Hands on Samsung Galaxy S9 & Initial Thoughts

Rich DeMuro shares his initial impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and talks about some of the best deals to buy it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy S nine smartphone. I'm
rich Demiro. This is rich On Tech Daily. Well, I've
had some time with Samsung's brand new Galaxy S nine
and S nine plus smartphones, and let me tell you,
these are going to be some of the best phones
of twenty eighteen. Samsung has done their homework, they've listened
to customer feedback, and they have fixed some of the

(00:25):
biggest issues I had with last year's models. So first
the basics. We've got two models here. You get big
screen and bigger screen five point eight or six point
two inch screens. The S nine Plus, which is the
bigger of the two devices. This has a dual camera,
the first time we've ever seen this from Samsung on
a non note device. So that's a big deal. That'll

(00:46):
help you get better zoomed in pictures and better pictures
with those cool looking blurry backgrounds. Some other new features.
There's a fingerprint reader in the right place. This was
the biggest issue I had with last year's crop of
Samsung devices. It was next to the camera. Now it
is underneath the camera, much more natural place, much easier
to unlock this device. And yes, there is still a

(01:07):
headphone jack, which is really nice when you just want
to plug in a pair of headphones. You also get
stereo speakers for the first time, and Samsung says they
have improved the camera for low light situations. So they're
doing something where they're fusing together the information from twelve
different photos or up to twelve photos. You don't see
any of this happen. It all happens in the background.
It's kind of similar to what Google's doing on the

(01:29):
pixel and basically they're using the information from those pictures
to make everything look a lot better, especially in low light.
So we're gonna do more testing on that, but that's
very promising. Plus, there's a new thing called mechanical aperture,
so the phone physically adjusts the aperture to let in
more light when it's dark out and kind of closes
it up when it's bright outside to get you really

(01:50):
nice looking pictures in bright light too. You also have
a new super slow motion video which is up to
nine hundred and sixty frames per second. You can't just
turn this on and record in that mode, but it
does do short little bursts of super slow motion and
it's kind of fun. You'll have fun with that ar
emoji is kind of like apples and emojis, but these

(02:10):
look like you. So you scan your face and it
creates a bunch of animated emojis. You can send to friends,
or you can record yourself, you know, talking as these
animated emojis. I really think this is gonna be one
of the best phones of twenty eighteen. At this point,
I cannot find a downside to it. I played with
it up in San Francisco at a meeting, and now
I have one here at the station, which I've been

(02:31):
playing with all morning. It's really really nice. The screen
is amazing, it fits in your hands very nicely. It's
got a great camera, so there's really not much not
to like here that makes sense. I'm still gonna need
some more time with the camera, but so far the
pictures that I've taken look really nice on it, especially
in low light. Definitely improved. I think this is gonna
be a solid device. Now. I know a lot of

(02:52):
people have upgraded to their phones in the last year
or so, so it's gonna be a tough sell to
get a brand new device. But I think people will
be happy even if they do this just for the
fingerprint reader and a camera alone. So pricing pre orders
start on March second, in stores on March sixteenth. If
you order it direct from Samsung, they're guaranteeing it to
you two days early on March fourteenth, and they're really

(03:13):
offering the best deal. Seven hundred and twenty dollars for
the S nine, eight hundred and forty dollars for the
S nine plus. If you order direct from Samsung, you
get an unlocked phone, which is really cool because it
works on any carrier, and they're doing a trade in,
so you can get up to three hundred and fifty
dollars off the price of the S nine or S
nine plus if you trade in last year's phone like

(03:34):
an S eight or an iPhone eight or an iPhone
ten if you're that crazy, two hundred and fifty dollars
with a phone from the year before, and one hundred
and fifty dollars credit. If you have a three year
old phone like the iPhone six, you can trade that in.
So if you want to see more hands on with
the Samsung Galaxy S nine and S nine plus, go
to my website. It's rich on tech dot tv. I've

(03:55):
also got a blog post with all the carrier deals
that the carriers are offering, because I know a lot
how do you buy your phone's finance through the carriers.
So right now T Mobile and Verizon are out of
the gate with the best deals there. Hopefully some of
the other carriers will follow suit. I'm Rich Demurrol. Thanks
so much for listening. I appreciate you doing that, and
I really appreciate it if you review this podcast in

(04:15):
the iTunes store, because that's where people find it. That's
how people discover it, because we'll make it up on
those top podcast lists for tech News. Thanks so much.
I'm Rich Tomurro. See you next time.