While its formal launch is still a few days away[1], an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session made its way to Reddit[2] to report the early impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S9[3] from someone who claimed to have played around with the upcoming smartphone for about 20 minutes. In other news, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+[4] cases have been put on sale in a variety of colour options that confirm the presence of a back-facing fingerprint sensor. The flagship Galaxy models are expected to debut at a pre-MWC press conference in Barcelona later this month.
The initial impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S9 that are publicly available[5] on Reddit essentially details its design. The device in question is claimed to be a "very close to production" Galaxy S9 unit that has been specifically designed for the US market. This means it should have a Snapdragon 845[6] SoC, unlike the Exynos 9810[7] SoC-featuring global Galaxy S9 variant. The very first things that Redditor praised in the AMA session were the stereo speakers of the new Galaxy handset. The sound from the speakers is said to have "a major improvement" compared to the Galaxy S8[8], though there reportedly isn't an impressive surround sound option.
On the part of designing, it is reported that the Galaxy S9 design is quite similar to the Galaxy S8, though there is a "slightly better placed" fingerprint sensor on the back, which is still small in size and let users accidentally touch the camera sensor. We can certainly keep some of the recently leaked renders[9] in mind while assuming the design of the next Samsung flagship. Further,...