Samsung Galaxy S9

The Samsung Galaxy S9 ($719.99 as tested) isn't radical. It's better than the Galaxy S8 in a lot of small ways. None of them are big enough to make you toss out your S8 for an S9, though they all add up to the most powerful one-handed phone currently available. But the larger Samsung Galaxy S9+ has some key advantages that make it our Editor's Choice for smartphones right now.

Sizing Up the Competition

Make no mistake: I love the Samsung Galaxy S8. It's been my daily driver for a while. For years now, I've championed the cause of smaller phones, pointing out that keeping phones narrow is key to one-handed use. The Galaxy S9, at almost the same size as the Galaxy S8, remains comfortable in one hand while updating Samsung's specs to this year's processor, camera, and modem.

For details on most of the Galaxy S9 experience, see our in-depth review of the Galaxy S9+. We're going to focus here on what makes the Galaxy S9 and S9+ different, and that isn't usually in the Galaxy S9's favor.

The Galaxy S9 measures 5.8 by 2.7 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.8 ounces. The Galaxy S9+ measures 6.2 by 2.9 by 0.3 inches and weighs 6.7 ounces. Both are slightly shorter, wider, and heavier than their predecessors (respectively 5.9 by 2.7 by 0.3 and 5.5 ounces, and 6.3 by 2.9 by 0.3 inches and weighs 6.1 ounces), but not so much that you notice.

View All 12 Photos in Gallery

The most important number to consider when choosing your Galaxy is 0.21-inch. That's how much wider the Galaxy S9+ is compared with the S9 (it's also 0.92-ounce heavier), and that can make a real difference when it comes to reaching your thumb all the way across the screen. I've stuck for a while with the idea (from an old LG study) that the average thumb can reach across a 2.8-inch wide phone. The Galaxy S9 and S9+ fall just on either side of that line, which can matter for comfort.

If size was the only factor, I'd say go with the more comfortable S9, just as I said to go with the S8 over the S8+. But Samsung has made its larger phone more powerful this year, which tips the scales.

What's Different, What Isn't?

It might surprise you to know that the S9's screen and speakers function the same as the larger phone. The S9's 5.8-inch screen has the same 2,560-by-1,440 resolution as the S9+, and the dual speakers (one in the earpiece, one on the bottom) put out the same 90db of pink noise at six inches, 6db better than the Galaxy S8.

The Galaxy S9, like the S9+, sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset that benchmarks the fastest we've seen so far of any Android phone. It also supports every band and carrier aggregation combination used by US carriers today, just like the S9+. That's going to make a huge performance difference for people on older phones that don't have, for example, the rural Band 71 on T-Mobile or speedy 4x4 MIMO on Sprint. Actual benchmarks between the S9 and S9+ come out pretty much the same, but they don't tell quite the whole performance story.

See How We Test Phones

That's because the S9+ has 6GB of RAM while the S9 has 4GB. Now, they both have a lot of RAM. But the S9+ will let you cycle through more apps without losing your state. We found the dividing line to be at about seven apps. Loading five apps in a row and cycling, the phones performed the same. But loading seven apps in a row, and then cycling back to the first one, the second app demanded that I log in again and then the rest of them appeared a little bit slower on the S9 because they had to restore themselves from flash storage rather than RAM.

Left to right: Samsung Galaxy S9+, Samsung Galaxy S9

The Galaxy S9 has a smaller battery than the S9+ (3,000mAh to 3,500mAh), but so far it hasn't shown all that much of a difference as we've tested the two devices. Both devices streamed our sample YouTube video for about 10 hours before giving out, which is a very good result. Both devices leaked approximately one percent of battery per hour over the course of two days in standby mode.

We were surprised to see better Wi-Fi performance in weak signal conditions on the S9+ than on the S9. Perhaps the S9+ has slightly better-separated antennas, but at the edge of our 5GHz Wi-Fi bubble, we got 12Mbps down with the larger phone when we got 2 to 4Mbps down with the smaller one.

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ have the same 8-megapixel front-facing camera and 12-megapixel main camera, which has a physical aperture that can change from f/2.4 to f/1.5. In our extensive photo tests, we found that the S9 has the best camera phone hardware and Raw images available, but that the overaggressive sharpening in its JPG encoding software makes images a little less appealing than those from the Galaxy Note 8 or the Google Pixel 2 XL. Below, you can see how standard images taken with the S9 and S9+ are pretty much the same.

The Galaxy S9 subtracts the S9+'s second rear camera, though, which is a 50mm-equivalent, f/2.4 camera that people are calling "2x zoom" because that's easy to understand. The value of a 2x zoom lens should be pretty clear to anyone who zooms in on photos, but just in case, take a look at these pixel-by-pixel crops of a shot taken with the digital zoom on the S9 and the 2x zoom lens on the S9+.

Price and Comparisons

The Galaxy S9 costs $719.99 to $799.99, depending on where you buy it. The Galaxy S9+ costs $839.99 to $929.99. So that's a difference of about $120 for the 2x camera, bigger battery, potentially better Wi-Fi performance, and more RAM. If you want to use the zoom at all, the camera is worth the extrea money.

Choose the Galaxy S9 if you want the phone's premiere radio performance in a more compact size. I'd also keep an eye out for the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact if you're on AT&T or T-Mobile. It's even smaller than the S9, but it will have slower LTE connections, a lower-resolution screen, and no headphone jack, and we don't know how much it will cost.

The Galaxy S8 was the best phone of 2017. The Galaxy S9 is a little better. The Galaxy S9+ is even better. It's up to you whether the size and cost are worth the power: For us, they are.

‏Source www.pcmag.com