Samsung's Galaxy S9 may release as early as March — here's everything we know about the phone so far
- New rumors suggest Samsung's Galaxy S9 smartphone will go on sale in mid-March.
- Samsung has already confirmed it will announce the smartphone in late-February.
- Current rumors about the Galaxy S9 suggest it will have many subtle updates.
If a recent leak is to be believed, we may know exactly 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
Tech informant Evan Blass claims to have learned from a C-level executive at a smartphone case maker that the Galaxy S9 and larger Galaxy S9+ will be available for pre-order starting March 1, and will go on sale March 16.
The phones will be announced on February 26, during the Mobile World Congress convention in Barcelona.
Before Samsung confirms all the details next month, here's what we know about the Galaxy S9 so far:
Samsung has not confirmed a release date for 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. The schedule is very similar to how Samsung has released smartphones in the past: The Galaxy S8 was delayed until April 2017 due to safety concerns, but the Galaxy S7 was announced in late-February and released in mid-March of 2016, as were several older devices in the Galaxy-S series.
If there are any exciting features on the Galaxy S9, news about them may still be under wraps.
So far, most details about the smartphone pretty much suggest the Galaxy S9 is an incremental update.
Samsung has confirmed consumers can expect updates to its Bixby AI assistant feature, particularly making its interface easier for users to navigate.
Several leaks also suggest Samsung may also make some design tweaks to the device that will make it easier to use. The Galaxy S9 is expected to feature a rear-facing fingerprint scanner placed in a centralized location, which would make it easier for users to find. Currently, the Galaxy S8 fingerprint scanner is located to the right of the camera module. Many users say the placement isn't ideal in terms of natural hand placement.
Other leaks suggest the Galaxy S9 may include new camera features, such as a super slow-mo video capture function. 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 Galaxy S9+.
Consumers should also expect other well-known features on the Galaxy S9, such as water- and dust-resistance and wireless charging.
Many internal hardware specs in the Galaxy S9 remain up in the air.
Recent reports suggest Samsung likely won't make any updates to the battery capacity on the Galaxy S9, though prior rumors indicated there could be a slight power bump. With no changes expected for the display size or display quality of either the Galaxy 9 or Galaxy S9+ models, an increase in battery power may not be necessary.
Leaks have also suggested that memory and storage capacity on the Galaxy S9 will likely remain similar to what is seen on the Galaxy S8. Samsung is also known for including expandable storage on its devices, which should also be expected for the Galaxy S9.
For now, it seems likely that the Galaxy S9 will retain the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack at a time when several manufacturers, including Apple and Google, are releasing premium smartphones without a headphone jack. There is evidence, however, that Samsung has considered removing the headphone jack from the Galaxy S9.
There are also several far-fetched rumors related to 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; however, Samsung already has its own iris scanner and facial-recognition features on its current smartphones, which could easily be adopted onto newer models. Suggestions for the feature arose when Samsung announced that its Exynos 9810 chip, which may be included in the Galaxy S9, would be able to power those facial-recognition capabilities.
Another rumor suggests there could be a Galaxy S9 model featuring eight times the internal storage capacity included on current Galaxy devices. News of this feature arose when Samsung announced it has developed a 512GB 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 if the Galaxy S9 could have such a feature. However, it appears dual-camera set may be exclusive to the rear camera on the larger Galaxy S9+.
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