I’ve tested a lot of Samsung flagships in actual travel scenarios, but the Galaxy S9 Plus stands out as one of the first that genuinely felt built for living out of a backpack. A few days of shooting, gaming, and editing video on the S9+ in the middle of heat, dust, and random beach humidity made it very clear: this is an iteration, not a reinvention—but the upgrades that are here mostly matter.
Samsung is playing it safe, and that cuts both ways. You’re getting a familiar design and software story, but also one of the most capable camera and media experiences from its generation.
Design: Same Infinity Look, Fewer Headaches
From the front, it’s basically an S8+ with slightly slimmer bezels. You still get the 6.2-inch curved Infinity Display, no notch, and that 18.5:9 aspect ratio that makes the phone tall but surprisingly manageable in one hand.
The important change is on the back. Samsung finally moved the fingerprint sensor under the camera module instead of dumping it awkwardly off to the side. That single decision fixes one of the worst parts of the S8 generation—unlocking is now natural instead of a finger yoga exercise that smears your main lens.
The frame is a bit thicker (around 3.4mm vs 3.0mm on the S8+), with a matte finish that genuinely improves grip. Weight jumps to 189g, so it’s nearing phablet heft, but still short of the Note8. Thanks to IP68 water and dust resistance, it’s comfortable as a travel or outdoor phone—rain, pool splashes, and beach dust are fine, as long as you’re not dunking it in saltwater and walking away.
Display and Audio: Samsung Still Owns the Screen
The S9+ sticks with a 6.2-inch Super AMOLED panel at 2960 x 1440 (521ppi), 18.5:9. It’s not new on paper, but it’s still the standard others chase. Auto brightness can push the panel north of 600 nits, and while lab numbers show it very slightly behind the S8+ and Note8, real-world visibility in direct sun is excellent.
Color tuning is where Samsung keeps flexing. Basic mode tracks sRGB with an average DeltaE around 1.5, AMOLED Photo targets AdobeRGB, and AMOLED Cinema covers DCI-P3; if you care about color spaces, the presets are actually useful and accurate. Most people will stay in the punchier Adaptive mode, which is less accurate but more eye-catching.
The bigger quality-of-life win is audio. After years of dragging its feet, Samsung finally added stereo speakers: the earpiece doubles as a second driver while the bottom unit handles low end. Loudness lands in the “very good” band in objective tests—roughly between the iPhone X and LG V30—and there’s Dolby Atmos plus Samsung’s usual SoundAlive EQ and tuning options. Crucially, the 3.5mm headphone jack is still here, with clean output into an amp and only minor degradation on headphones.
Performance, Battery, and Gaming
Samsung ships two different brains inside the S9+. The US and China get Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 (Kryo 385 CPU, Adreno 630 GPU). Most other markets, including Indonesia and Europe, get Samsung’s own Exynos 9810 (custom Mongoose cores plus Cortex-A55, Mali-G72 GPU). You don’t get to choose, which is still annoying.
On CPU performance, the Exynos version is actually ahead in synthetic tests. Single‑core scores roughly double the previous Exynos generation and even beat the Snapdragon 845. Multi‑core performance is also up by about 30% versus the S8+ and edges out Qualcomm’s flagship.
GPU is where Qualcomm has the advantage. Adreno 630 tends to post higher off‑screen numbers than Mali‑G72. In practice, though, both versions are firmly in “no one will bottleneck a game” territory at this resolution. Samsung’s Game Launcher pulls your titles into one spot, lets you record gameplay up to 1080p, block notifications, and tweak touch rejection around the edges. Heat is controlled well on the Exynos unit, with only light throttling in heavy benchmark loops.
Battery is a 3,500mAh cell—same as the S8+. With a more powerful chip and similar capacity, it could have gone badly, but endurance ends up comparable to last year. Expect around 11 hours of Wi‑Fi browsing, nearly 17 hours of video playback, and strong talk time, for an overall endurance rating in the mid‑80‑hour range.
Fast charging via Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Charging (QC 2.0-class) is just okay: ~37% in 30 minutes from empty. It’s behind Huawei’s and some newer fast-charge systems, but ahead of Apple’s bundled iPhone brick. Wireless charging is supported as well.
Camera: Dual Aperture Is More Than a Party Trick
The main pitch for the Galaxy S9+ is the camera system. On the back you get:
- 12MP wide camera with dual aperture f/1.5 and f/2.4, 1.4µm pixels, OIS, Dual Pixel AF.
- 12MP telephoto camera with f/2.4, 1.0µm pixels, OIS.
The wide camera can physically switch between f/1.5 and f/2.4 (no steps in between). In bright light, it prefers f/2.4 for sharper images and deeper depth of field; in low light, it drops to f/1.5 to lower ISO and noise. Under the hood, Samsung stacks multiple frames (4-frame combos, three times) to reduce noise—Samsung claims around 30% less noise versus last gen.
Daylight shots are classic Samsung: high detail, very low noise, and strong but not overcooked HDR thanks to an Auto HDR mode that’s effectively always doing something in the background. Sharpening has been dialed back compared to the Note8, and the telephoto camera holds up well in good light, delivering genuine 2x detail instead of muddy digital zoom.
Low light is where f/1.5 actually pays rent. The S9+ routinely uses lower ISOs than rivals and delivers cleaner images with more fine detail. The telephoto lens doesn’t participate much in the dark; like most phones with 2x cameras, it quietly falls back to a crop of the main sensor when light drops, which means softer 2x shots at night.
Live Focus portrait mode uses the dual cameras to create background blur on humans and even objects. Edge detection is good but not flawless—hair is still hard—but skin tones are improved over the Note8’s more yellowish output. The front camera is an 8MP f/1.7 unit with autofocus and its own selective focus mode.
Video tops out at 4K 60fps with OIS always active; EIS works in most modes except 4K60 and 1440p 1:1. Bitrates hit 72Mbps for 4K60 and 48Mbps for 4K30 in H.264; H.265 (HEVC) roughly halves those bitrates with very similar quality, which makes sense to enable if you shoot a lot of video and plan to play back on fairly recent hardware.
Slow motion is where Samsung leans into user-friendliness. The S9+ supports 720p at 960fps Super Slow-mo for 0.2s bursts—like Sony’s phones—but adds automatic motion detection so you’re not spamming the shutter trying to catch a balloon pop. Hit rates in testing are surprisingly high, though resolution is still just 720p. There’s also a hidden 1080p/240fps regular slow-mo mode if you dig into settings.
Software, AR Emoji, and Bixby
Out of the box, the Galaxy S9+ runs Android 8.0 with Samsung Experience 9.0 on top. Compared to last-gen Samsung software, changes are mostly cosmetic and organizational. Some settings have moved, Always On Display clock styles live in a deeper submenu, and there’s now an option for landscape home screens and app drawers.
Multitasking is still one of Samsung’s strengths: flexible split-screen, pop-up windows, App Pairs shortcuts that launch two apps in split view, and edge panels that can hold contacts, tools, and apps. There’s also Secure Folder for locking down apps and files behind a separate authentication layer.
Biometrics are a mix of fingerprint, iris scanning, face unlock, and an “Intelligent Scan” combo that picks between them depending on conditions. With the fingerprint reader now placed sensibly, it becomes the default again. Intelligent Scan is fast, but it will unlock even with eyes closed, which raises predictable security concerns.
AR Emoji is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s Animoji: you snap a selfie, the phone builds a cartoon avatar, and you get a pack of animated GIF reactions and stickers you can drop into any app. It’s fun, occasionally uncanny, and not particularly accurate, but clearly aimed at social sharing rather than precise 3D modeling.
Bixby is still here, still on a dedicated hardware button, and still divisive. You can disable the button, but you can’t remap it to something useful. Bixby Home serves as a card-based info feed, Bixby Vision handles object recognition and translation in the camera (with mixed reliability), and Bixby Voice can manipulate system settings and Samsung apps reasonably well. It’s more competent than its reputation, but it’s also redundant for anyone already deep in the Google Assistant ecosystem.
Pricing, Positioning, and Who This Phone Still Makes Sense For
When it launched, the Galaxy S9+ sat slightly above the iPhone 8 Plus on price and below the iPhone X. It was competing straight against other flagships like the Google Pixel 2 XL, Huawei Mate 10 Pro, LG V30, and Samsung’s own Note8.
Its main value arguments were clear: a top-tier OLED screen, arguably the most versatile camera of its generation thanks to dual aperture and a proper tele lens, stereo speakers plus a headphone jack, IP68, wireless charging, and a mature feature-packed software layer. In most areas, it traded blows with Pixel 2 XL and Mate 10 Pro; in battery life, it didn’t lead the pack but stayed in the flagship range.
The awkward bit was internal competition. The Note8 delivered a very similar experience—dual cameras, large OLED, S Pen, similar battery—at a lower price once both had been on shelves for a while. If you cared more about productivity than a variable aperture and stereo speakers, the Note8 often looked like the smarter buy.
That tension is exactly why the S9+ still feels like a cautiously optimistic bet, not an obvious one. It’s clearly one of the most complete Android phones of its era, but Samsung’s incremental approach, segmented chipsets, and pricing strategy keep it from being an automatic recommendation.
Check back soon as this story develops.