Let's face it: the changes you're going to see in smartphones every year are pretty incremental. With some significant exceptions (I'm looking at you, user interface of the iPhone X ), today's phones aren't all that much different than the phones of three years ago. Faster, yes, More memory, sure.

Solid performance; classic Samsung design; Dex dock allows use as desktop computer

Iris scan feature needs work; Bixby virtual assistant remains a work in progress; AR Emoji a half-baked gimmick

The Galaxy S8 was the best phone of 2017. The Galaxy S9 is a little better. The Galaxy S9+ is even better. It's up to you whether the size and cost are worth the power: For us, they are.

Feels great in one hand; Excellent low-light camera performance; Better sound and network support than the Galaxy S8

Not a radical upgrade from the Galaxy S8; Larger S9+ model has better cameras, more RAM, and stronger Wi-Fi performance

The nice thing about the Galaxy S9 and S9+ is that they hold very few mysteries. Go back to our review of the S8 twins last year, and the majority of what you'll read there applies here. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ were great phones, and the S9 and S9+ are better versions of them.

Display An absolutely brilliant screen - the best on any smartphone out there; Amazing brightness, colors, and viewing angles, Fingerprint scanner The fingerprint scanner is back in a location where it won't give you constant frustration.

So much glass I mean, this should be obvious - the Galaxy S9 looks kind of fragile; There's a lot of glass on this phone; Use a case, Updates Even with Project Treble, Samsung still avoids committing to a period of Android OS updates, let alone timely ones, for its flagship handsets.

The Samsung S9 is an excellent smartphone – one of the best Android phones you can buy today. The screen, in particular, is superb. The colours are crisp and extremely detailed, and the ample screen real estate makes it well-suited to watching videos in horizontal mode.

Good low-light photography; crisp and detailed screen; slick design

No improvement in battery life; Bixby is still not very useful; intelligent scan has high failure rate

The Galaxy S9 is a perfect-sized phone with a fantastic camera and great performance.

Excellent display; Great 5.8-inch size; Good speakers; Strong performance; Stunning low-light camera

Battery life is lower than competition; Slow Android updates; Camera not as versatile as S9 Plus

It's true what they say - you don't fix what's not broken. And that's what Samsung did for the Galaxy S9 - it didn't change what was already great, it just tweaked specs wherever possible. And it has worked out just fine for them.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is a continuation of the path the South Korean company started last year with the Galaxy S8. Both devices are very similar and nearly identical in look and feel.

Samsung's promotions ahead of the launch of the Galaxy S9 and S9+ promised "The Camera. Reimagined" – and boy did it deliver. The camera onboard the S9 and the even better S9+ have set a new benchmark. The S9+ was actually judged by DxOMark as having the world's best smartphone camera.

Samsung's Galaxy S9 is a strange breed of smartphone. With a Snapdragon 845 processor, great camera, and 18:9 screen, it has all the trappings of a fantastic 2018 handset. Yet, at the same time, it's remarkably similar to the Galaxy S8 that it replaces.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 forces us to question upgrades for their own sake. On the one hand, there's our desire as consumers to have the very latest tech gadget, even if we don't even use the phone we have now to its full extent.

Galaxy S8's excellent design gets even better; Screen; performance & battery all solid; Camera capable of impressive low-light performance; Price is competitive

Intelligent Scan trades security for convenience; Super Slow-mo is 720p only and needs bright lighting; Bixby still feels gimmicky