And if you squint even slightly.

You might think you're looking at last years Galaxy S8.

Because the differences between it and the S9

are minimal at best.

(casual music)

But this is the Android phone that more people will buy

than any other this year.

And it does come with a few new things that

those people will appreciate.

And besides, it's not like the S8

is a bad phone to start from.

The overall design of the S9 in unchanged from last year.

It's still a glass and metal sandwich.

It still has curved glass in the front and back.

It still has an extra wide 18.5 by 9 display

and minimal bezels.

It's really nice and it's really well made.

But the glass back is kind of a fingerprint magnet

and it can be slippery to hold.

The smaller S9 is 5.8 inch screen.

While the S9+ is a 6.2 inches display.

Both are super amulet panels with

2960 X 1440 pixels of resolution.

Both are really nice to look at with vibrant colors.

Sharp resolution and excellent viewing angles.

They're also slightly brighter this year

which is always appreciated if not always noticeable.

And they still remain the best displays you can get

on any Android phone.

They're even up to par with the screen on the iPhone 10.

Provided you don't mind slightly more saturated colors.

The S9 has the same fast wired

and wireless charge it had before.

The same IP 68 water resistance as before.

And the same 3.5 millimeter headphone jack as before.

And if you're looking for high end phone

with a headphone jack in 2018.

Your choices are fewer than ever.

So it's kind of great to see Samsung

stick with it for the S9.

The big design change is the placement

of the fingerprint scanner.

Which has been moved from the side of the camera

to just below it.

It's much easier to use than the S8.

Especially if you're using a larger plus model.

But it's still weirdly small and too close to the camera.

I frequently swipe on the camera lens

when I'm trying to use the fingerprint gesture

to see my notifications.

Which is kind of annoying.

And then of course there's that dreaded Bixby button

which is still there.

Still in the same spot just below the volume buttons

on the left side.

Now you can disable it from launching Bixby Now

which is progress.

But Samsung still doesn't provide a native way

to reprogram into something more useful.

Now at its worse, it's annoying.

And at it's best it's a little fidget button

that you can press without having to worry about

doing anything if you actually disable Bixby.

The other new hardware feature is stereo speakers.

Which basically catches Samsung up to

what everyone else has been doing for a couple of years.

They are noticeably louder and fuller

than the single speaker on the S8.

And they're really great for watching video.

So I'm not gonna say they're the best phone speakers

I've ever heard.

But they're still great and I'm happy to see them here.

The rest of the hardware improvements are all on the inside.

It's got Qualcomm's new Snapdragon E45 processor.

Either four or six gigabytes of RAM.

Depending on which model you choose.

And the new LTE modem that's of course

even faster at gigabytes speeds.

Those are specs we're gonna see

in virtually every Android flagship this year.

But Samsung is the first out of the gate with them.

Performance, at least during my review has been great.

Everything is really fast and responsive.

And the network performance is just as impressive

as last years and to be honest.

Noticeably better than the iPhones.

Though unchanged in the size of the battery

and the internal storage.

You get a 3,000 million power battery in the S9

and a 3,500 million power battery in the S9+.

Both of them has 64 gigs of storage

and micro SD card support.

I really would have liked to see Samsung

increase the battery size this year.

It's not to say that the battery life is bad

on either model.

But it's not the best you can get

and heavy users are gonna even deplete the S9+ battery

after a long day.

So despite all that sameness.

Samsung did upgrade one important aspect of the S9

and it did so in a pretty big way.

The S9 rear camera is all new.

It's got an improved sensor

and a new variable aperture lens.

That can physically switch between a really bright F1.5

and a smaller F2.4 aperture.

The S9+ gains a second telephoto lens

for portrait modes stuff like Samsung used

on the Note 8 last year.

On top of that everything is optically image state wise.

Samsung claims significant improvements

in low light photography over the S8 camera.

And it's true that the S9 definitely can take

some really great photos in low light.

The F1.5 aperture lets in more light

than last years F1.7 lens.

And the improved processing helps reduce noise overall.

And I'm less impressed with the switching aperture feature.

It feels more like a parlor trick than anything else.

Now since a digital camera can just compensate

its shutter speed for how much light is in the room.

I don't really ever feel like I would

ever need to shoot at F2.4.

Now if you're in the pro mode of the camera app

you can actually switch between the two modes.

So here for an example.

I shoot this image at 1.5.

And then I'm gonna shoot this image at 2.4.

And overall there really isn't much difference

between the two images.

The F1.5 is a slightly blurrier background than the F2.4.

Which has a little bit longer depth of feel.

But in terms of sharpness.

It really isn't any difference there.

So, I'm not sure why I would ever shoot

an F2.4 on this phone.

I'd probably just leave it at 1.5 and forget about it.

The S9+'s second telephoto lens is similarly gimmicky.

Samsung's live focus portrait mode

just isn't as good as Apple's or Google's

at separating a subject from the background.

And in challenging lighting conditions.

Image quality is kind of bad.

The S9 gives you 4K video at 60 frames per second

or slow motion 1080p video at 240 frames per second.

Which catches it up with what the iPhone can do.

Now both loads produce nice quality video.

But you have to make sure you have plenty of light

for the slow motion mode.

Where you'll see a lot of noise in the video.

Overall, the S9's camera is definitely improving

and it's very good on it's own.

But if you weren't a fan of Samsung's

image processing before.

You still won't like it now.

Sure, there's less noise than before

and the colors are pleasing.

But all of the images definitely have

Samsung's look to them.

Which is different to what Apple

or Google's camera produced.

At this point it really comes down to personal preference.

But it's definitely something to be aware of.

And I wish Samsung did spend some time on

is the front camera on the S9.

It's the same 8 megapixel camera as seen on the S8.

It does have auto focus which no other front camera

has yet to replicate.

But its portrait mode just isn't

as good as Google or Apple's.

So all of that stuff is great

and it's gonna keep the S9 at the top of phone rankings

for most of 2018.

But there's a ton of other things that Samsung

is pushing with the marketing for the S9 this year.

And to be honest, you'll probably never use them.

It's almost as if Samsung just couldn't help itself.

The first up is AR emoji.

Samsung's take on the iPhone 10's Animoji feature.

Here's how it works.

It scans your face and then it produces

a bit emoji character based on the hundred points

to your face that kind of maybe looks like you.

Then it takes this character and it creates

a bunch of reaction goes with it.

You can then send in messaging apps.

Then there's also some weird looking animals

that you can create video clips with.

That you can do with Animoji on the iPhone.

Now there's a couple of issues with Samsung's AR emoji.

First off, Samsung isn't using any special tactic

to capture your face or movement.

It's just relying on the camera.

So tracking is really bad.

Second, the characters it creates

are just the wrong kind of creepy.

And nobody I've tested it with

has been like that's something I like.

And then the animals on top of that are just kind of weird.

It's definitely something that Samsung built

just to compete with Apple and frankly it's not very good.

Now Samsung is also trying to ape

the iPhone 10 face ID with its new

intelligent scan feature.

It combines iris scanning and face protection

to unlock the phone.

But it's still slow and now it shines a bright red light

in your face when it scans.

Good thing there's a fingerprint scanner

that's easier to reach on the back

because it's faster and more reliable

than Samsung's face scanning option.

Next is a new super slow motion mode in the camera.

The S9 can shoot up to 960 frames per second.

Which sounds really neat.

But it can only do so for .2 seconds at a time

and only at 720p resolution.

There's two ways you can shoot it.

You can try to manually trigger it to

capture the .2 seconds of action you want.

Or you can use an automatic mode

that looks for a specific movement

in an area of the frame and then captures

slow movement and detects it.

But in practice both are really hard to use.

And they're really more frustrating than anything else.

Worse, you need a ton of light to make it work

and even if you have lots of light.

Image quality is kind of crappy.

And if that wasn't enough.

There's the awful music the app

overlays on the clip automatically if you don't bother

to edit it after the fact.

(slow music)

Now Bixby.

It's not new but it's still here and it's still bad.

It's got a fresh coat of paint

and it's slightly faster than before.

But it's still way slower than the Google Assistant

and it isn't as good at parsing my voice commands.

There's a couple of new features

like an integrated makeup store that let's you

try makeup out virtually and then buy it directly

from Sophora or Cover Girl.

But I really can't image anyone using that more than once.

Anyways, here's what I look like with a face full of makeup.

And then there's the perennial complaint

with Samsung's software.

Why are there so many duplicate apps?

The unlock the S9 that I've been testing