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 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 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.

Samsung's improvements to its latest flagship work as promised, but don't feel like features that you'd miss by not upgrading. Still, thanks to blazing performance, solid cameras and long battery life, the Galaxy S9+ continues to uphold the S series' reputation for excellence.

Dual Aperture effective in low light; Excellent cameras overall; Speedy performance; Long-lasting battery; Good cameras especially in low light; Superior performance; Gorgeous design

Not a major improvement over last generation; No major change since last generation; Lacks the Plus' dual cameras

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 smartphone as we know it today has been around for about a decade now and while the recent shift in form-factor did breathe some new life into it, there doesn’t seem to be much more “revolutionary firsts” left with this blueprint.

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.

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

When Samsung Galaxy S9 rumours started circulating, all of them share one common point: it's more of the same. Often times, it does sound like it's a bad thing.

Display: 5.8-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity Display; CPU: Samsung Exynos 9810 Octa-Core Mobile CPU; RAM/Storage: 4GB/64GB; Cameras: Dual Aperture 12-Megapixels with Super Speed Dual Pixel and OIC (Rear); 8-Megapixels f/1.7 (Front; Sound: AKG-tuned Stereo Speakers with Dolby Atmos and UHQ 32-bit...

Antutu: 241266; PCMark Work 2.0: 5302; 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 3208 (OpenGL); 2799 (Vulkan; 3DMark Sling Shot: 3763; GeekBench: 3418 (Single); 8759 (Multi