Verizon S9+
DISPLAY
Even better than the 8+. Not sure what folks are saying about lack of clean whites and brightness. Fantastic. Touch response also good.
SOUND
3.5 output noticeably louder than 8+. Great quality.
Speakers with Atmos turned on sound full and loud, with decent sound stage for a phone. Very good overall with movies and music. Better overall IMO than the XL2 and iX.
Speaker calls also seem fine.
SIGNAL RECEPTION
Equal to, or slightly better than the 8+. Not seeing a significant improvement that some report, but not seeing less either.
BLUETOOTH
Very stable and connects fast to my car audio, headphones and speakers tested with.
WIFI
Very stable and range seems very good.
SPEED
Faster than expected. Especially with emulators. Noticeably faster than the 835 version and throttling is less with Dolphin. Some MAME games like Dead or Alive ++ that were slightly choppy with the 8+ are arcade fast with the 9+.
HEAT
The 8+ never really got hot and the 9+ appears the same with the added bonus of less apparent throttling over sustained use with emulators. Emulators IMO are the ultimate test for strength of a chipset.
BATTERY LIFE
Seems the same so far as my 8+, which IMO is great. SOT for my heavy-ish use is 5.5 hours. Not sure what some reviews were doing in this regard to get low results. Usage is relative to the user of course, but point is same as the 8+.
CAMERA
I liked the pic quality of my 8+ and now even better with 9+ due to better low light pics and the optical zoom. Great. I didn’t do any video testing yet.
FM RADIO
Tested with Next Radio and it works.
COMMENTS
Updated with recent OTA release, disabled Bixby, uninstalled most stock apps and updated with Samsung transfer app. Took about one hour at Best Buy, but way better than starting from scratch. Would have took over five hours, but I deselected all large games like Asphalt, NOVA, etc. NOVA alone was 3GB.
I traded in my 8+ and got the launch $100 discount, so total off was $450. IMO, going from the 8+ to the 9+ was worth it, but can easily see why others might not. All depends on what you want out of a device
ADDED
I bought the Samsung silicon case while at Best Buy. Good protection, grip and I like how the bottom is open some. Retail was $30, but rang up as $24. I don’t use screen protectors. No scratches on my 8+ that I carried in my front pocket and had for a year. Gear VR would show the scratches if were any.
DISPLAY
Even better than the 8+. Not sure what folks are saying about lack of clean whites and brightness. Fantastic. Touch response also good.
SOUND
3.5 output noticeably louder than 8+. Great quality.
Speakers with Atmos turned on sound full and loud, with decent sound stage for a phone. Very good overall with movies and music. Better overall IMO than the XL2 and iX.
Speaker calls also seem fine.
SIGNAL RECEPTION
Equal to, or slightly better than the 8+. Not seeing a significant improvement that some report, but not seeing less either.
BLUETOOTH
Very stable and connects fast to my car audio, headphones and speakers tested with.
WIFI
Very stable and range seems very good.
SPEED
Faster than expected. Especially with emulators. Noticeably faster than the 835 version and throttling is less with Dolphin. Some MAME games like Dead or Alive ++ that were slightly choppy with the 8+ are arcade fast with the 9+.
HEAT
The 8+ never really got hot and the 9+ appears the same with the added bonus of less apparent throttling over sustained use with emulators. Emulators IMO are the ultimate test for strength of a chipset.
BATTERY LIFE
Seems the same so far as my 8+, which IMO is great. SOT for my heavy-ish use is 5.5 hours. Not sure what some reviews were doing in this regard to get low results. Usage is relative to the user of course, but point is same as the 8+.
CAMERA
I liked the pic quality of my 8+ and now even better with 9+ due to better low light pics and the optical zoom. Great. I didn’t do any video testing yet.
FM RADIO
Tested with Next Radio and it works.
COMMENTS
Updated with recent OTA release, disabled Bixby, uninstalled most stock apps and updated with Samsung transfer app. Took about one hour at Best Buy, but way better than starting from scratch. Would have took over five hours, but I deselected all large games like Asphalt, NOVA, etc. NOVA alone was 3GB.
I traded in my 8+ and got the launch $100 discount, so total off was $450. IMO, going from the 8+ to the 9+ was worth it, but can easily see why others might not. All depends on what you want out of a device
ADDED
I bought the Samsung silicon case while at Best Buy. Good protection, grip and I like how the bottom is open some. Retail was $30, but rang up as $24. I don’t use screen protectors. No scratches on my 8+ that I carried in my front pocket and had for a year. Gear VR would show the scratches if were any.
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