Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy S9+

Samsung has announced its new flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. While changes on the surface are pretty subtle, under the hood the new models offer a range of interesting features and functions.

With its dual-camera setup, the S9+ looks like the more appealing S9 model to mobile photographers. We've had the chance to take a closer look at the device during the launch event. Here's what you should know.

Subtle design changes

The S9 generation's design language is very similar to its predecessors, and with its rounded edges the new models are comfortable to hold. However, Samsung has made some refinements to refresh the devices' visual appeal and improve handling and operation.

Most importantly, the fingerprint sensor has been moved from next to the the camera lens to below the camera module, preventing any accidental touching and fingerprint-smearing of the latter.

In addition, the S9+'s 6.2-inch Super AMOLED display has been reinforced with thicker Corning Gorilla Glass 5, and both bezels and the screen itself come in a deeper black color to better conceal the iris sensor at the front and create a more minimalist look. Both S9 models are available in four colors: Midnight Black, Titanium Gray, Coral Blue, and Lilac Purple.

Dual-camera with tele-lens

While the S9 comes with a "traditional" single-lens camera, the S9+ is the first Samsung Galaxy S model to feature a dual-camera for improved zoom performance and a background-blurring portrait mode. Both cameras come with a 12MP pixel count and optical image stabilization.

The big news has to do with the wide angle lens on the main camera, which features a variable F1.5/F2.4 aperture and dual-pixel AF. The 2x tele-lens comes with a slower F2.4 aperture and has to make do without dual-pixel technology.

Super-slow motion video

Thanks to an integrated DRAM buffer in the imaging chip, the S9 models are capable of recording HD-resolution slow-motion footage at 960 frames per second for 0.2 seconds. When played back at 30 frames per second that translates into 6-second slow-motion clips.

Slow-motion clips can be saved as gif files and set as a background animation on the home screen. You can also "embed" up to 20 slow-motion segments into standard speed footage, creating much longer clips that only use the slow-motion effect at key moments.

Variable aperture

The aperture on the main camera automatically switches between a very fast F1.5 and a slower F2.4 value, depending on light conditions. In lower light, the large aperture is used in order to maximize light capture; in brighter conditions, the slightly slower F2.4 aperture can produce sharper images and a wider depth-of-field.

We suspect that, in very bright light, it is also used to underexpose individual frames that are then merged with brighter frames to generate HDR images through a computational imaging algorithm. This has not been confirmed by Samsung, however.

AR Emojis

The new AR Emoji function isn't about serious photography, but can be fun to play with regardless. In AR Emoji mode, your face is turned into a cartoon-style emoji as soon as it is detected by the front camera's face detection. Taking off any eyewear or headgear tends to help.

Your emoji can then be animated using facial expressions. Once you are happy with the result, you can save up to 18 personalized animated emojis and use them in the usual way in apps such as Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger. The good news is that they can be shared with users of any smartphone, not just Samsung Galaxy models.

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