There has not been a full month since Samsung unveiled their latest high-end mobile device, the Galaxy Note 8, and the company's flagship handset, Galaxy S8, was only released in the markets last April. Even so, leaks regarding the South Korean tech giant's next flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S9, have started to surface online. The latest word in the rumor mill suggests that just like its predecessor, the Galaxy S9 will be launched in two models. Moreover, the premium handsets are said to be released earlier than the usual.
As reported by Slash Gear, the Samsung Galaxy S9 will have two variants, as shown by the recently leaked firmware codes for the handset models. Sam Mobile was able to obtain the details regarding the firmware version dedicated for the upcoming Galaxy S9 smartphones. There are two firmware versions spotted and they are currently under development. Nonetheless, leakers were able to get the codes associated with the firmware versions, namely G960FXXU0AQI5 and G965FXXU0AQI5.
From these firmware codes, Sam Mobile was able to decipher the codenames for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones, which are SM-G960 and SM-G965. To recall the current Galaxy S8 and S8+, the flagship models received the codenames SM-G950 and SM-G955, respectively. For now, it appears that the 2 flagship variants to launch next year will follow the Galaxy S8 and S8+, thus the upcoming devices will be known as Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+. There is no certainty that the second Galaxy S9 variant will be called the S9 Plus, given that the flagship's 2015 iteration had the Edge moniker instead.
Meanwhile, there are reports that the Samsung Galaxy S9 will be launched earlier than expected. Compared to the unveiling of Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ in March this year, the upcoming Galaxy S9 handsets might be showcased as early as January 2018.
There are rumors regarding the scheduled shipment of the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays for the Samsung Galaxy S9 this year, which is expected to begin as early as November. To note, the shipping of OLED displays for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ began in January 2017, with around two months allotted for production before unboxing them to the public. With this, the Samsung Galaxy S9 might be ready for release by January next year.
There are no confirmed hardware features yet for Samsung Galaxy S9. Although, according to the latest rumors, the handset will boast a powerful chipset from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 845. The mobile chip processor is said to be the next iteration of Snapdragon 835, which is being used by Samsung Galaxy S8 devices.
