Samsung's Galaxy S9 Is Photo-Focused and Purple as Heck
Eager to put the Galaxy Note 7 disaster in the rearview, Samsung used 2017 to double down on impressive, feature-packed smartphones. Last year's Note 8 and S8 handsets both impressed in a big way, bringing edge-to-edge, AMOLED-powered displays into the mainstream long before Apple was able to get the iPhone X to market. Naturally, as the smartphone expo of Mobile World Congress gets going today in Barcelona, Spain, it's time to welcome the Samsung Galaxy S9.
The new S9 looks almost like last year's S8, and that's completely intentional. Both the S9 and S9+ refine the Galaxy's already mature design. Perhaps the biggest physical change here (besides the addition of a badass Lilac Purple color option) is around the back of the phone, where the fingerprint scanner has been moved to sit just below the camera. This addresses one of the biggest gripes users had with the S8, since it was stupidly easy to smudge up the camera's glass cover when feeling around for the tiny fingerprint pad.