A series of leaks indicate the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ will sport smarter facial recognition, 3D stickers and more camera-centric features, while the design will mostly remain unchanged.
The weekend saw a series of leaks about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9 revealing more details about the flagship phone. While Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ will be launching at the sidelines of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 25th, serial leakster Evan Blass has posted photos of the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ on Twitter. By the looks of it, the design will remain mostly unchanged from their respective predecessors, but more leaks from other sources indicate the flagship devices will have more than what meets the eye.
Finally, here are the rear component layouts: pic.twitter.com/r8GYVbzt44
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 26, 2018
Going by the leaked renders of the phone, the Galaxy S9 will have even smaller side bezels and a thinner lower chin. The renders even confirm that the smaller Galaxy S9 will have a single camera module at the back while the Galaxy S9+ will have a dual-camera setup. The fingerprint sensor will not be axed. Instead, it will find a new home under the camera module, unlike last year when the positioning of the fingerprint sensor was really problematic.
Finally, here are the rear component layouts: pic.twitter.com/r8GYVbzt44
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 26, 2018
Furthermore, folks over at SamCentral dug through the Android Oreo Beta Update for the Galaxy Note 8 and found mentions of a new feature called, ‘Intelligent Scan’ which essentially combines facial recognition and Iris scanning to provide a more robust and secure way of authenticating. It is likely the answer to Apple’s FaceID. The beta build also comes with a text and an animation, explaining the feature. The text states that the two technologies work “together for better results even in low or very bright light,” and for “better accuracy and security”.
You can watch the animation below.
If this is indeed the case, Samsung may have found the best way to implement facial recognition on a phone. The two technologies are already existing on the previous Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8 and Samsung can retroactively activate the feature on the older flagships.
However, considering how there is no mention of a 3D mapping dot projector, it could lose out on the accuracy of Apple’s FaceID.
Moreover, the teardown reveals the Galaxy S9+ will come with support for 3D stickers and a new feature called Tag Shot. The depth-sensing module on the larger flagship will allow users to place and adjust the depth of stickers and images while Tag Shot will let you take pictures and tag them with the current location, weather information and the likes.
A text in the beta update states, “This camera mode will attach, embed, and store geographical location data and weather information within each picture that you take. Use caution when you send, share, distribute, transmit, or copy these pictures since they contain information about where the picture was taken.”
There are further mentions of features called Smart Stay and Smart Rotation. Smart Stay will keep the phone on if you’re looking at it by using the front camera. The feature already exists in the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8. Smart Rotation will maintain the screen orientation of the device depending on the content of the screen. This feature existed in older Galaxy flagships but was absent in the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8. It is likely that the feature will make a comeback and leverage machine learning to implement it.
The Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ is expected to be powered by the latest Exynos 9810 chipset and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 (in select regions) coupled with 6GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. Samsung has teased the phone with the spotlight on the camera, claiming, it has re-imagined the camera which is likely going to be the variable aperture feature and super slo-mo videos.
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