New Galaxy S9 all about camera

If a new phone debuts, and no one can spot what’s different, does it matter?

Samsung unveiled its flagship Galaxy S9 phone Sunday, and to tell it apart from last year’s Galaxy S8 requires a magnifying glasses: The S9’s screen margins are a smidge slimmer at the top and bottom. The fingerprint reader on the back moved an inch toward the middle. The biggest change is that the camera aperture now physically opens and closes.

Samsung’s targets for the $720 S9 aren’t just owners of the S8; they might be holding on to an S6 or older model. So what, if anything, would make a new Android phone worth an upgrade?

Samsung chose to double down on the camera. And for anyone who treats smartphone photography as a hobby or form of communication, a few of the S9’s improvements might pique interest, although they still need to be tested.

Two new phones actually arrive in stores on March 16: the S9 with a 5.8-inch diagonal screen, and the S9+ with a 6.2-inch diagonal screen. On the larger phone, Samsung added a second lens on the back for zooming in and depth-effect shots.

On both models, the S9 promises improvements to photo quality. The camera will take as many as 12 shots at once to combine into one 12 megapixel image, reducing pixelated noise in some shots.

Its slow-motion is now super slow — 960 frames per second — to capture every hilarious millisecond. A new mode can detect movement and automatically begin recording.