We're likely only a few months away from the official launch of Samsung's next flagship devices, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, yet we've only just seen our first set of renders. The renders have been created by Samsungmobile.News and are based on a now removed post from a Weibo user.
The original Weibo post showed what appear to be official in-app images for a heart rate monitor. An image shows a finger touching the heart rate monitor on the back of what has to be the Galaxy S9, and in doing so, showed a new vertically-arranged dual camera and a repositioned fingerprint scanner.
The post has since been removed, which could be because Samsung has asked the user to do to so as not to give away any information.
But this is the world of mobile leaks, so nothing is safe and now we have a full set of renders that could turn out to be pretty accurate. From the front, the Galaxy S9 looks to be relatively unchanged from the Galaxy S8, but this was always to be expected, especially after notable leaker Evan Blass said it would be a 'tock' year for the Galaxy flagship, meaning only incremental changes.
The back is where all the changes have been made and the renders give us a clearer indication of what to expect compared to the in-app image posted on Weibo. It's not entirely clear what Samsung will do with regards to cameras for either device just yet, but Samsungmobile.News has predicted only the S9+ will get a dual-lens camera, while the regular S9 will make do with a single-lens.
The site has also listed the specs it expects both phones to come with, and it appears to be a similar story as with the Galaxy S8 devices, whereby both will have the exact same specs except for screen sizes and potentially, cameras. Both will get the recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor in the US and Samsung's Exynos 9810 internationally, 64 and 128GB of expandable storage and 4GB and 6GB of RAM. The Galaxy S9 will have a 5.8-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display while the S9+ will get a 6.2-inch version.
We're not entirely sure when the phones will be released, but there have been rumours to suggest they will be teased at CES in January before an official unveiling at MWC in February. If true, we'd expect Samsung to launch them the night before the show officially kicks off, so we could be looking at Sunday 25 February.
As the weeks go on, we'll hopefully learn more about Samsung's next Galaxy flagships and we'll bring you all the latest news as and when we hear it.