New Samsung Galaxy S9 Info Shows Smartphone Could Be Huge Challenge To iPhone X

The iPhone X will arrive in three weeks, but Apple has a lot of competition on the horizon. Samsung’s Galaxy S9 could be the smartphone to beat. According to TechRadar, Samsung has already started working on the hardware and could release the phone in January, which is two months early for a Galaxy S device.

Early reports suggest that the Galaxy S9 will not have a fingerprint reader underneath the screen. This is something that both Samsung and Apple had tried to do with their new smartphones, but the tech giants weren’t able to perfect the technology. Apple ended up completely deleting the fingerprint reader on the iPhone X and is using face-recognition technology as the main form of security.

According to Trusted Reviews, the Galaxy S9 could have an all-new environmental sensor.

“The patent [which Samsung just filed] describes a sensor built-in Samsung’s future smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches, which can measure the amount of harmful particles in the air. While it has been dubbed an Environment Sensor, the patent seems more focused on collecting information about pollution rather than a suite of extra environment data, such as noise levels.”

Although some would say that this isn’t important, Trusted Reviews and other sites think that this feature will be significant for people living in cities with high levels of air pollution. With pollution showing an increase each year, we may be seeing a lot more cities with levels of air pollution that are considered dangerous.

According to BGR, the Galaxy S9 will be the first smartphone to have a Snapdragon 845 processor, which is said to provide speed and performance far beyond anything ever seen in the Android world. Still, the readers in the comments section aren’t very impressed.

“Tell me when Samsung kicks Qualcomm to the curb and goes back to it’s excellent Exynos chips for North America,” states Drcaveman.

“Even my phone from last year is extremely fast. Why would I want it ‘faster’? Are you looking for things that take 0.5 sec… take 0.4 secs?” asks Nancy Nanc.

Still, no matter how fast Android phones have become, their speeds never test as fast as their iPhone counterparts. And Apple’s iPhone X, released on November 3, is said to be a real speed master. As BGR notes, the speed tests on the iPhone X have proven incredible. In some tasks, the iPhone X runs almost twice as fast as the Galaxy Note 8, which has more powerful hardware.

Apple has just as much pressure as Samsung to deliver these days. The iPhone X is the most significant upgrade to the iPhone line since its debut in 2007. The new smartphone has a 5.8-inch, 2436 x 1125 pixel resolution Super Retina OLED display, which is the largest we’ve ever seen on an iPhone. Because it’s an edge-to-edge display without much bezel space, the iPhone X is still close in size to the iPhone 7, which only has a 4.7-inch screen. The iPhone X will be powered by a new A11 neural bionic processor. It also has a glass body and is capable of being charged wirelessly.

The year 2017 looks to be the most significant (and expensive) for smartphone releases in years. The competition from Apple and Samsung can only help the tech industry as well as the economy in general. Which smartphone would you rather have — the Galaxy S9 or the iPhone X? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

[Featured Image by Jason Kempin/Getty Images]