Thumbing their nose at Apple, Samsung to keep the 3.5mm headphone jack alive another year

Evan Blass (aka EvLeaks) from VentureBeat has spilt the details on Samsung’s next generation of flagship smartphones, due in 2018.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 (model SM-G960, codenamed Star 1),  and S9+ (model SM-G965, codenamed Star 2 ) are expected to be unveiled early next year at CES 2018 and is apparently said to be very similar to the current S8 and S8+.

This mainly means the same 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch curved-edge Super AMOLED “Infinity” displays, but Samsung has also taken the opportunity to correct the main issue with the S8 range- the back-mounted fingerprint reader. Unfortunately still back-mounted and not underneath the display, it is now orientated vertically with the fingerprint reader at the bottom, meaning there should be no need to smudge the camera lens anymore.

The processor is also expected to be upgraded to the powerful Snapdragon 845 10nm model, while RAM will be increased to 4 GB for the S9 and 6 GB for the S9+, backed by 64 GB of storage and a microSD card.  The larger S9+ will now also feature dual cameras, similar to the Note 8.

The devices will now also feature stereo AKG speakers, and most importantly will preserve the 3.5mm headphone jack. Samsung has somewhat stubbornly refused to give in to the trend of disposing of this useful port in favour of USB-C, and given that they are the most popular Android OEM they continue to offer a real choice to buyers who do not want to be inconvenienced with the troublesome loss of the headphone jack.

Samsung’s Dex dock is also expected to get an upgrade, now featuring a flat configuration allowing users to use the screen as a mousepad or keyboard.

While the device is expected to be shown off at CES 2018 Blass still expects the official launch to be in March 2018.