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.

In some ways, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is a serious step up from last year's flagship phone. In particular, its new 12-megapixel f/1.5 rear camera performs far better in low light than its predecessor. Its new Exynos 9810 processor also promises significantly faster performance.

Samsung hasn't made any drastic changes to the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ compared to their predecessors, and the company didn't really need to do much. Last year's design is still stunning, and now, it's a little more polished.

Last year Samsung didn't unveil a Galaxy smartphone at MWC 17, instead focusing on its manufacturing standards and unveiling the Galaxy S8 a couple of months later. The move proved a smart one, with the Galaxy S8 taking top spot in our books as the best phone of the year.

Impressive design; Bright and crisp display; Great all round camera; High powered processor

Bixby still meh; Not a huge step up from S8

Does this AR emoji look like me? Kinda I wasn't wearing a stitch of makeup when I took this photo Check out those curves The Galaxy S9's dimensions hits the sweet spot The Lilac purple color option really stands out The Samsung Galaxy S9 retails for $719.99 unlocked in the US.

Let's not beat around the bush, the exterior of the Samsung Galaxy S9 is essentially a carbon copy of the S8 . Yet, even with all that sameness, Samsung's balanced no-notch design seems more considered than before. It doesn't feel needy like a lot of the new iPhone X copycat handsets I saw at MWC.

Way better performance; battery life; and low-light photos AR Emojis aren't all they are cracked up to be

AR Emojis aren't all they are cracked up to be

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is smaller than the Galaxy S9+, and that's a good thing. The single-camera setup at the rear keeps up on most counts with the dual-camera setup on the S9+. There's also less RAM on the Samsung Galaxy S9, but on the face of it that doesn't really matter.

Far from playing it safe, Samsung has further refined an already excellent design language, adding in new features and improving what needed improving. Brand-new Dolby Atmos-grade speakers are among the best new enhancements that will make daily use of the phone better than ever, and the slew of...

Gorgeous; IP68 water and dust resistant build; Industry-leading display; Incredible Dolby Atmos speakers; 3.5mm audio jack; PMA and WPC wireless charging support; Edge panels are ultra useful; Ultra-fast performance; Samsung Pay is still the best mobile payments solution; Great new biometric...

Only supports QuickCharge 2.0; Camera noise processing is still too heavy; Front-facing camera should be better; New camera interface is terrible; Battery life should be better; Having fewer features on the smaller Galaxy S9 camera is lame

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

Samsung has done some pretty impressive upgrades on the Galaxy S9. It's got a slightly more compact in an almost identical design, a more practical placement of the fingerprint scanner and an inclusion of stereo speakers are all nice.

Impressive performance; Very nice display; Great camera performance; Loud; stereo speakers; Fast wireless charging; Water resistance

Battery life did not improved; Super expensive