Samsung Galaxy S9: all new features to expect

Compared to the S8, Samsung may shave off the bottom bezel, and shrink the top one to an absolute minimum, tip sources, returning an even higher screen-to-body ratio. Moreover, the new camera sensors that Samsung announced recently, have one main differentiating feature - they are made from the ground up to be thinner than existing solutions, so next year's Galaxy S9 might come slimmer, and with camera modules that will be flush with the rear surface, which would make for a smooth rear to complement the refined Infinity Display design at the front.

New Galaxy S line entry, new chipset production node, that has been a tradition for a while, but the S9 may disappoint. Samsung just announced mass production of its second-gen 10nm process, on which the eventual Exynos 9810 for the Galaxy S9 is based on. The 8nm process is also ready for production, it said last month, but apparently not on a grand scale, so it may not land until the Note 9. 

Thus, next year we may see the US version of the S9 and S9+ equipped with the latest Snapdragon 845 (7nm, if Qualcomm and TSMC pull it off), and the upcoming Exynos 9810 (second-gen 10nm), both ushering in a new era of performance/power draw ratio. Oh, and it looks like the 845 may be exclusive to the S9 for a good while, as production ramps up for US carriers.

Based on leaked CAD renders and various other rumors, Samsung may have picked the vertical placement for its eventual dual camera, and a brand new finger scanner that goes beneath the lens, and is right smack in the middle of the handset's back, where it belongs. Thus, the biggest gripe about the Galaxy S8 design - its unorthodox fingerprint reader placement - would be avoided.

A dual camera set is no-brainer, as the rumor is backed up by famed analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Unfortunately, the dual camera model may be the S9+, not the S9, taking a page off Apple's playbook. This is still big, though, not only because this might be the first dual camera phone in the S line, but since Samsung announced brand new 24 MP and 12 MP camera sensors that promise some pretty upgraded specs. Low-light sensitivity has been improved, and Samsung's new sensor is using its Dual Pixel focusing tech for portraits, too, just like the Pixel 2 XL does.

Samsung has allegedly opted to produce an in-cell touch solution for both Galaxy S9 models next year on its own. Dubbed Y-OCTA, the flexible OLED technology integrates the touch layer in the screen panel itself, thus slimming it down, and reducing production costs by the whopping 30%. The Galaxy S8 uses such a solution, while the S8+ and the Note 8 are with a regular extra touch layer packaged together with the panel, as Samsung suppliers don't have enough capacity to implement it everywhere for now. Both the 5.77" and 6.22" panels of the eventual Galaxy S9 and S9+ are tipped to come with Y-OCTA touch layer integration, though, and Samsung is going to use its own resources to produce them.

Qualcomm already outed a software development kit for its Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine this summer, and Samsung is said to follow suit with such a co-processor in its own Exynos chipset line, so stay tuned for the real-time Bixby translator, or more advanced object recognition algorithms.

That neural engine co-processor won't be sitting in the S9 for giggles, though, as Samsung's current iris/face recognition set may follow Apple's Face ID style, tip sources, and the S9 may arrive equipped with a face-mapping set in its turn, but not of the depth kind. Apple is ahead in 3D face-mapping technology, so Samsung would have had a steep hill to climb if it wanted to release the Galaxy S9 earlier than usual, so the TrueDepth camera answer may arrive with the Note 9.

Samsung will allegedly equip the S9 with stacked PCBs that package the chips tighter together, making their footprint much smaller, like on the iPhone X, and leaving more space for other things. With slimmer in-cell touch panels, smaller motherboards, 7nm chipsets, and smaller camera sensors, we hope that Samsung will indeed use the extra space in the S9 and S9+ for larger battery packs rather than other extra features we may or may not use on a daily basis.

Samsung is no stranger to employing various barometer and UV sensors in its flagships, but a new mobile "environmental sensor" it came up with reveals one small enough to be fit in a handset the body of a Galaxy S9, and yet allow for measuring the size and amount of harmful particles in the air - useful for cities like Los Angeles or Beijing, for instance, and a cool feature to brag with.

Samsung has reportedly come up with a camera sensor technology able to capture the mind-boggling thousand frames per second, but instead of stacking three layers and packaging them together like Sony, it uses two layers, then flips the package to add the DRAM module, most likely to avoid patent disputes. This should allow for some breathtaking slow-motion scenes, and the 1000 FPS sensor is said to go into mass production in November. Check out what such a sensor is capable of in this Xperia XZ Premium promo video.