Sorry, I won’t be buying the Samsung Galaxy S9

Samsung just announced the next iteration of their flagship Galaxy smartphone. The whole tech world is abuzz with praises for the newest member of this elite class of smartphones. However, from time to time, I do like to put on my pessimistic glasses and find out reasons why jumping ship from your current smartphone and hopping on the S9/S9+ wagon might not be the best decision to make right now. So without any further ado, here are 4 reasons why I am not going to, and probably you shouldn’t as well, buy Galaxy S9:

Read also: Samsung Galaxy S9 official price and comparison with competitors

1. No dual cameras in S9

Samsung made a huge deal about how they reimagined the camera experience with the new S9/S9+. And while many of the new features, including the variable aperture (how cool is that?!), are pretty interesting to see, Samsung decided to leave out the younger sibling from getting an additional camera for that sweet sweet bokeh effect. You could probably use some software gimmick to mimic a depth of field effect like in S8, but having a second physical sensor always translates into better results. I understand Samsung that you need something to differentiate S9 and S9+, but still, not cool. Not cool at all.

2. Battery

Well, I can’t really fault Samsung for being cautious in this department, seeing how Note 7, quite literally, exploded on the smartphone market after its launch. But it was two whole generations away! Come on Samsung. With a QHD screen and a lot of new AR and AI functionalities, there is bound to be an increase in power consumption. Yet Samsung has decided to keep the battery capacity the same as S8/S8+. We definitely have to wait for the phone to launch to test the battery capacity in depth, but initial impressions suggest there might not be any increase, if not a decrease, in the overall battery timing for the newer set of devices. That’s just a little bit disappointing. Especially with the Samsung’s trademark technique of making up for lower battery capacity — running them on a lower screen resolution than advertised.

3. Bixby button is still there

Samsung is really committed to Bixby, and considering how AI is taking over our lives, it’s completely understandable to get into the AI space as soon as possible. But it still doesn’t justify forcing users (some of them who don’t even have Bixby in their region!) to bear the brunt of an extra, and mostly useless, button on the side of their shiny new device. What’s the worse part? You still can’t remap it to something useful as, I don’t know, launching the camera or Google assistant.

4. Too similar to S8

I completely understand that this might not be a huge pain point among those who don’t have an S8. But for someone who has already bought an S8, it’s the same iPhone dilemma all over again. It’s a bit different when compared to the S8, but not different enough that it makes S8 completely obsolete. The only hardware changes, which are visible, are the new and improved camera and the displaced fingerprint sensor. There are also new stereo speakers but only time will tell how much of a difference will they make. It’s a $700+ investment for a phone which is only marginally different than the last generation, which might not be a big issue for everyone, but it sure puts a lot of S8 users in a tough place.

Image Source: the verge