Samsung Galaxy S9 Pros and Cons

Samsung has launched Galaxy S9, and its arrival has been marked by mixed reactions. This is for the first time when people are confused about whether to appreciate company’s flagship offering or not. And that is because despite giving some of the best specifications to Galaxy S9 company has for the first time kept it unimproved in some major departments. As a result, there’re both serious pros and serious cons in this device. So it makes sense to take a look at both pros and cons of Samsung Galaxy S9. That’s what we’re gonna help you with. we’ll take a look on Samsung Galaxy S9 pros and cons in detail.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Pros

First of all, let’s take a look at the pros of Samsung Galaxy S9:

More Powerful Chipsets: The chipset choices made by Samsung for this smartphone are unsurprisingly the best available in market. Exynos 9810 is company’s latest and most powerful chipset, so it wasn’t surprising to see company choose it for its most high-end smartphone. In the US it will come with Snapdragon 845, which once again is the best mobile chipset available in the market.
Display: Galaxy S9 comes with the same display that’s present in Galaxy S8. It’s not a bad choice though, because even after an year of its launch Galaxy S8 has the best mobile display available in the market. Nice choice by Samsung.
Facial Recognition: In form of Intelligent Scan Galaxy S9 has also got its very own facial recognition feature. And technically it’s not just facial recognition alone – it’s a combination of iris scanning and facial recognition. And the best thing is that it’s faster than Apple’s Face ID or any other facial recognition/iris scanning system ever seen in any other smartphone.
Variable aperture camera lens: Samsung has been patting its own back with “camera reimagined” posters ever since it started talking about Galaxy S9. And that is because the company has added a variable aperture lens to this device, the first of its kind in any smartphone. The lens adjusts mechanically just like the lens of a DSLR to capture stunning images in any kind of lighting conditions.
AR Emojis: Samsung also provided its own answer to Apple’s Animojis while launching Galaxy S9. The S9 can make 3D animated emojis by scanning your face.
Stereo speakers: Samsung Galaxy S9 is also company’s first flagship smartphone to come with stereo speakers. The speakers, mounted on the top and bottom edges of the device, are louder than those in Galaxy S8 so you can hear them more easily.
Battery: Finally, Samsung Galaxy S9 can also be expected to offer improved battery life than any other Galaxy S smartphone launched till date. While battery capacity is still the same at 3,000 mAh, the more power efficient processors are likely to provide an improvement in battery life.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Cons

Now let’s examine the cons. Given below are some major shortcomings of this device:

4GB RAM: In this age when flagship smartphones are coming with 6GB and even 8GB of RAMs, Samsung decided to stick with 4GB in Galaxy S9. And while RAM capacities higher than 4GB don’t make too much of a difference in day-to-day operations of devices, they do make a difference in resource-hungry gaming and other similar tasks.
Single lens camera: The camera in Galaxy S9 is a single lens shooter. I don’t understand why would someone spending such a hefty amount on the smartphone want a single camera.
Less reliable face recognition: While it’s a great thing that Samsung has been successful in providing its own alternative to Apple’s Face ID, it has also been discovered that the solution developed by it is years behind Face ID in terms of security. Yes, it’s definitely faster than Face ID, but not more secure.

Verdict

In a nutshell, Samsung Galaxy S9 is a great flagship smartphone with some serious shortcomings. Among those shortcomings arguably the biggest one is its single-lens camera because when we spend as much as $720 for a smartphone we would certainly want it to look like that. Today dual-lens camera are found in mid-range smartphones even, so not many people would want a high-end flagship with single lens camera no matter what other fancy feature (variable aperture) is present in that camera. And then there’s the limitation of facial recognition not being as reliable and secure as Face ID!

However, if you’re okay with these two things then Samsung Galaxy S9 is still one of the best smartphones out in the market. The RAM thing is not problematic in day-to-day use, it may hurt only when you do a lot of gaming on the device. Also I’d like to tell you that its variable aperture camera can make photography under extreme lighting conditions (i.e. too bright or too dark) a much easy affair than it would otherwise be. So if you’re okay with not having two lenses on the back of your flagship smartphone, this is a great device. However, if you can afford and want something better, you’ll be much better off with Galaxy S9 Plus instead.