
If there are any exciting features of the Galaxy S9, news about them may still be under wraps.
So far, most details about the Galaxy S9 suggest it's an incremental update.
Samsung has said consumers can expect updates to its Bixby artificial-intelligence assistant, especially an easier-to-navigate interface.
Several leaks also suggest Samsung may tweak the device's design to make it easier to use.
The Galaxy S9 is expected to feature a rear-facing fingerprint scanner in a centralized location, which would make it easier for users to find. The Galaxy S8's scanner is to the right of the camera module, and many say it isn't where they'd naturally place their hand.
Other leaks suggest the Galaxy S9 will have new camera features, such as super-slow-mo video. Samsung may also take a cue from Apple by including a single-lens camera on the standard Galaxy S9 and a dual-lens camera on the S9 Plus.
Consumers should also expect other well-known Samsung features on the Galaxy S9, such as wireless charging and resistance to water and dust.
Many of the Galaxy S9's internal hardware specs remain up in the air.
Recent reports suggest Samsung is unlikely to update the battery capacity on the Galaxy S9, though previous rumors indicated there could be a slight power bump. With no changes expected to the display size or quality of the S9 models, an increase in battery power may not be necessary.
Leaks have also suggested that the Galaxy S9's memory and storage capacity is likely to remain similar that of the Galaxy S8. Samsung is also known to include expandable storage on its devices, also expected for the S9.
For now, it seems likely that the Galaxy S9 will retain the traditional 3.5 mm headphone jack at a time when several manufacturers, including Apple and Google, are releasing premium smartphones without it. There is evidence, however, that Samsung has considered removing the headphone jack from the Galaxy S9.
There are also several far-fetched rumors about the Galaxy S9.
Some rumors suggest the Galaxy S9 could include facial-recognition features similar to Apple's Face ID and Animoji on the iPhone X — but Samsung already has an iris scanner and facial-recognition features on its current smartphones that it could adapt for new models.
The rumors arose when Samsung announced that its Exynos 9810 chip, which may be in the Galaxy S9, could power those facial-recognition capabilities.
Another rumor suggests there could be a Galaxy S9 model featuring eight times the internal storage capacity of current Galaxy devices.
This rumor stemmed from Samsung's announcement that it had developed a 512 GB capacity for onboard storage to allow devices to support large multimedia files, particularly high-quality videos.
Samsung also recently released the Galaxy A8 smartphone, which includes a dual-lens front-facing camera that made us wonder whether the Galaxy S9 would have such a feature. However, it appears the dual-camera set may be exclusive to the rear camera on the S9 Plus.
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