This explains the economic success of certain brands, of certain product lines that would not need updates every 6 or 10 months but could be good, a little in all contexts, already like this. To say that the Samsung Galaxy and the Apple iPhones, just to remain among the symbols of our times, are bought under an emotional push, as a search for precise values, never behind a factual reasoning. Their living on the intersubjective level (they are important because we, so many subjects, make them such) makes them a social phenomenon and, therefore, something that goes beyond pure technical reasoning.
And there’s nothing wrong with that, God forbid. “People work and indulge in whims”, whether it’s the most precious smartphone of the moment, whether it’s limited edition shoes, whether it’s Cracco’s strange pizza margherita (which, at least to me, reminds me of a large shoe with sauce of tomato; by eye, quite good).
To say that judging a Samsung Galaxy S9 is as difficult as judging the reasons that drive you to look for and buy it. You can do a technical analysis, come up with an assessment based on what it should do and what it actually does, and then compare the result with similar ones, perhaps trying to advise well. And that’s what I’m trying to do here. Let’s start with the technical analysis, precisely from the screen.
Samsung Galaxy S9: display analysis
It’s a 5.8-inch SAMOLED with curved edges and an 18.5: 9 aspect ratio, so smaller than the S9 Plus while maintaining the same 2960 x 1440 px resolution. But you already know this. Just like the S8, the Samsung Galaxy S9 panel is flashy and impressive. Flashy because it comes in your hands with ” Adaptive Mode ” activated. This adjustment of contrast, color saturation and white point gives you images that are always saturated and vibrant but without pumping them to the unreal.
The “adaptive” effect goes well with a little bit of everything: from Netflix HDR videos , to Instagram photos that are not too bright, to web pages with a white temperature close to yellow, warm and restful. It’s not purist stuff, of course: the DeltaE values in the graphs below mean results that are not at all faithful to reality – but who needs this nit-picking (because they have to send a photo to the customer to be published on the web, so sRGB, and want to see things will be once loaded on the browser) can change profile. Samsung pre-installs: Basic, AMOLED Cinema and AMOLED Photos, very close to sRGB , DCI-P3 and AdobeRGB respectively.
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I recommend that the common user leave it in “Adaptive Mode” and maybe adjust the RGB values if the screen should appear just yellow or just blue, trusting personal taste and our unique color theory. Too bad that these adjustments are not possible with the other modes.
Once the flashy has been clarified, the impressive remains. Although the maximum brightness of Galaxy S9 can exceed 1100 nits in a portion of the screen, under certain software commands, in order to accommodate the HDR dynamic range, everyday use brings it to 320 nits indoors and 450 nits in outside , under the sun. This is what I was able to measure. It seems that the S9 Plus may have a better cue (about 500 nits) but it is not my evaluation and I do not know the modalities of that reading.
320-450 nits is not the best brightness in the smartphone category; The Sony Xperia XA2 comes in at 545 nits , so to speak, and there are products like the OnePlus 5T and Pixel 2XL stable above 500 nits. Why then “impressive”. Because Samsung’s adjustments mean that a little additional brightness (not quantifiable because analyzing with the probe in full sun would falsify the same test) comes out outdoors, in full sun, with an effect similar to the transflective displays of certain smartwatches . You take an S9 out of your pocket when you are on the road and you see it light up a little more . It is a satisfying feeling.
Samsung Galaxy S9: autonomy
Attention that is also needed in autonomy. The battery is small (3000 mAh, 11.55 Wh) and our edition with Exynos 9810 has a significant consumption even when the phone is stopped. How many? 2.4% per hour in my tests, in Wi-Fi, with the screen off and Always On deactivated. I think it is a scenario commonly used by those who arrive at the office or at home, put the phone on the desk, and start doing other things. While it can’t be called a real standby draining, it’s a lot, it’s too much on a modern platform as Samsung’s latest should be. Also for this reason it will be difficult to get through the days of use with the Galaxy S9.
I arrive at 11pm when I don’t get much more than two hours of screen time. If you double the use around four hours of screen, the S9 struggles to make it to dinner. In our LIVE battery on Saturday 14 April at the Formula E GP in Rome , it went off at 4.40pm. It can be an extreme and not very credible case (because in a similar context everyone would give a little charge towards lunch, or would activate the energy saving modes) but it makes us understand how things can get badly. Galaxy S9 does not improve the autonomy of the S8 , and this is probably its real compromise.
There are ways to improve autonomy . Deactivating the Always on Display is the most trivial, but also activating the Energy Saving , leaving the factory resolution, and listening to the suggestions on the optimization of the apps that, from time to time, our S9 offers on the screen. They are not complicated or demanding operations. I believe that most users can use the phone in conservative mode (low CPU performance, -10% screen brightness, limited background data) without noticing the differences. The fact remains that a boost at lunch is good for him as it is good for us.
Samsung Galaxy S9: cameras and sensors
Anyone who is not interested in these speeches can still rejoice. Samsung Galaxy S9 runs great and is a smooth and responsive phone most of the time. It has the fastest UFS memory in its class. The Samsung interface is accurate and powerful (in terms of the number of options and how much these can affect the behavior of the system) and it is not those uncertainties, those drops in the framerate just mentioned, that make the difference. I come from a slim phone like the OnePlus 5T with its 8 GB of RAM: I notice the difference but I’m not sure I want to go back by giving up the options offered by Samsung. It’s a matter of preference but I see more balance here, as well as a more flexible, more ready-for-all device. The nastiness, perhaps, was inserting only 4 GB of RAM instead of helping everything with the S9 Plus’ 6GB of RAM.
There is more. PPG heart rate monitor is credible, so you can use it on HRV4Training and the like. The HDMI mode is activated even without the Dex base, but it is a simple clone screen via USB-C: it is convenient for home or to watch a movie, but often also only the Smart View, or sending the signal via wireless, solves things. The Exynos SoC decodes and encodes H.265 and VP9 up to 4K 10-bit at 120 fps , so you can put it to good use. There is the double account, Samsung Pay with NFC, the personal area for the protection of certain data, the IP68 certification for water and dust, and that sort of 3D Touch to simulate the front fingerprint reader. Impossible to mention all the items in the Samsung menu; from this point of view.
I have talked a lot about the cameras and the compromises of the stereo sound system in the video. The slow-motion at 960 fps (0.2 seconds which becomes 6) is fun and even manages to be instructive, but we must not forget the classic 1080p at 240 fps, more concrete for sports shooting and analysis of everything related to human movement and animal; 960 fps is more a matter of particles. I appreciated the behavior in the dark of the noise reduction algorithm (12 shots processed on different channels and joined in the final photo; according to the company, the yield is improved by 30% compared to the standard calculation). Very few digital facets with a little blur as a disadvantage, however visible only in the zoom shots.
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If you then look at these images on the display of the same phone, then it makes very little sense to discuss them; will always be beautiful photos. Rather, you worry about the correct composition or to find subjects worthy of attention. “Beautiful photos are taken with the legs”, as Salvatore teaches .
I might have wanted a less pronounced HDR effect in automatic mode, because it happens that part of the sky burns to let out the leaves of a tree or the dark facade of a building. Also, light aside, I found no differences between the shots at f / 1.5 and f / 2.4. Sometimes the former seem sharper to me than the latter, even with the same shutter speeds. I believe that the decisive aspects on the S9 are others. You could think about these differences by paragraphs but I think it is more productive to focus on something else and evaluate the Galaxy S9 cameras as quality products – from this year also in the dark – in the smartphone category.
Final remarks
Samsung Galaxy S9 is a smartphone to choose and prefer for the reasons we have talked about. S9 Plus ensures a better investment in autonomy, performance and cameras, but does not detract from the performance of the smallest. Display, cameras, audio, connectivity, everyday functions such as the hybrid unlock (iris + face + rear sensor) and the customization options of the Samsung interface, make it a device that satisfies from the first impression. It can be ideal, as long as you don’t expect to get there comfortably in the evening. It is above all a matter of priority: design and size, or a lot of battery? I, I admit, haven’t decided yet.
