With the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ (I’m reviewing the latter in Midnight Black by the way), the Korean tech giant has really focused on the camera, adding incredible new features that in their words will, “make everyday moments epic”. I’m a camera buff, well I like to take photos, whether that makes me a “buff” is up to you 
, so I can’t wait to open this one up. Have a read and let the Crowd know what you think in the comments below.
Unboxing
Lovely packaging as per and inside the box you’ll find: headphones, earbuds, a charger, plastic protective case, USB converter and a SIM key.
Design
Like its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S9+ has all the hallmarks of a top-end flagship device: it’s slim, sleek and has the undeniably beautiful infinity display. Like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, there’s no bezel which I love, it’s just pure interrupted screen.
You’ll find the fingerprint scanner is on the back of the device and I must say, with a tall device like the Galaxy S9+, it does feel slightly high up. This takes some getting used to but like everything, once you do it a few times it becomes the norm. If you really can’t get on board with it, you can try the iris scanner, facial recognition or a good ole’ fashioned pin/password to unlock the phone.
As expected, the S9+ is water and dust-resistant which is particularly useful when you take a lot of photos by the pool to make the people back home jealous 
.
Camera
Samsung smartphone cameras routinely set the benchmark for picture quality and new features but the S9+ goes even further. One of my favourite features is auto-focus, which allows you to manually add depth of field to your photos (where the foreground is in focus but the background is blurred). I went around Sydney playing around with this and the results are gorgeous:
With the trademark AMOLED screen, the photo colours are as rich and superbly vibrant as ever but the auto-focus feature really adds to the magic.
Colours appear true to life, even when capturing varying degrees of light. Here's my obligatory Sydney sunset shot:
The camera's zoom is also great at capturing detail from far away.
No zoom on the Sydney Opera House (taken aboard a ferry):
Zoom where you can make out all the tiles:
Another feature I’ve become strangely addicted to is AR Emoji. This is where you can create your own animated emoji character. The camera scans your face, maps it out then build a 3D avatar which you can customise with different hairstyles, clothes and glasses. You can check out mine below (I love the giant eyes and massive mouth - so me 😉).
And finally, I had to try the super slo-mo video feature - peep me getting dizzy at work below (I forgot to video in landscape but you can still see how slow it goes in portrait). I must say super slo-mo is a little tricky to perfect first time but the results are awesome, the vids are soooo slooooow (960 frames-per-second). If you’re the creative type, you’ll enjoy playing around with this and creating some fun clips.
Other features
This baby comes with a juicy 64GB of storage as standard but can hold up to 400GB in a micro SD card which perfect if you’re gaming, working on the go, downloading big files or storing lots of photos and videos.
Someone at Samsung must have heard my desperate pleas because they’ve also updated their emojis! The Samsung Galaxy S9+ is launching with the latest software update (Samsung Experience 9.0 or Android Oreo) and their emojis will come more in line with other manufacturers.
With the Samsung Galaxy S9+ you can now share your screen to other Samsung screens which is great if you have a Samsung TV at home like me.
Love
- Edge-to-edge display
- Incredible new camera features – auto-focus is my fave!
- Samsung Experience 9.0 including new emojis *YAY*
Not-so-sure about
Finding it very hard to fault this one. if I had to pick I’d say that AR Emoji is probably not going to impress everyone, it’s a nice-to-have not a need-to-have.
Verdict
*checks contract*
When can I upgrade? 😉
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the above review are my own and do not represent those of Optus or its staff.
