This month we take a look at two heavyweights in the mobile world. The recently launches Samsung Galaxy S9 caused a stir at Mobile World Congress this year whilst the Pixel 2 is quietly trying to dominate all things relating to the smartphone camera. See how they both got on below.
Google Pixel 2
Google has been slowly doing some impressive things with its smartphone range in recent years. The Pixel range is doing its best to produce the best camera shots you can get on the market. The Pixel 2 is sporting a dual camera and it might just claim the top spot in the market this year. In terms of colour and vibrancy, I think it is head and shoulders above anything else in the market. The main camera is a 12.2MP has some nifty features including background-blurring portrait mode, slow motion and a range of other settings which give it an edge over the rest of the market.
When it comes to the battery Google has somehow managed to squeeze a day of life out of the 2,700mAh power pack. This baffles me but it seems Google has a number of ways to conserve battery life, one being the use of a 1080p screen which burns fewer pixels. The full HD screen is 5 inches and very impressive but doesn’t come close to the top Samsung on the market right now.
Other notable features include the absence of a headphone jack which won’t please everyone, it’s IP67 waterproof (which means it can survive at a depth of 1m for an hour), front facing speakers, and comes with Android Oreo. Driving the device is a Snapdragon 835 chipset with 4GB of RAM, on the storage side you can get either 64GB or 128GB but there is no microSD card slot. Google clearly has a vested interest in making users commit to their cloud services but then again… who doesn’t have a Google account?!
Specs
Price: £629
CPU: Snapdragon 835
OS: Android Oreo
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB or 128GB
Samsung Galaxy S9
Last year Samsung broke new ground with the Galaxy S8 which was genuinely an incredibly phone. This year the anticipation for the S9 was palpable as it finally felt that Samsung could deliver an undisputed king of the smartphone world. So… the big question… did they? Unfortunately Samsung has delivered something which is great, but it lacks the wow factor of last year’s launch. This is really is a minor upgrade which if you blinked at the wrong moment you could easily miss.
Design-wise the S9 is identical to the 2017 model which is a bit disappointing but in fairness the S8 was a great looking piece of kit. The biggest piece of innovation on the S9 is the camera, it has received a sizable upgrade and is simply awesome. In fact, the whole device is set up to be a bit of a media marvel. If you spend a lot of time on the social networks, watching video and taking snaps then the experience you get on the S9 across the board is unbeatable.
Other upgrades include a new front facing speaker and improvements to Samsung’s digital assistant Bixby. They have also used more premium materials to construct a more durable phone but users won’t notice any difference. The biometrics have also come on leaps and bounds but really this now operates as it should have the first time around. All of these minor upgrades are great and the S9 is definitely a better phone than its predecessor but when you consider the speed at which the market moves on year in year out it isn’t quite enough of an upgrade in my opinion. They have even bumped up the launch price which may leave a bitter taste in some consumer’s mouths.
Specs
Price: £739
CPU: Snapdragon 845
OS: Android Oreo
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB