Samsung Galaxy S9: Rumors about 2018's first Android superphone

Samsung set the bar for flagship smartphones early in 2017 with its stunning Galaxy S8 and there's no doubt the South Korean tech powerhouse is looking to do the same in 2018.

The company announced the S8 in March, which caught some off-guard as it traditionally reveals its new phones at the Mobile World Congress tech conference in February.

Providing this year was a one-off, we could be seeing the Samsung Galaxy S9 in as little as three months time.

There's been no official word from Samsung, but plenty of rumors are already circulating on the internet. Alongside the Google Pixel, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has emerged as a bona fide alternative to Apple's iPhone 8 and iPhone X phones.

Samsung was the first company to experiment with an edge-to-edge display as well as face-scanning unlock features. Other aspects of its phones, like the Bixby personal assistant, have failed to take off.

But it's highly likely that the new Galaxy S9 will pack in plenty of interesting features - but it won't be cheap.

Here's everything we know about it so far.

Release date

As mentioned, we expect the Samsung Galaxy S9 to be revealed sometime around February or March of next year. It's almost certainly going to be shown off at a glitzy Samsung "Unpacked" event.

Whether that's going to be at Mobile World Congress or a dedicated Samsung event remains to be seen.

Even after the phone's been announced, it usually takes a few weeks before it actually lands in the shops. To be conservative, we'd estimate the Samsung Galaxy S9 appearing around the end of March or the beginning of April next year.

One intriguing rumor is that the phone could launch in January - due to the fact that Samsung's engineers started work earlier than usual on the phone's OLED display. We're treating this with a huge pinch of salt as it's unlikely that many customers will rush to buy a brand new phone in January.

Price

Don't expect the Samsung Galaxy S9 to be a cheap gadget. The current lowest-price S8 will still set you back £689.

It's highly unlikely that Samsung will drop the price for its newer phone so you can expect it to cost at least that. What remains to be seen is whether the company will match Apple with a phone costing over £1,000 once you get the higher specs.

Design

Samsung's all-screen Galaxy S8 won plenty of praise when it was released so it's highly unlikely to change the design in any kind of meaningful way.

However, an early render (above) appears to show the company has changed the biggest annoyance with the S8 by moving the fingerprint scanner further down the body of the phone within easier reach of your fingertip.

What's more, the image shows a dual-lens camera. Samsung introduced this feature with the recent Galaxy Note 8 so it's not surprising to see it carried over to the Samsung Galaxy S9.

As has become customary, we can probably expect two different versions of the S9; a regular model and a larger "S9 Plus" model.

Specs

If the outward design remains unchanged, the story won't be the same on the inside of the phone. Samsung will no doubt up to the processor and, possibly, the RAM and storage space to try and make the new model more attractive.

However, according to a post on BGR, leaked specs from the new phone show that it fails to stack up against the iPhone X.

The post suggests it will boast a new octa-core Exynos chip with 4GB of RAM and the latest version of Android. But supposed benchmarks of the new phone didn't match what the iPhone X can achieve.

Samsung may, of course, tweak this before the launch and still has months left to fine-tune, so it's unlikely that this won't be one of the most powerful phones on the market when it finally appears.

Features

Samsung doesn't shy away from packing its phones with the latest features. This year we saw the Iris Unlock and the introduction of the Bixby personal assistant as well as the unique DeX station that turned the phone into a fully-fledged computer.

None of those really took to the mainstream but Samsung will likely push them even further next year.