Patrons who are expecting to get a glimpse of the Samsung Galaxy S9 at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January might be disappointed. A new report claims that a preview of the flagship at the Las Vegas event may not happen after all.
Venture Beat's Evan Blass, who has a strong reputation for revealing unannounced developments usually on Twitter, claimed last month that the Samsung Galaxy S9 series will make their first public appearance at the January trade show, although they will be formally unveiled in March. Apparently, the company is eyeing an earlier release window to quickly draw flair away from the newly released iPhone X, which is getting massively popular.
However, a new statement from the tech giant is casting doubt on that appearance, with a spokesperson saying that a CES launch "is unlikely." While the representative makes no mention of the alternate date the company is considering, The Korea Herald says industry watchers predict Samsung may formally take the wraps off of the flagships during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February instead or at a launch event of its own in March.
As recalled, past iterations of the phone, including the Galaxy S5, S6, and S7, debuted at the MWC, while Galaxy S8 launched at a separate event in New York and London in March.
The new Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ are thought to be "incremental" updates to this year's S8 series, offering largely a similar design but with hardware upgrades.
Coming with 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch display, respectively, both devices are expected to sport super AMOLED "Infinity" screens with curved edges. The U.S. version will reportedly house a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, while its global version will likely have the recently unveiled Exynos 9810 SoC. These are said to be coupled with up to 6 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of onboard storage with microSD card support. The S9 will likely reposition the fingerprint scanner to a more practical spot as well, this time just below the dual-cameras on the back of the handset.
There are claims that Samsung will be adding a "Mini" version to the lineup next year, but Samsung is reportedly undecided yet about its release.
For now, all there is to Samsung's 2018 flagships are just speculations. As usual, Samsung is not likely to reveal any official details before the launch of the devices. Until then, patrons are advised to take the Galaxy S9 reports with a healthy grain of salt.
