Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones may very well be the company’s most boring flagship updates ever. They’re just Galaxy S8 phones with slightly better specs, and we all know only Apple can get away with that. Now the S9 and S9+ are projected to be the company’s worst-selling Galaxy S phones since 2012, and it’s unclear how much the new Galaxy Note 9 will help Samsung’s mobile business. After all, it’s basically just last year’s model with better specs too, though it does have a new stylus and a bigger battery. But it doesn’t bode well that the Note 9 has already been all but forgotten but the tech press just three weeks after its release.
Apple’s new iPhone XS and iPhone XR models were just announced and there’s also plenty of good competition out there from Android phone makers. Even more competition is coming soon, with Google’s Pixel 3 lineup and the OnePlus 6T about to launch. Things are not looking good at all for Samsung’s high-end phone lineup in 2018, but that’s why it’s so great that 2019 is going to be an entirely different story.
So far everything we’ve heard about the Galaxy S10 has been wonderfully good news. Samsung is said to be updating its Infinity Display design with smaller bezels (don’t worry, Android fans, there won’t be a notch), and the phone will be packed with next-generation components like a 7-nanometer chipset, faster RAM, faster flash storage, and more.
An ultrasonic fingerprint sensor will be embedded beneath the screen so users won’t have to fumble around on the back of the phone anymore. That will free up space on the back of the phone for an all-new triple-lens rear camera that will reportedly make its way to both the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ versions of the phone. The larger model is also said to pack a dual-lens selfie camera around front.
Moving back to the display, the Galaxy S10’s screen is expected to somehow be even better than the Super AMOLED panels Samsung used on this year’s flagships, which are already best-in-class. The Galaxy S10 is expected to have a 5.8-inch Super AMOLED display just like the iPhone X and iPhone XS, while the larger Galaxy S10+ is said to be getting an 6.44-inch Super AMOLED screen that’s roughly the same size as the one on the iPhone XS Max. If true, it would be the largest display Samsung has ever used on a flagship smartphone, but smaller bezels should keep the overall size roughly the same as this year’s Galaxy S flagships.
On top of all that, we have some more good news to share… sort of. Top Samsung insider Ice Universe is known for posting accurate information about unreleased devices on Twitter and on Chinese microblogging network Weibo. On Thursday afternoon, he took to Twitter to tease yet another tidbit of information about the upcoming Galaxy S10.
The Galaxy S10 will have a very beautiful color scheme that is more beautiful than the gradient. https://t.co/GxfS3q7u5e
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) September 13, 2018
Smartphones with gradient colors are all the rage right now. The trend started with Huawei’s P20 Pro as far as widely available phones go, and other vendors have been quick to jump on the bandwagon. That includes Samsung, which recently began selling a phone with a gradient in China. In response to a poll asking whether the company should offer more phones with color gradients, Ice Universe said that the company has something even better in store.
“The Galaxy S10 will have a very beautiful color scheme that is more beautiful than the gradient,” he said. That doesn’t give us much to go on, but Ice Universe is pretty good at subtle hints when he has big inside info that he can’t share. The Galaxy S10 could be announced as soon as CES 2019 in early January, but we’re sure the phone will leak long before then so we can see whatever crazy color scheme Samsung has planned.
