The Samsung Galaxy S9 is, by all accounts, a very good, but predictable and boring 2018 update. The latter sentiment was inescapable, considering that the S9 looks almost exactly like last year’s S8. We smartphone consumers and tech geeks have been spoiled by fresh-looking and feeling smartphones every couple of months.
But Samsung keeping the S9 design language the same makes complete sense , because for one, Samsung’s design language still offers the best in-hand feel ever. I say this not just because the phone has thin top and bottom bezels, but because the handset, with its display curved on both left and right sides and an even more elongated 18.5:9 aspect ratio, is less wide than everything else out there. Consider this: the Galaxy S8/S9 has a similar screen size to the iPhone X, but the phone is about 2mm thinner horizontally across the device (it sounds minor but it makes a difference). Even the larger S8/S9+, with a 6.2-inch display, is less wide than phones with a smaller display like the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, LG V30 and iPhone 8 Plus.
This is important because the slimmer a device is from left to right, the easier it to to hold. I can type one-handed on a Galaxy S8/S9 with ease because my thumb can reach all the way to the other side of the screen. I cannot do this on any other modern smartphone except for the standard iPhone 8, and that phone’s design is so hilariously dated by 2018 standards I shouldn’t even count it as a real flagship (the X is Apple’s flagship and future; the 8 phones are Apple playing it safe to cater to less-demanding users).