Samsung Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+ to Be Previewed at CES 2018: Report

While the tech world is busy in testing out the iPhone X and comparing its features with Samsung's Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, the South Korean manufacturer's anticipated Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones are now reported to debut at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January. The Galaxy S9+ will be the only one of the two to feature a dual-camera setup like the Galaxy Note 8, while the Galaxy S9 would have some significant upgrades over the last year's Galaxy S8.

Evan Blass of VentureBeat, famous as tipster @evleaks on Twitter, claims that Samsung is set to bring the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ at the CES for their first public appearance, though both the smartphones would be launched formally in March. Companies like LG, Samsung, and Sony have so far leveraged CES to showcase their new products, but premium smartphones often emerge the showstoppers at Mobile World Congress, which takes place in February in Barcelona, Spain. However, this time, Samsung appears to be planning to create some hype by offering a cameo of its next two flagships in Las Vegas.

Blass reports that the Galaxy S9 series will be "nearly identical" to their predecessors and will include some hardware upgrades. Among the two, the Galaxy S9 is reportedly codenamed Star 1 and will be available with model number SM-G960, whereas the Galaxy S9+ is said to be codenamed Star 2 and will go live with model number SM-G965. Samsung is said to offer a 5.8-inch and a 6.2-inch curved-edge Super AMOLED "Infinity" display panel on the new Galaxy S9 line - similar to the Galaxy S8 family that was launched back in March. The company is likely to deploy Qualcomm's 10nm fabrication process based Snapdragon 845 SoC on the US versions of the Galaxy S9 range, while the global versions would have a similarly fabricated Exynos chip - this may be the Samsung Exynos 9810 SoC that it recently launched, based on a 10nm FinFET process.

Both the new Samsung Galaxy S-Series models are rumoured to have vertically-aligned elements on the back, including a fingerprint scanner on the bottom. Further, the handsets are reported to include AKG stereo speakers.

Blass claims that unlike the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ that had similar specifications except different screen sizes, Samsung is this time improving the experience on the bigger screen-featuring Galaxy S9+ by adding a dual-camera setup. The larger version is also said to have 6GB RAM compared to the 4GB RAM available on the current generation Galaxy S-Series flagships. These changes would make the Galaxy S9+ a bit closer to the Galaxy Note 8 that was arrived with similar optics and identical memory earlier this year. Moreover, despite the few upgrades, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ both are claimed to have 64GB of onboard storage, coupled with a microSD card, but without a 3.5mm audio jack.

According to some earlier reports, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ would come with some software tweaks to match Apple's Face ID and deliver speedier facial recognition than the Galaxy S8 lineup. A case leaked earlier this week even showcased the presence of two camera sensors on the upcoming Galaxy flagship.