Samsung Galaxy S9+ long-term review
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- Simon
- 7AH
- 26 Jun 2018
I know this place is full of Sony love, and if they went AMOLED and they sold them in North America Id give them a try, but Ive had nothing but great experience with Samsung phones. The S4 was my favorite phone I ever had, and the S6 still works as a back up phone, after 3 years, as well as it did when it was new. Im a bit confused about the hate (is it because its the biggest Android maker?).
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- Anonymous
- kWZ
- 26 Jun 2018
Good grief, that's terrible battery life. Oleds really can't run a full day without a charge like IPS LCD can, or as easily. Just can't touch 8+ hours sot. Rant all you want SS fans, it's simply true.
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- Anonymous
- 6jr
- 26 Jun 2018
Samsung: a company that went from basically offering infinite battery (charge a spare while you use, pop it when your main one dies, rinse and repeat) to a company that its flagship barely makes the day. You know the one thing that portables are supposed to do best, autonomy , it is the one that Samsung chose to regress majorly. Genius!
Of course they could also innovate like for example offering a removable back that doubles as both a spare and a wall charger (so you instantly plug your back while you attach your other spare to your phone for insta 100%), all the while a tiny internal battery keeps the lights on while you make the swap. You know *evolution*, evolving your defining characteristic, *not* killing it outright and becoming generic.
But nooo, that would be heresy. No wonder her flagship sales has fallen off a cliff. You can wear a suit to a kangaroo, it would still be a kangaroo and if you happen to turn it into a chief officer, you are in for a ride...
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- AlienOverlord
- pYg
- 26 Jun 2018
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2018enough. That is not ROM. ROM is read only memory. That's th... moreMany tech sites refer to the internal / onboard memory as ROM.
Thanks for your pointless observation, nonetheless...
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- Sonu4678
- U@f
- 25 Jun 2018
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2018reinforce buyers belief they bought the right thing, so the... moreWhat the h*** are you guys doing? Please do not discredit their hard work. If you can't trust them on a review then you probably shouldn't waste time on them. Be thankful for the service GSMArena guys are providing.
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- Anonymous
- nMh
- 25 Jun 2018
AlienOverlord, 25 Jun 2018If the S9+ had a 32gb ROM, I'd be bothered with the superfl... moreenough. That is not ROM. ROM is read only memory. That's the flash memory, just like an ssd in a PC. Stop with that disinformation
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- Andrei
- 0Ua
- 25 Jun 2018
Well, give it a little more time. First 2 months it was ok. After 6 months with the s8, 2 updates the phone starts to have bugs.. chrome stutters or crashes at least once per day, gmail crashes daily again. Hitting upload from photos directly to facebook either works or it crashes... nothing works except closing the app. Battery life is low to bad... I am comparing this to my 6 years of experience with sony where all of them worked flawlesly... battery life for z3c or z5c after 2 years? Great. Smothness or crashed apps? After 8-9 months without a restart everything was lag & stutter free. Updates? Much better then samsung. Bought an s5 and z3c with a 2 day difference. After 2 years s5 was awfull and the motherbord ended replaced. Battery was done and software wise was on older version vs sony. After one year i'am going to sell my s8 to get the new xz3 from sony. Sorry samsung, bought s8 for the design as xz1 was to bulky (it's width was the main issue) but i regret my decision. Camera wise the videos aren't great vs sony, the smaller FOV and the ois that seems worse to me than the EIS on sony is certanly a drawback. Good photos, ok screen, good smart viewer functionality that blackens the screen when casting and the app doesn't support natively chromecast functionality.
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- Sunny
- KIJ
- 25 Jun 2018
I have a request. When u post battery timings of Samsung flagships. Plz do it twice. 1 with default pixel settings and the other with advertised pixel settings. Also mension it in pro cons section. As a con of course as they r not totally honest with their customers. (Disclaimer:
Posted this comment with galaxy s 9 and using Samsung phones since galaxy s 3. So plz don't assume me as an isheep :-P )
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- Hoffmann
- 8s{
- 25 Jun 2018
Really enjoyed the pictures from Cluj, Romania
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- Anonymous
- i}3
- 25 Jun 2018
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2018Right. What's the point of the long term review if everythi... morereinforce buyers belief they bought the right thing, so they keep browsing your site
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- Anonymous
- Js}
- 25 Jun 2018
Performance decreases 10% monthly
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- Anonymous
- IVN
- 25 Jun 2018
LG Superfan, 25 Jun 2018Bring back issues, frustration section gsmarenaRight. What's the point of the long term review if everything is always perfect?!
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- AlienOverlord
- pYg
- 25 Jun 2018
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2018Actually the Huawei P20 Pro has stereo speakers, however it... moreIf the S9+ had a 32gb ROM, I'd be bothered with the superfluous bloatware installed. But as mine came with standard 128gb out of the box and, me adding a micro SD card of 128gb, storage is really no longer a problem...
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- AlienOverlord
- pYg
- 25 Jun 2018
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2018Actually the Huawei P20 Pro has stereo speakers, however it... moreThanks for the correction. And yes, that's another plus point for the S9 range. Retention of the 3.5mm headphone jack, whereas some of the other flagships I mentioned have ditched this in favour of USB-C connection, which tends to draw the ire of the bounty of YouTube reviewers.
- Geric.770
- uSQ
- 25 Jun 2018
I agree on everything what you've said, GSMARENA.
Samsung's Bloatware habits needs to stop, or at least reduce a bit to compete with Pixel's "smoothness".
I wonder why Samsung still can't fix that hiccup issue on Bixby Home until now.
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- Anonymous
- B45
- 25 Jun 2018
AlienOverlord, 25 Jun 2018Good long term review. I've experienced no lag at all as ow... moreActually the Huawei P20 Pro has stereo speakers, however it does not have a headphone jack.
Other than that, I agree with what you said. I just REALLY wish Samsung would stop shoving bloatware down our throats. I saw a demo of one and half the hard drive was gone because of the pre-installed stuff. If they allowed us to uninstall it, I wouldn't care but they don't and it's annoying...
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- AlienOverlord
- pYg
- 25 Jun 2018
Good long term review. I've experienced no lag at all as owner for 3 months. It really is the smoothest Samsung performance I've ever had, no doubt due to the 6gb RAM and other tweaks.
Re the oft criticised Bixby. I tried using it for the first few weeks, testing out voice commands etc, but it simple was not up to scratch. I've mentioned this in a previous post, but the BX Actions app via the Playstore, means my button is fully remappable and, it now acts as my instant DND button, with Google Assistant and the flashlight being other options.
Given the customisation options available and a battery life that gets me through 1.5 days of use as a moderate user, I'm more than happy. I watch with amusement the other flagships of 2018, who all aspire to best the S9+, but are either plagued with notches or miss out on key S9+ attributes e.g., the LG G7 has no stereo speakers, a notch and just a 3000mah battery; the HTC U12+ has poorly implemented gimmicks like Edge Sense and now, infamously bad haptic buttons; the Huawei P20 Pro has a notch, single speaker, dated home button, no wireless charging and the One Plus 6 has no wireless charging, single speaker, max 1080p screen etc. As an all round package, the S9 Plus has the lot and hence, remains the best smartphone of 2018 (so far).
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- Andrew
- bE8
- 25 Jun 2018
This statement speaks for itself. So many Samsung fanboys in denial singing the same song every year that this time around Galaxy flagship is butter smooth. I've bought Galaxy flagships in the past and burnt my hands. Never again!