Samsung Galaxy S9: Everything we know about the launch date, specs and price.
 

Since the iPhone X debuted in September, Apple has monopolized most of the smartphone attention. The notch. Face ID. Animoji.


Will Samsung unveil a dramatic redesign or toe the line with the Galaxy S9?
Sarah Tew/CNET
But Samsung, which sells more phones globally than Apple or any other vendor, is rumored to have no shortage of new, cool features on deck for its next flagship -- which we'll call the Galaxy S9 for now -- due sometime around... well, that's actually up for debate.

The rumors about the phone's features range from bleeding-edge (i.e. it will be foldable) to vintage (such as, it will have a headphone jack). Everything we recently learned about Qualcomm's next-generation Snapdragon 845 processor, which is likely to power the Galaxy S9, points to significant advancements in camera and security technology.

Read: What Qualcomm's new Snapdragon may mean for Galaxy S9

As Apple's iPhone X and iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus continue to dominate the spotlight through the holiday season, Samsung is undoubtedly waiting in the wings, eager to launch its response in 2018. (And move even further on from the debacle of its Note 7, which was recalled twice in 2016 due to exploding batteries.)

With an announcement likely to come sometime in the next few months, more details are sure to leak. What follows is a collection of what we know for sure and what we're hearing in the wind about the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S9.


Apple has made "X" and "10" its own.
CNET
Rumor: It might not be called the Galaxy S9

The iPhone X, named in honor of the device's 10th anniversary created a problem -- or perhaps an opportunity -- for Samsung. If the company sticks with the natural sequence of its own naming convention, it risks creating an inferiority complex among customers; who wants a Galaxy S9 when you can already get an iPhone X (pronounced "ten")? According to Forbes, Samsung may follow suit with the Galaxy X. Of course, they could one up Apple by going to the Galaxy S11 -- or something else entirely.

Rumor: We'll see it soon

Samsung usually announces its new flagship in March -- the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus were unveiled on the 29th last year -- and ships it in April. We think it's a long shot, but VentureBeat has reported that Samsung may debut the new phones this year at CES, scheduled to begin on Jan. 9 in Las Vegas. If that doesn't happen, Samsung could debut the Galaxy S9 in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress in February. Otherwise, we're probably looking at March.

Rumor: First with a Snapdragon 845 processor

We know that the next flagship will run Samsung's own Exynos 9 Series 9810 processor, at least in Asia. We think that the US version will run Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845, which is expected to enable a whole bunch of new features plus better battery life. So far, however, only Xiaomi's forthcoming Mi 7 is confirmed to use the Snapdragon 845.

Read: What Qualcomm's new Snapdragon chip may mean for the Galaxy S9


Apple raised the bar with Face ID.
Apple
Rumor: Samsung has its own version of Face ID

Even before Apple upped the ante with the iPhone X, Samsung had something to prove in the facial recognition department after hackers fooled the Galaxy S8's iris scanner using a photo and contact lenses. The Korea Herald reports that Samsung has been working to improve its technology and will bring it to its budget phones in 2018 or 2019.

That noted, Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 845 processor, rumored to power the Galaxy S9, supports the type of 3D face mapping that's used in Apple's Face ID technology. And while Apple's Face ID technology uses 30,000 dots of infrared light to map your face, Qualcomm's capacity is 50,000 dots, theoretically giving it an accuracy edge.


The Galaxy S8 and its loathsome fingerp

Yuri