The flagship rat race and where the S9 fits now
Flagship phones have spent the last few years racing in exactly the wrong direction for most people: prices up, chargers out of the box, ports disappearing, repairability tanking. The Galaxy S9 launched right as that high-end cartel mentality was solidifying – everything is “premium”, and your wallet pays for it.
Samsung’s answer at the time wasn’t a revolution. The S9 is basically a heavily refined Galaxy S8 with smart tweaks: a new Exynos 9810 or Snapdragon 845 chipset, a variable aperture main camera, stereo speakers, and some polishing on software and ergonomics. It’s closer to a Galaxy S8s than a true generational leap, but in 2025 that might actually make it more interesting, not less.
Design and hardware: peak glass sandwich
Samsung didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken. The Galaxy S9 sticks to the now-familiar glass sandwich: Gorilla Glass front and back with a polished metal frame, curved 5.8″ Infinity Super AMOLED and slim bezels. Dimensionally it’s almost a clone of the S8 – 1mm shorter, half a millimetre wider and thicker, 8g heavier at 163g. In the hand, you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart by size alone.
What did change is the ergonomics. The frame has been subtly refined so it’s easier to pick up off a table and a bit grippier, which matters on a very slippery glass phone. The fingerprint reader finally moved to where it always should have been – under the camera, not next to it – and is actually viable as a daily unlock method.
Samsung’s colour work carries a lot of the visual appeal. Midnight Black, Coral Blue, Lilac Purple and Titanium Grey keep the device looking current even years later. The trade-off is obvious: it looks great, but you’ll be wiping smudges constantly or living in a case.
On ports and storage, the S9 quietly checks boxes newer flagships have started to drop. It has a USB-C port, a 3,000mAh battery with fast charging (around 38% in 30 minutes and roughly 1 hour 40 minutes to full), and microSD expansion on top of 64/128/256GB internal storage. Dual-SIM variants use a hybrid slot, but at least the option exists.
Display and audio: flagship-class where it counts
The 5.8″ dual-curved Super AMOLED is essentially the same panel as the S8: 2960×1440, 18.5:9 aspect ratio, diamond PenTile matrix with Samsung’s usual subpixel wizardry to hit effective QHD detail. It’s not new, but it’s still elite.
Measured brightness hits 370 nits manually, jumping to 658 nits in auto under strong light – slightly brighter than the S8. Minimum brightness goes down to 2.8 nits, which is excellent for night use. Sunlight legibility is strong, an area where Samsung has dominated for years.
Colour handling is more serious than most phones even today. You get:
- Basic (aimed at sRGB/Rec.709)
- AMOLED Cinema (tuned for DCI-P3)
- AMOLED Photo (close to Adobe RGB)
- Adaptive (wide gamut, content-aware and tuned for better outdoor visibility)
Measured average deltaE stays around 1.8–2.2 across sRGB, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB, with max deltaE never exceeding 3. Translation: this is a legitimately colour-accurate screen, not just “vivid”.
Audio is where the S9 quietly took a meaningful step. It’s the first Galaxy S flagship with stereo speakers – an earpiece acting as the second driver plus a bottom-firing main speaker, tuned by AKG with Dolby Atmos. Loudness is “Very Good” by lab tests, and subjectively the output is among the best phone speakers of its time.
Plug in headphones and it gets better. Through an external amp the S9 delivers very loud, clean output; switching to standard headphones barely dents accuracy and only slightly increases stereo crosstalk. Add Samsung’s software stack – SoundAlive EQ, UHQ upscaling, surround emulation, tube amp simulation, Adapt Sound – and you’ve got more control than most people will ever use. And yes, you still have a 3.5mm jack.
Performance: Exynos vs Snapdragon and real-world speed
Under the glass, there are two very different silicon stories. Most of the world gets Samsung’s Exynos 9810 (10nm FinFET, four custom Mongoose M3 cores at 2.7GHz + four Cortex‑A55 at 1.8GHz, Mali‑G72 MP18 GPU). North America and China get Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 (10nm LPP, Kryo 385 CPU cluster at up to 2.8GHz, Adreno 630 GPU).
CPU-side, the Exynos 9810 is a beast. In Geekbench, Samsung’s third‑gen Mongoose core roughly doubles the single‑core performance of the S8’s Exynos and holds a significant lead (around 50%) over Snapdragon 845’s top Kryo 385 core. In multi-core tests, it’s about 30% up on the previous Exynos and edges Snapdragon 845 as well. Among Android phones at launch, S9’s Exynos CPU was at the top.
GPU is where Qualcomm has the edge. Offscreen tests put Mali‑G72 MP18 around 30% ahead of the S8’s GPU and roughly on par with iPhone X, but about 20% behind Adreno 630 in an Xperia XZ2 – a decent proxy for Snapdragon S9 models. Onscreen, the S9’s QHD resolution naturally drags scores down versus 1080p competitors.
In normal use, that split doesn’t really matter. Either variant is “blazing‑fast” for years of day-to-day tasks, and minor GPU differences only show up in synthetic benchmarks or heavy gaming at native resolution. Thermal behaviour is controlled; you’ll see some throttling only under repeated, max‑load benchmarks.
Battery life is good but not class-leading. In testing, the S9 managed over 15 hours of video playback, around 10 hours of Wi‑Fi browsing, and close to a full day of 3G talk time. An overall endurance rating of 78 hours trails the S8 slightly, dragged down by mediocre standby drain. Always-On Display will hit that further, closer to ~50 hours.
Software: Samsung Experience 9 on Oreo
The Galaxy S9 shipped with Android 8.0 Oreo and Samsung Experience 9.0 on top – a small step over 8.5 on the Note8 and 8.1 on the S8. This isn’t a redesign so much as a continuation with some shuffled menus and a few usability tweaks.
Some settings, like Always-On Display clock styles, are buried deep under “Lockscreen and security” → “Lockscreen and Always on display” → “Clock and FaceWidgets”. If you rely heavily on Settings search, you’ll hit a few dead ends before you find what you want.
Biometrics are where the S9 feels more mature than the S8. With the fingerprint reader relocated, fingerprint unlock becomes viable again, and enrolment is quicker – a swipe or two to register, then tap to unlock. Iris unlock and face unlock return, plus a new Intelligent Scan that combines both. It works quickly but will unlock with your eyes closed, which some people will dislike from a privacy standpoint.
Samsung’s multi-window implementation still beats stock Android. You get resizeable split-screen, pop-up windows, Snap Window (a docked strip of an app anchored at the top or bottom), and App Pairs – dual-app shortcuts you can drop on the homescreen or edge panels. Edge panels themselves are visually refreshed but not fundamentally different: app shortcuts, contacts, tools, and now a panel switcher.
Game Launcher collects your games into one hub and lets you mute notifications, block accidental touches near the edges, grab screenshots or record 1080p gameplay. Secure Folder is present for sandboxed apps and files with independent lock types, including the ability to hide the folder icon entirely.
Bixby is still here, and Samsung knows you might hate it. You can disable the hardware button, but you can’t remap it. Bixby Home behaves like a Google Now-style feed, Bixby Vision does image recognition, calories, wine labels and translation via Google’s engine, and Bixby Voice can drive deep phone settings and in-house apps. It’s capable but inconsistent: some things work well, others – like camera switching or certain locked-state commands – are limited or just fail.
Camera: variable aperture and serious low-light chops
The single 12MP rear camera is where Samsung tried something genuinely interesting. It uses a 1.4µm sensor (ISOCELL on Exynos variants) with OIS, Dual Pixel phase-detect AF, and a variable aperture lens that physically switches between f/1.5 and f/2.4. There are only two positions – no steps in-between – but that’s still more flexibility than most phones offer.
On top of that you get 4-frame noise reduction with image stacking, promising around 30% less noise than S8 photos. It’s the same multi-frame approach Samsung used on the Note8, but improved.
The idea is straightforward:
- f/1.5 for low light: brighter shots, lower ISO, less noise and more detail, at the cost of shallower depth of field and potentially softer corners.
- f/2.4 for bright light: deeper depth of field, sharper and more detailed images with better dynamic range and contrast, but noisier if used in low light.
Auto mode usually picks f/2.4 in daytime and f/1.5 in low light, with shutter speeds up to 1/24000s to avoid blowing highlights. In practice, daylight shots are detailed with wide dynamic range and far less aggressive sharpening than the Note8. Side-by-side comparisons put the S9 ahead of both Note8 and iPhone X on resolved detail and range.
In low light, the hardware and multi-frame processing earn their keep. Typical S9 low-light settings hover around ISO 250–320 and 1/10s, versus ISO 400 and 1/4s on many rivals with f/1.7–1.8 lenses. End result: bright, detailed low-light images with low noise and fewer blurry shots.
Selective Focus mode fakes bokeh by shooting a pair of images and letting you blur background or foreground after the fact. Results can look impressive, but it’s fiddly: the subject needs to be very close and still, and it’s easier to miss than on the dual-camera S9+.
The front camera is an 8MP f/1.7 unit with autofocus and Auto HDR, carried over from the S8. It produces sharp, detailed selfies with decent edge-to-edge clarity, but the default beautification is a bit strong and AF can occasionally lock on the background. Tap-to-focus is recommended if you care about consistency. Software bokeh on selfies works for social media but breaks down if you look closely.
Video on the S9 is strong as well. You can record 4K and 1080p at both 30fps and 60fps in either H.264 or newer H.265 (HEVC). Bitrates in H.264 are high – around 72Mbps for 4K60, 41Mbps for 4K30, 27.5Mbps for 1080p60, 13.3Mbps for 1080p30 – with stereo audio at 256Kbps. H.265 halves the bitrate for similar quality, which can save ~100MB per 30 seconds of 4K, assuming your playback devices handle HEVC smoothly.
4K footage at both frame rates is clean, detailed, with excellent dynamic range, colour and contrast, and OIS plus optional digital stabilisation on 30fps modes handle shake well. 1080p video is likewise sharp and consistent.
The headline trick is 960fps slow‑motion at 720p, enabled by a DRAM buffer on the sensor. You get roughly 0.2s of real time at 960fps, and Samsung tries to fix the usability nightmare that Sony’s early implementations had by adding automatic motion detection. In practice, the S9 triggered reliably in about 8 out of 10 attempts – far better than tapping manually at the precise instant. You can still choose manual triggering if you want, and editing tools make it easy to trim, add sound and export slow‑mo segments as GIFs (loop, reverse, swing).
Where the S9 stands in 2025
When it launched, the Galaxy S9 was stuck in a weird spot. Pricing matched the newest flagships, but the device itself felt like a refined S8 rather than a big swing. Against an iPhone X, Google Pixel 2, Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact and Samsung’s own cheaper S8, its main value props were the variable aperture camera, stereo speakers, and that extra layer of polish.
In 2025, the perspective changes slightly. Some owners still consider the S9+ “one of the last good phones” from Samsung specifically because of things like the headphone jack and microSD slot – two features that have quietly vanished from a lot of current flagships. You also still get a full in-box kit: fast charger, USB‑C cable, microUSB‑to‑C and USB‑to‑C adapters, plus AKG‑tuned in‑ear headphones. That’s a level of out‑of‑box completeness that makes today’s barebones flagship packaging look cheap.
The flip side is longevity. Battery degradation is real; one user example mentions an S9 shutting down after about a minute of use after three years, which is hardly shocking but still painful. Official update support has long since moved on. As a primary device in 2025, an S9 is a compromise.
If you treat it as a well‑built secondary device, or pick one up cheap with a fresh battery, the core experience – display, camera, audio, ergonomics – still holds up surprisingly well. The hardware was over‑specced for its time, and in most normal tasks it won’t feel dramatically slower than mid-range phones today.
So yes, the S9 really is more of a Galaxy S8s than a true S9. But the bits Samsung chose to refine – camera flexibility, sound, biometrics, in-box value – ended up aging better than some of the louder gimmicks we’ve seen since.
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