How does the Samsung Galaxy S9 stack up against the iPhone X

The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus are due to launch this weekend at the Mobile World Congress (MWC). While the official launch is on February the 25th you will not be able to order until early March with handsets expected to start shipping around two weeks later.  The phone will be available in the standard range of colors, as well as a new lilac purple.

So let us see how will the new Samsung phone stacks up against the iPhone X and which is more deserving of your hard-earned cash.

Well if leaks are to be believed then the Galaxy S9 Plus, lunching under the teaser “The Camera Reimagined”, will have a dual camera and a large screen. The question that still remains, however, is if the South Korean electronics giant can wow us with its new phone launch.

After a healthy comeback, last year following the launch of its Galaxy S8, Samsung seems to be back on track since its disastrous Note 7 combustion debacle which saw the companies value plummet, cutting an estimated $17 billion of their share price.

So what else can we expect from Samsung at their MWC launch this Sunday? Well, the design is apparently little different from last year’s S8. Now don’t get me wrong, the S8 was a handsome looking phone but I can’t help but feel a little disappointed not to see something really new from Samsung here. It could be they are waiting until later in the year to unveil that rumored phone with a folding screen.

So as far as appearances go the new handset is more akin to the iPhone S upgrades than a newly stylized phone with a large leap in design.  In fact, the only real thing I could notice was a move of the fingerprint scanner from next to the camera to under it.

The hardware upgrades are a little more promising. In the US and China, both will use the Snapdragon 845 CPU but the rest of the world may get the Samsung Exynos  9810.

Geekbench has some benchmarks for this CPU listed under Samsung S9 Exynos 9810 that is well worth checking out and suggest a big leg up in speed and power over the S8. It appears that the new Exynos processor is faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845. So Samsung is catching up with Apples iPhone X CPU faster than Qualcomm, but it still has a way to go.
For reference, the new Exynos  CPU scored 3,648 and 8,894 points in Geekbench tests while the iPhone X and iPhone 8 reached 4,200 and 10,000 in the same test.

You can compare it in detail to the iPhone X Geekbench score and for some more info on the processor, speeds go to Gizmodo.

The standard S9 is expected to have 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage while the Plus version will have 6GB of RAM and 128GB of Storage.

This newer CPU should help boost the camera and security of the phone and we are expecting to see some rival to Apple’s Face ID. There is a rumor that with an 8MP front camera and iris scanner the phone can combine face and iris scanners in a new feature for better security – hopefully, this works better than Apples Face ID but you still have the option of a fingerprint scanner if you’re not convinced.

So the two phones are set to be fairly similar and while the iPhone X saw a transformative step from the iPhone we can expect a more gradual incrimination of tech from Samsung in this latest release.

The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus will come in similar sizes to their predecessor with a 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch QHD+ AMOLED display respectively.

Both handsets will have a 12MP sensor featuring a variable aperture that can switch from F2.4 to F1.5. If this is true it will make it the best aperture camera on any smartphone which is a fairly big win for Samsung.
The S9 Plus will boast a dual rear 12MP camera and has loads of features such as portrait effect mode, super slow motion and tag shot.

For emoji lovers, the new tech on the front allows for 3D animated emojis that can take on Apples “animojis.” If that’s what you care about on your phone.

Thankfully for music lovers, the new Galaxy will have a headphone jack as well as a USB type C socket for charging, Although the phone also has wireless charging and should have an IP68 water and dust resistant rating.