Last year, it was the Romanian division of wireless carrier Orange that leaked the Galaxy Note 8 images just days before its official launch. This time, Orange Romania briefly listed the Galaxy S9 product page on its official website (via Forbes). The listing has since been taken down, but you can still view the original details thanks to caching. Tons of Galaxy S9 details have leaked out in the last few months, and the listing on the official site of one of Samsung’s partners confirms many of the Galaxy S9’s rumored features and specs.
According to the Orange Romania listing, the Galaxy S9 would sport a 5.8-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED ‘Infinity Display’. The product page also mentioned the force touch, but it might simply be referring to the device’s home key, which was also the case with the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. The upcoming flagship will support Bluetooth, WiFi, 4G+, and GPS.
Forbes contributor Gordon Kelly speculates one of the reasons Orange Romania might have taken down the product page is the factual errors in the listing. Orange Romania claimed the Galaxy S9 would be powered by Exynos 8895 chipset, the same processor found inside the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8. However, the Galaxy S9 will in all likelihood run the newest Exynos 9810 SoC. It also claimed that the device would feature 3D Touch, but the phone is unlikely to have a pressure sensitive display.
Orange Romania’s product page also confirmed that the Galaxy S9 would ship with a Dual Pixel 12-megapixel rear camera. It will have a variable aperture of f/1.5 to f/2.4. Samsung will include the dual camera setup only on the larger (and more expensive) Galaxy S9 Plus. The company will further differentiate the two models by adding a higher 6GB RAM in the S9 Plus while the S9 would pack only 4GB RAM.
The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus will have a metal and glass body. Leaked images have confirmed that both the models will have the fingerprint scanner below the rear camera module. The phones will run Android Oreo with Samsung Experience 9.0 UI on top of it. Pictures shared by reliable tipster Evan Blass suggest that the Galaxy S9 will retain the 3.5mm headphone jack and the Bixby button.
Blass added that Samsung would also launch a new DeX Pad with the Galaxy S9 at the Mobile World Congress (MWC). The new DeX Pad can be used to turn your Galaxy S9 into a computer by connecting it to a keyboard, monitor, and mouse. The DeX Pad will hold the smartphone flat, meaning you can use the phone’s screen as a touchpad. The new DeX will have a USB-C port, two USB-A ports, and an HDMI port.
Samsung is set to unveil the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus on February 25 in Barcelona, a day before the MWC kicks off. The new phones will be powered by Exynos 9810 or Snapdragon 845 depending on the region. Samsung is expected to start accepting pre-orders on March 1st before bringing it to the market on March 16th. According to ETNews, the Galaxy S9 will cost $875 to $925 in South Korea. It means the upcoming flagship will be more expensive than Galaxy S8, which had a starting price of $720.
The Galaxy S9 will be the first smartphone to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845, which is much more powerful than the Snapdragon 835. The chipmaker recently invited a bunch of journalists to test the Snapdragon 845 processor on a reference phone. The results show that the Snapdragon 845-powered Galaxy S9 will be a beast. According to CNET, the reference phone running Snapdragon 845 was 26% faster than Galaxy Note 8 on AnTuTu benchmark and 27% faster on Geekbench.
The results corroborate benchmark results recently leaked by Ice Universe. A screenshot posted by Ice Universe showed that the Galaxy S9 running Snapdragon 845 scored 2,378 in single-core and 8,132 points in multi-core tests on Geekbench. It represents roughly 27% improvement over last year’s Galaxy S8, which had received a score of 1954 in single-core and 6429 in multi-core tests. Ice Universe expects the Exynos 9810 variant of Galaxy S9 to perform even better than the Snapdragon version.
If these benchmark results are accurate, the Galaxy S9 will not be as powerful as Apple’s iPhone X. The 10th anniversary iPhone had scored 4,197 points in single-core and 10,051 points in multi-core tests on Geekbench. It’s worth mentioning that benchmark results don’t always reflect the real world performance of a device.
