 This is a look at my morning with the Samsung Galaxy S9. I wake up, second time on my always on OLED display, and hit this news button, just like I did with my S8. I eat breakfast and read the news, silently appreciating the tall 18.5 by 9 aspect ratio, just like I did with my S8. I grab my keys and jacket, and ask Bixby what my schedule for the day. Ha ha ha ha. Oh, oh man. No, no, I'm just kidding about that last one. But, but, but seriously, as someone who legitimately loves the Galaxy S8, what exactly do the S9 and the S9 Plus, apparent carbon copies of the last gen, really change? And does any of it matter? Let's find out. After I tell you, today's video is brought to you by Zotac. Zotac's Mech One gaming PC is an ultra slim desktop PC, featuring a sleek robotic style design. Check it out at the link below to learn more. ["Skyward Theme Song"] Okay, so, here are the improvements to the S9 family on paper. You get a faster octa-core processor of the Snapdragon or Exynos variety, depending on your region. Some more memory, but only on the Plus. A brighter screen, a bump to maximum cellular data rates, and a camera with two, yes, two aperture sizes. And then all of this other stuff is basically the same with some of it, like thickness, appearing to get worse. So this means, by my calculations here, the days of big generational improvements to cell phones, these are officially over. However, unlike a lot of the tech press, I am not going to crucify Samsung over this. The S8 and the S8 Plus are a year old now and still competitive with much newer devices, like the 5T from no longer that budget brand, OnePlus, even if the Pixel 2 and the iPhone X have edged them out in DXOMAR. And besides, while the improvements are small, a lot of them are pretty meaningful. So in order of importance to me personally, one, the audio setup is great. And I'm sure there are discerning audiophiles out there who take exception to Samsung's choice of DAC. But as far as I'm concerned, the retention of the headphone jack at all, and the inclusion of an amplified earphone speaker that gives me stereo sound on the better than ever OLED super wide display make the S9 and especially the Plus variant, the ideal movie watching phones, period. Second, and this is a close second, is the camera. Even if, in practical terms, the difference between f1.5 and f2.4 physical apertures is less than it sounds like. With how wide the main shooter's lens is, you're not gonna suddenly see like a huge difference in true bokeh past six inches away, like you would on a real DSLR. You're still relying on software selective focus on the S9 and dual capture with processing on the S9 Plus, which is better than this one, but still has issues. With that said, it is still more than a full stop, meaning that at 1.5, a lot more light hits the sensor physically. While at 2.4, the image should be sharper, letting Samsung, in theory, have their cake and eat it too. Now, subjectively, the Pixel 2 XL's color processing looks more true to life to me here, here, here, here, and well, in most situations. But this is a characteristic of the Samsung camera experience that I've mostly come to accept, especially if I get something worthwhile back in exchange. And I do. This challenging high contrast shot in direct sunlight reveals that one, modern phone cameras are getting really good across the board, and two, that when we do pixel peep, the S9, whether you love or hate their more aggressive sharpening filter, captures more detail. And in this shot of my cat sleeping next to me in bed, the iPhone X holds up reasonably well, but the Pixel 2 gets curb stomped. I mean, for some of you, this is probably a meaningless edge case, but I'm not a wannabe photographer. I just like capturing cute pictures when I'm spending time with my kids. And because I live in Rain Coover, six months out of the year, that takes place inside my house, a perpetually dim environment thanks to my dark floors. So it makes a really big difference to me. Moving on to the fingerprint sensor location, this never really bothered me on the S8. However, on the S8 Plus and on the Note 8, next to the camera up there, is basically unusable with my small hands. So the S9 Plus is an enormous improvement. Then the last big one for me is the structural changes that Samsung has made under the hood. The new phones are made of more durable aluminum with thicker glass, giving them spectacular rigidity. Other than a dbrand skin, I prefer no protection. And so it's comforting to know that my chances of surviving a drop are better. But some trade-offs were made here. The increase in weight won't be noticeable to any but the daintiest users, but in spite of a thickness jump, the battery capacity of both models is unchanged from last year. Now Samsung has been quoted as saying that their eight-point battery check will give the S9 family 95% of their day one battery life after two years. And if that holds true, then that's swell, or not, as it were. But as a heavy user, the S8 had middling battery life from the get-go once all my stuff was installed. So I'm on the Pixel 2 XL. My Galaxy S8, something I have installed on it is making the battery drain really fast. I haven't had the time to deal with it. As much as I love the form factor, I just couldn't keep using it. So my new daily driver is gonna have to be the S9 Plus then. And that's about it. Pretty much every other complaint that I have about this phone is either in software or has a simple solution, like the Bixby button. Nothing personal against Bixby. She can actually do some really cool stuff that it baffles me that Google Assistant and Siri can't do. You can actually do much more advanced things like this. Go to the home screen, boom. But the placement of this button directly opposite the lock button was, and still is, an ergonomic disaster. However, Samsung supports disabling it outright and you can use third-party software to remap it now. Intelligent scan where the phone chooses iris or facial recognition, depending on the scenario, isn't as consistent as face ID, but it doesn't have to be because they didn't pull off the fingerprint reader. You can just use whatever you want, which honestly for me is like, okay, look here. Did you know that the S9 has nine, yes, nine different ways to take a selfie? Now, most of them are weird gimmicks that I never used and neither will you. But I guess that's the Samsung experience in a nutshell. Packed full of features, some of which are seemingly random. Like, do you guys remember that thing they were doing where the screen would scroll with your eyes? And then this year's half-baked inclusion is a crude ripoff of Animojis. But with lots of things that are great, panorama selfies so that I can fit all of my friends in the frame, awesome. Faster fingerprint registration with a swipe. Well, it doesn't come up very often, but heck yeah. Landscape mode on the home screen like a tablet. Why did that take so long? Launching two apps in split screen from a single button? Sure, why not? Well, okay, actually I can think of one reason why not. So that you could have your software team spending more time maintaining the latest software on your existing devices instead of creating fluff that no one asked for. The S7 is still in the testing phase for Android 8.0 Oreo. Just one year ago, that was Samsung's flagship phone. Think about that. So the S9 looks solid, especially at the unlocked price and the S9 Plus gets a straight up recommendation to buy. I would take it over the more expensive Note 8 for sure. But with the caveat that until Samsung makes a real commitment to support at the very least its flagship devices the way that Apple does, I can only unequivocally recommend them to people who upgrade every couple of years. And they're never gonna truly stand out from other Android manufacturers until they address this. Which given the way that they're catching up in key areas like camera image quality means that Samsung, you guys gotta be paying attention because the window is closing on finding a new way to differentiate. Speaking of differentiating, wanna differentiate your phone with an awesome dbrand skin? dbrand is your source for awesome vinyl skins available for laptops, phones, tablets, consoles, controllers and more. They use high quality, authentic, true textured 3M vinyl on every product. They feature unrivaled precision, a measure many times, cut once philosophy means that the factory fit for your product will be perfect. 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