Samsung Electronics today launched its flagship smartphones for 2018, Galaxy S9 and S9+ in India, not long after they were showcased ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 25.
The new smartphones are evolutionary refreshes of the popular S8 and S8+ and follow the same design philosophy and approach as the previous gen devices. But they also bring in new features, some of them world-firsts. That includes the combination of face recognition and iris scanning for quicker unlocking that is still secure, and a dual aperture camera that intelligently switches between f/2.4 and f/1.5 to allow that much elusive low light phone photography that all manufacturers strive for. The cameras are also capable of ‘Super Slow Motion’ video and create AR Emoji’s that are a cartoon form of a selfie and can be used for a bit of entertainment with animations and GIFs. The S9’s come in colours that bring a new aesthetic to the design: Lilac Purple, Coral Blue and Midnight Black. The top end S9+ model with 256GB is, however, only available in black.
Samsung says that the devices have been re-imagined for India with a number of ‘Make for India’ features that will appeal to Indian consumers. For instance, there is Carrier Aggregation, which makes it possible to stream data 2.5 times faster..
HC Hong, President and CEO, Samsung Southwest Asia, said, “Galaxy S9 and S9+ are made for today’s age where communication and expression is increasingly happening through images, videos and emojis. India has one of the highest number of social media users, is one of the biggest 4G data markets and one of the fastest growing cashless economy in the world. With Galaxy S9 and S9+, we have re-imagined the smartphone for today’s and tomorrow’s India, so that you can ‘Do what you can’t.”
Ties up with telcos
For Galaxy S9 and S9+, Samsung has partnered with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel to bring LTE Carrier Aggregation where spectrum across different bands merge into one single pipe, giving users higher bandwidth, faster streaming and quicker downloads making them the fastest smartphones on 4G networks in India. Galaxy S9 and S9+ can stream data at approx. 250 Mbps, which is 2.5 times faster than the average smartphone connected to the same network
Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will be offered to consumers at a price of ₹57,900 and ₹64,900, respectively, for 64GB variants and ₹65,900 and ₹72,900, respectively, for 256GB variants.
The smartphones will be available in India starting March 16, the same day as the Global Launch.