Samsung Says Galaxy S9 Unveil Unlikely To Occur At CES

Things are about to get a little crazy in the tech industry. That's because the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is right around the corner. Manufacturers will be eager to show off their new and upcoming products. Unfortunately, it does not look like Samsung will unveiling its next flagship phones, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, as was previously rumored. Instead, the company is more likely to wait until Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February.

We can't say we are surprised, if Samsung chooses to go that route. CES is not typically a launchpad for smartphones, and is instead more focused on computers, gadgets, and gizmos. Sometimes there is an unofficial encompassing theme—one year it was tablets, another year it was 4K resolution displays. This year we expect a mix of virtual reality and Internet of Things (IoT) to dominate CES, but who knows.

Even so, it was recently rumored that Samsung would in fact show off its Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ handsets at CES, followed by a launch in March. Some analysts speculated that Samsung would be eager to showcase its new flagship handsets to draw attention away from Apple's recently launched iPhone X. However, Samsung brushed off the notion, according to a report in The Korea Herald, saying, "It is unlikely."

Either way, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are around the corner, whether an unveiling happens next month, or in February or March. Qualcomm's just-launched Snapdragon 845 SoC will power the handsets. We also suspect the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will retain the same Infinity display and mostly bezel-free design of Samsung's existing Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ phones, but with even thinner bezels.

It will be interesting to see if Samsung ditches the fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone in favor of an embedded one in the display itself. This was an oft-rumored feature of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, but never materialized due to technical challenges.