Samsung Galaxy S9 MWC Launch Confirmed: What To Expect

Samsung Electronics is indeed going to take the wraps off of its next flagship handset at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company’s mobile chief confirmed the rumors claiming that the Galaxy S9 will make its debut at the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry next month.

During a press conference at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Samsung’s mobile division chief DJ Koh announced that the tech giant is unveiling its first flagship phone for the year 2018 at the February trade show. This means the introduction of the Galaxy S9 would be a month earlier than its predecessor.

It can be noted that Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 at an Unpacked Event in New York City in March 2017. Then, the company started shipping the device to customers in April. Because the Galaxy S9 is launching this February, ZDNet says it’s very likely for the device to start selling this March.

Previously, several tech sites predicted that Samsung will introduce its Galaxy S8 successor at CES this January. However, a rep for the company addressed these rumors last month and said that it is “unlikely” for the Galaxy S9 to show up at the Las Vegas exhibition. This has since led analysts to surmise that Samsung could either unveil the new flagship device at MWC or at a separate launch event like what it did for the Galaxy S8.

Meanwhile, if various speculations about the Galaxy S9 are to be believed, the upcoming Android smartphone could bear a strong resemblance with its predecessor. Samsung introduced a new design language for its Galaxy S series last year, so it’s a bit too early for the company to abandon it and come up with a different form factor for the S9.

Last weekend, a leak that first appeared on Chinese microblogging website Weibo disclosed that the Galaxy S9 will be available in 4GB RAM/64GB internal memory and 4GB RAM/128GB internal memory configurations. On the other hand, the Galaxy S9’s bigger sibling, the Galaxy S9+, is believed to come in 6GB RAM/64GB internal storage, 6GB RAM/128GB internal storage and 6GB RAM/256GB internal storage variants.

The source of the leak also claimed that Samsung is still contemplating on the storage variants of the Galaxy S9+. The company is said to be thinking of creating a 6GB RAM/512GB internal memory variant. Should Samsung push through with this, the Galaxy S9+ would be the industry’s first every smartphone to pack such massive memory space.

The Galaxy S9 is also expected to come with a dual back camera module. IBTimes learned last week that Samsung has already trademarked the phrase “The Camera. Reimagined.” in its home country. It’s possible that the tech giant would be using the phrase in the promotional materials for the first Galaxy S branded flagship phone to come with a dual camera setup.

Finally, Samsung has already announced its newest SoC, called the Exynos 9810. Based on the information that the company shared about its new chipset, it is capable of supporting four image sensors for “dual cameras in the rear along with a camera and iris scanner at the front.” The Exynos 9810 also has a powerful custom CPU, very fast gigabit LTE modem and sophisticated deep learning capabilities, so Samsung fans should expect the Galaxy S9 to take advantage of these new features.