Should you buy the S8 or S9? Which one is better?

When you compare the S9 vs S8 side-by-side, you’ll realize that visually the S9 is mostly just an incremental improvement over the S8. You’ll find that the bezels on the top and bottom of the display are a little smaller (thus resulting in a phone that’s slightly smaller, albeit sharing the same screen size), an amplified earpiece (which allows the phone to play stereo sound), and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor that’s right below the camera module (a lot of people were complaining about the awkward fingerprint sensor placement position on the S8). But even though these improvements may not seem like much, there are a few other hardware/software advantages that the S9 has over the S8.

The S9 has a better processor and camera

Perhaps the biggest hardware difference of the S9 vs S8 is the chip/processor that’s inside each of the devices. Since the S9 is one year newer than the S8, it has a Qualcomm chip inside that’s one generation newer. The S9 contains the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chip compared to the older Snapdragon 835 chip inside the S8. This means that the S9 may feel a little quicker than the S8. Another hardware advantage of the S9 comes inside the camera: Samsung claims that the S9’s camera has slightly better low-light performance thanks to an aperture that can shift between F2.4 and F1.5. If you’re not a photography nut that is drooling over these aperture values, it’s OK, just know that the S9 does have a slightly better camera :)

S9 vs S8: It’s all about the software updates

By the time you’re reading this, there’s a good chance the S8 is no longer receiving any software updates or security patches. But you’ll be able to expect longer developer support (even if it’s just a sporadic security patch every few months) on the Galaxy S9. And we’re all for having a more secure experience when using your smartphone.

Galaxy S9 vs S8: Which one would we choose?

Despite the S9 being slightly more expensive than the S8 on the refurbished market, we’d rather spend the extra money to buy the S9. Yes, the differences between the Galaxy S9 vs S8 may not be huge, but we feel the advantages of the S9 justify the slightly higher price tag.