Rumored Galaxy S9 improvements could help Samsung rival iPhone X

The iPhone X has stolen a lot headlines with its Face ID scanner, but Samsung might be planning to take back some of the limelight, as it’s rumored that the Samsung Galaxy S9 will have an improved face scanner of its own, along with improvements to the iris scanner.

According to industry sources speaking to ETNews, Samsung is upgrading the software on these features to make them faster than they were on the Galaxy S8.

This would be a welcome improvement, but speed wasn’t the main issue with these features to begin with. Rather, they’d often fail to work altogether, and in the case of the face scanner could be fooled by a photo. 

New software but no new hardware

An industry observer apparently said that "in addition to increasing the speed of simple recognition, there may be new add-ons through software applications," so that could point to other kinds of improvements.

However, the same report claims that Samsung plans to use a similar 8MP front-facing camera and iris scanner to the ones in the Galaxy S8, adding that the company intends to upgrade the software but not make any major hardware changes.

This suggests that the system still won’t be anywhere near as advanced as the Face ID tech used by the iPhone X. Still, we doubt Samsung will ditch the fingerprint scanner, so at least you’ll probably have options.

Via Phone Arena

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.