Hey everybody! I got my S9+ on Tuesday and so far so good. I was coming from an iPhone X and Pixel 2 XL (both used a little bit for the past four months) and am coming out pretty impressed so far with how the phone handles and the new features and improvements. Lets get into it!
Likes
Hardware: First let me give a big thank you to Samsung for listening to fans and moving that FP sensor! Aside from that, and the camera on the S9+ being 2 and vertical, it's the same great design of the S8+. The bezel is smaller I guess but I don't notice much, it is much smaller than the Pixel 2 XL and the screen is also about a million times better. I didn't have screen issues with my Pixel, but the quality wasn't great during darker scenes on a movie or video and I got a weird scrolling issue that I had on the two devices that make everything stretch out as I was scrolling and none of that is even remotely present on this display. The speakers are LOUD and sound pretty durned good for my tastes.
Software: I must say this UI is largely the same but with the added benefits of Oreo coming out of the box (instead of an update like with the S8 and Note 8) and it runs smoothly on the SD845. The add ons like Bixby and S Pay work well with S Pay being a star for me. I love getting rewards for using it and it works in a surprising amount of places that Apple Pay and Google Pay don't work. I haven't seen ANY lag at all which is awesome because I noticed a teeny bit on my Note and S8 even straight out of the box. Well done Sam.
Camera: This is supposed to be the key improvement this year right? Live Focus works well, not quite up to par with whatever the heck Google did with their software but the bokeh looks good most of the time, it's faster than Apple's Portrait Mode by a fairly wide margin and it also allows for editing of the bokeh and the blurriness of the background which is cool to me. The video on this phone looks great, especially in 4K when viewed on a 4K display (like my Samsung 55" 8800 series in my living room, yes I'm bragging on my display) and is stabilized well and has good sound. The front camera is even pretty decent, though I don't do selfies, I don't like looking at myself a whole lot. The super slow-mo is...cool? Idk I haven't been able to get a good video of something that I want to see going that slow yet. I do love the UI better than the Pixel Camera. I feel like Apple had it right with the whole swipe to get to different modes and Samsung copied them and it works for me, others may disagree though and thats cool too!
Battery: This one is harder. So day one was setup, obviously the battery went to crap quick with downloading apps, setting up accounts, etc. Day two was a mixed bag but I was also trying to use that horrible Smart Switch to try and drag some stuff off of my iPhone and Pixel, more on that in a minute. Since then though my battery went 12 hours and had 3.5 SOT and my battery was at 38% when I went to bed last night. It is sitting on 82% right now after almost 3.5 hours and about 1.5 SOT so I'm fine with it. It also charges quick, duh, and that makes it draining not a bit deal at all to me. For reference I watch a lot of YouTube and Twitch, stream music and audio ALL DAY at work, like 8 hours+ with the IconX 2018 and I also tend to text, talk on the phone and more quite a lot throughout the day. I don't hold the phone back from anything so everything is syncing in the default manner and I have a lot of location services turned on as well. Basically, I use it, it never dies during the day and I top off at night like most people.
Intangibles/Misc: I love all of the stuff Samsung still crams into their stuff. Headphone jack, wireless charging, expandable storage, FP scanner, facial detection, iris scanning, Always On Display, variable Aperture, stereo speakers, HDR display, etc. etc. etc. phew! That's a lot of stuff and it all works great and makes it for probably the most well rounded phone available every year.
Dislikes:
None
.
.
.
Okay just kidding there are a couple.
Bluetooth: Randomly cuts out for a second and scares me to death when it does because it makes a loud sound in one, or both, ear buds. Kind of a bummer but every phone I have had recently does something weird with BT so not too awful.
FP scanner is still a little bit close to the camera. I've rubbed the camera a few times in the 2+ days and I feel like maybe the camera being in the corner of the back instead of right next to the scanner would help. Still way better than last year though.
Bixby button: Nuf said
This last one is more of a complaint in general about earbuds and my ears too but nobody makes comfy earbuds for my ear shape. AirPods legitimately made me bleed, Pixel Buds were super uncomfortable, and the IconX are the best fit for me so far but also kind of hurt when I remove them. Luckily, unlike the previous 2, that pain goes away quickly, but it is still weird to me. Not really anyone's fault, just wanted to place it here.
So all in all a great showing by Samsung for the S9. I'd like to say I'll hold onto it for awhile but I know myself. I do think that it is incredibly solid and a worthy successor to the S8 and Note 8 as it ticks all the boxes and then some and offers improvements over the previous year. For those wondering, if you have an S8+ and it is still running well, keep it. The S9 is awesome but I wouldn't say it's enough to upgrade from last year's phone.
Hope you guys likes my initial impressions! Sound off below with your impressions, I'd love to read them.
Likes
Hardware: First let me give a big thank you to Samsung for listening to fans and moving that FP sensor! Aside from that, and the camera on the S9+ being 2 and vertical, it's the same great design of the S8+. The bezel is smaller I guess but I don't notice much, it is much smaller than the Pixel 2 XL and the screen is also about a million times better. I didn't have screen issues with my Pixel, but the quality wasn't great during darker scenes on a movie or video and I got a weird scrolling issue that I had on the two devices that make everything stretch out as I was scrolling and none of that is even remotely present on this display. The speakers are LOUD and sound pretty durned good for my tastes.
Software: I must say this UI is largely the same but with the added benefits of Oreo coming out of the box (instead of an update like with the S8 and Note 8) and it runs smoothly on the SD845. The add ons like Bixby and S Pay work well with S Pay being a star for me. I love getting rewards for using it and it works in a surprising amount of places that Apple Pay and Google Pay don't work. I haven't seen ANY lag at all which is awesome because I noticed a teeny bit on my Note and S8 even straight out of the box. Well done Sam.
Camera: This is supposed to be the key improvement this year right? Live Focus works well, not quite up to par with whatever the heck Google did with their software but the bokeh looks good most of the time, it's faster than Apple's Portrait Mode by a fairly wide margin and it also allows for editing of the bokeh and the blurriness of the background which is cool to me. The video on this phone looks great, especially in 4K when viewed on a 4K display (like my Samsung 55" 8800 series in my living room, yes I'm bragging on my display) and is stabilized well and has good sound. The front camera is even pretty decent, though I don't do selfies, I don't like looking at myself a whole lot. The super slow-mo is...cool? Idk I haven't been able to get a good video of something that I want to see going that slow yet. I do love the UI better than the Pixel Camera. I feel like Apple had it right with the whole swipe to get to different modes and Samsung copied them and it works for me, others may disagree though and thats cool too!
Battery: This one is harder. So day one was setup, obviously the battery went to crap quick with downloading apps, setting up accounts, etc. Day two was a mixed bag but I was also trying to use that horrible Smart Switch to try and drag some stuff off of my iPhone and Pixel, more on that in a minute. Since then though my battery went 12 hours and had 3.5 SOT and my battery was at 38% when I went to bed last night. It is sitting on 82% right now after almost 3.5 hours and about 1.5 SOT so I'm fine with it. It also charges quick, duh, and that makes it draining not a bit deal at all to me. For reference I watch a lot of YouTube and Twitch, stream music and audio ALL DAY at work, like 8 hours+ with the IconX 2018 and I also tend to text, talk on the phone and more quite a lot throughout the day. I don't hold the phone back from anything so everything is syncing in the default manner and I have a lot of location services turned on as well. Basically, I use it, it never dies during the day and I top off at night like most people.
Intangibles/Misc: I love all of the stuff Samsung still crams into their stuff. Headphone jack, wireless charging, expandable storage, FP scanner, facial detection, iris scanning, Always On Display, variable Aperture, stereo speakers, HDR display, etc. etc. etc. phew! That's a lot of stuff and it all works great and makes it for probably the most well rounded phone available every year.
Dislikes:
None
.
.
.
Okay just kidding there are a couple.
Bluetooth: Randomly cuts out for a second and scares me to death when it does because it makes a loud sound in one, or both, ear buds. Kind of a bummer but every phone I have had recently does something weird with BT so not too awful.
FP scanner is still a little bit close to the camera. I've rubbed the camera a few times in the 2+ days and I feel like maybe the camera being in the corner of the back instead of right next to the scanner would help. Still way better than last year though.
Bixby button: Nuf said
This last one is more of a complaint in general about earbuds and my ears too but nobody makes comfy earbuds for my ear shape. AirPods legitimately made me bleed, Pixel Buds were super uncomfortable, and the IconX are the best fit for me so far but also kind of hurt when I remove them. Luckily, unlike the previous 2, that pain goes away quickly, but it is still weird to me. Not really anyone's fault, just wanted to place it here.
So all in all a great showing by Samsung for the S9. I'd like to say I'll hold onto it for awhile but I know myself. I do think that it is incredibly solid and a worthy successor to the S8 and Note 8 as it ticks all the boxes and then some and offers improvements over the previous year. For those wondering, if you have an S8+ and it is still running well, keep it. The S9 is awesome but I wouldn't say it's enough to upgrade from last year's phone.
Hope you guys likes my initial impressions! Sound off below with your impressions, I'd love to read them.
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