EvLeaks: Samsung Galaxy S9 gets stereo speakers and retains 3.5mm jack

The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ will have stereo speakers and will retain the 3.5mm jack, claims telecom journalist Evan Blass. The design would be almost identical to that of this year’s Galaxy S8, he writes.

The biggest change is the placement of the fingerprint scanner, which comes under the camera, Blass, also known as EvLeaks, writes on Venturebeat. The scanner is now next to the camera and not centered on the back like many other smartphones.

The S9 will have a 5.8″ screen, while the S9+ will have a 6.2″ panel. Those are the exact dimensions of the S8 and S8+ that appeared this spring. Samsung adds stereo speakers to the housing, but Blass leaves in the middle where the sound comes from. There is little space above and below the screen and manufacturers such as HTC and Huawei opted last year for a setup with a speaker at the bottom of the housing, in combination with the speaker that is standard above the screen. Samsung will keep the 3.5mm connection for its most important devices of the coming year, Blass claims. Competitors such as Apple and Google have omitted them this year and other brands such as Lenovo, Huawei and HTC also have high-end models without the connection.

The S9 would have a single camera, while the S9 +, like the Note 8, would have a dual camera. In addition, the manufacturer would place a RAM of 4GB in the smaller variant and one of 6GB in the larger variant.

The devices would be codenamed Star and Star 2. Samsung would already like to show a glimpse of the devices at the CES electronics fair in Las Vegas at the beginning of January, while the full presentation will take place in March, claims Blass.