Samsung Galaxy S9 Launch Set for MWC 2018, Confirms Samsung Mobile Chief

After some initial speculations, Samsung has now officially confirmed that the Galaxy S9 will debut at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 in February. The new flagship, which will be the successor to the company's last year Galaxy S8, is expected to come in two different variants - the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. The smartphone has been rumoured to have features such as a thin-bezel, Infinity Display and a dual camera setup.

Samsung's Mobile Communications Business President DJ Koh at a press conference at CES 2018 revealed that the first flagship smartphone of 2018 will be unveiled at MWC, while its sales date will be announced at the event itself, reports ZDNet. Some early rumours pointed to the unveiling of the new Galaxy series flagship at CES to a small audience, but South Korean outlet The Bell last month stated that the company is planning to host a launch event for the Galaxy S9 on February 26 - the starting date of the MWC. The Bell's report also pointed out that unlike the Galaxy S8 launch that happened in March last year, the smartphone maker is looking at an earlier schedule this time due to the swift growth of the iPhone X.

If we look at some past rumours, the Galaxy S9 would have an improved iris scanner over the one featured on the last year's Galaxy S8. Some recent renders claim that the flagship would have a fingerprint sensor below its primary camera, similar to the some of the lately launched models including Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8+.

If we believe the specifications listed by Geekbench, the Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ will be powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC and run Android 8.0 Oreo out-of-the-box, though the recently unveiled Samsung Exynos 9810 SoC can be expected in most regional variants. Among the two, the Galaxy S9+ is rumoured to have 6GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The bigger variant in the new Galaxy S family is also reported to have a dual camera setup. Nevertheless, both the Galaxy S models are likely to come with a 3.5mm headphone jack - the one that has not been a part of the latest Google Pixel family and the iPhone range.

Koh also reportedly mention the presence of a foldable phone by the South Korean giant sometime next year and the availability of Bixby 2.0 later this year. He is also said to have highlighted that the Bixby virtual assistant will be available across all Samsung devices by 2020.