Samsung Galaxy S9 Hits the Market

“…Samsung’s ‘Intelligent Scan’ combines facial recognition with iris scanning, enabling multimodal authentication through a single system.”

Samsung’s latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+, officially launched today in 70 countries including the US, Canada, Korea, Europe, and China.

The devices do not represent a huge change from last year’s Galaxy S8 smartphones. In appearance, they are almost identical in design, right down to the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor located just under the camera, to many users’ irritation. But the S9 does boast of some improvements under the hood, including a dual aperture lens, super-slow motion video, and the capability of supporting animated emojis, just like the iPhone X.

As for security, the S9 devices have an improved biometric authentication system making greater use of facial recognition. On trend with the contactless Face ID system of the iPhone X, Samsung’s ‘Intelligent Scan’ combines facial recognition with iris scanning, enabling multimodal authentication through a single system.

It isn’t clear whether that system will offer any kind of edge in the device’s market competition with the iPhone X, its chief rival. But the device is over $150 cheaper than the iPhone X, which should appeal to a substantial portion of consumers in the market for a new smartphone.