Samsung Galaxy S9+
A superb phone, and arguably a better buy than the S9, but not enough upgrades to make us excited
SCORE PRICE 128GB, £724 (£869 inc VAT) from samsung.com
The Samsung Galaxy S9+ is, as you’d expect it to be, a bigger version of the Galaxy S9. It has a larger screen and a bigger battery than its smaller sibling, and (inevitably) a significantly higher price. Last year, that’s where the differences ended between the two Galaxy S8 phones, and I was reluctant to recommend the Galaxy S8+.
This year, the gap has widened: Samsung has finally added dualcamera capability to one of its mainstream flagship phones, and the result is that the Samsung Galaxy S9+ now has much more to recommend it. As a camera, it’s nigh-on identical to the Galaxy S9, right down to the f/1.5 aperture and the odd way it catches images in bright light. Here, though, the second camera provides a telephoto view - a 2x zoom, effectively, just like on the Apple iPhone X. Note, though, the second camera’s aperture is f/2.4, not f/1.5.
The end result is a telephoto camera that takes excellent photos in a range of conditions. When you’re in low light, the larger aperture means more light - so you get lower ISO, less noise and cleaner photographs. In better light, you can safely use the zoom and be confident the f/2.4 aperture will give you sharp details. My one caveat is that zooming in while you’re recording video isn’t quite as smooth as it is on the iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus.
Physically, the S9+ enjoys similar physical tweaks to the S9. Same colour options, same fingerprint reader position, same super-slim bezel. Here, though, there’s a 6.2in display with an aspect ratio of 18.5:9 and a QHD+ resolution of 1,440 x 2,560 pixels, just like last year’s S8+. It’s bulkier in the hand than the regular Galaxy S9, but not enough to be bothersome.
With the same processor as the S9, and 6GB of RAM to 4GB, it’s no shock that it performed virtually identically in benchmarks – which is to say, fast ( see
the graphs opposite). You won’t be disappointed.
I wish I could say the same about battery life. I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy S9+ for a week now, and its GSAM Battery Monitor rating was at 22hrs 39mins per complete charge versus 18hrs 44mins on the regular S9. Neither of those scores are great: after a week, the OnePlus 5T was up well above a day while the Huawei Mate 10 Pro was closer to two days.
In our video-rundown battery test, the plus-size phone’s performance was equally middling. It lasted 14hrs 36mins, or around 13 minutes longer than the Galaxy S9. In this test, neither phone comes close to the best in the flagship category; in fact, both the OnePlus 5T (much cheaper) and the S8+ (much cheaper) did considerably better, reaching out and beyond 20 hours.
Still, one thing that you can rely on Samsung for is tip-top display quality and it’s fabulous here. Its AMOLED panel fills most of the front of the phone, leaving narrow strips across the top and bottom, and Samsung again ships the phone with the display rendering in FHD+ (1,080 x 2,220). You don’t really need a higher resolution than this.
Quality is great - but not as great as previous Galaxy phones. It delivers 98% sRGB coverage in Basic mode and an average colour accuracy Delta E score of 1.94. These are very strong numbers and the bottom line is that anything displayed on this screen will look good, HDR content included.
Peak brightness is great, too, pretty much matching previous Galaxy handsets. In our tests, the phone reached peaks of 992cd/m2 with a 10% white patch displayed against a black background, and 465cd/m2 with the screen filled with white with auto brightness enabled. As is typical with Samsung phones, you’ll only see the screen hit its brightest level in auto-brightness mode – in manual brightness mode, this display reaches a lowly peak of 302cd/m2.
So to the big question: should you buy the Galaxy S9+? It’s a super phone with two great cameras that shoot fabulous photos and video. It’s also the quickest Android phone yet, and pretty darned gorgeous in Lilac Purple. In fact, it’s probably the best phone money can buy.
But I do have problems with it. First, the price: the Samsung Galaxy S9+is £869 SIM free. And there are other things about it that irritate. Low light photography is amazing, but it still isn’t as good as it could be. The battery life is fine, but not as good as the best its rivals can muster.
It also faces the same problem as the S9, in that it isn’t much better than its predecessor. This typically costs £150 less. Unless you really love the updated design, I’d advise you save a few bob and buy an S8+instead. JONATHAN BRAY SPECIFICATIONS Octa-core 2.7GHz/1.8GHz Exynos 9810 Octa processor 6GB RAM Mali-G72 MP18 graphics 6.2in AMOLED screen, 1,440 x 2,960 resolution 128GB storage microSDXC slot (up to 400GB) dual 12MP/12MP rear cameras 8MP front camera 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5 NFC USB-C connector 3,500mAh battery Android 8 73.8 x 8.5 x 158mm (WDH) 189g
1yr warranty