Samsung - Galaxy S9 64GB - Sunrise Gold (Unlocked)

I picked up the phone on release day to see if there was much of the same from previous iterations of the galaxies or if Samsung actually listened to their customers. Well I'm here to tell you they've done a great job. Pros: -Screen - The screen is the best in the business. Colors are beautifully saturated with enough brightness in direct sunlight as well as good viewing angles. HDR content looks phenomenal as expected also. -Design - Although I'm not a fan of glass on glass phones this is still a beautifully designed phone and appreciate the taming of the curved screen in comparison to the S7 and S8. -Speakers - Wow, the speakers are phenomenal! I prefer front facing speakers like in the Pixel 2 but these are definitely one of the best sounding stereo pair I've heard. At max volume it starts to sound a bit tinny but I don't play my music or movies at max volume anyways. -Fingerprint Sensor - I'm glad Samsung listened to their customers and changed the placement of the fingerprint sensor. It's far more accurate than last years S8 and the setup was done in no time as well. -Camera- The camera on the galaxy s9 is an absolute beast. Colors are punchy and detailed and the variable aperture can really shine in low light scenarios. Low light photos outclass the Pixel 2 especially with noise reduction. Selective focus is a bit wonky with edge detection from time to time but still manages to produce great images the majority of the time. Cons: -Battery Life - Battery life is probably the worst thing about this phone. I'm a light to medium user and average about 24 hours on a charge. Although the battery is perfectly fine for my usage I can see how a heavy user might not make it throughout the day. I understand Samsung's point of view on being safe with the battery capacity due to the fiasco with the Note 7, but they could have put a greater capacity or optimized the battery better. I've gotten better battery out of my Essential phone which is comparable in screen size and battery capacity. Conclusion: Overall, I think the Samsung Galaxy S9 is a great buy for someone that is looking for a complete package of power and performance. If you're a Samsung fan or need to upgrade from an old phone and want the latest and greatest then it's a no brainer. If you're looking for a near stock android experience with quick updates then this phone isn't for you. I hope this is the year Samsung finally gets their update scheduled worked out to provide customers with fast OS and security patches in a timely fashion.

I have a very annoying obsession with trying new phones wherein I switch between android to iOS phones about once a year. With that said, there are things I like about both operating systems and this is not my first switch between the two. Hence, I recently picked up a new unlocked Galaxy S9 for my latest venture. This phone is sleek, classy and absolutely beautiful. Additionally, it’s very speedy and has very smooth operation. The camera is of very high quality, too. Better than my current iPhone 7 Plus in many respects. HOWEVER, I found that the cell and WiFi reception of the S9 was insufficient for my needs and it was subpar to my iPhone using the same nano sim in both phones as well as the same WiFi connections. Granted, where I am located is somewhat spotty at times for cell connection, but it would not pull in the signal as well as the iPhone. In the same exact areas using the same exact SIM card I can consistently get one to two bars of LTE with the iPhone, but the S9 struggled to acquire any type of signal and quite often would fail. The same applied when trying to connect to the AT&T hot spot in my truck. I tested the S9 with both T-Mobile and AT&T and got the same results. When you’re in an area with very strong cell coverage you probably won’t have any issues, but when cell coverage is slim you may have serious difficulties. I ended up returning the S9 in the end and eating the $35 restocking fee rather than have a beautiful new phone that I couldn’t use for its basic and primary purpose...data and talking. Had it met those basic needs, I’d give it 5 stars. I wish I could strongly recommend the beautiful S9, but I can’t. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

I haven't owned a Samsung device since the Samsung Infuse 4g. Over the years I've jumped between One Plus, Motorola, and the Nexus line. My most recent was the Moto Z play which I owned for a couple years. That coupled with the Moto Mod battery pack, would last 3 days on battery. It was nice, but with the older SD620, it was definitely getting slow. Camera wasn't great at all, and to top it off, the screen shattered on me. I walked into BB looking for a phone, planning on getting the Moto X4, but wasn't so sure about it especially since it is almost 2 years old. I knew the S9 was going to be phased out soon, so I took a peak at that, and noticed it just went on sale for $100 off. I wasn't looking to spend $620 on a phone that day, but I did it. First, the UI of the phone is nice. It isn't as bad as what I remember hearing about the old TouchWiz. It's not laggy, and easy to use. Bixby home isn't too bad, but the bixby assistant leaves something to be desired. I've downloaded an app to remap the Bixby button (can't be done in the OS), but it has disabled the bixby home. Hopefully this might be something that can be released in a future update, but as far as I know about the track record of Samsung updating the OS I don't expect that to happen ever. What was nice to see is Samsung has a similar feature to Motorola's always on display. You can get a quick glance of what your notifications are while your phone is locked, without revealing too much information. The phone has an IRIS scanner that works great for extra security, though I wish it would require you to blink to be able to unlock it. Even in a very dark room it's easy to unlock. Now the fingerprint sensor, I do wish that it was on the front of the phone rather than the back. I run into situations, often, where my phone is sitting on my desk and I want to unlock it real quick, but the fingerprint sensor on the back requires me to pick the phone up. I know, first world problems, but it would be nice to have. The battery life isn't too bad. With the phones FHD+ screen, and always on display, I have been able to squeeze a day and a half out of a full charge. This could be better if I didn't have a bunch of applications running in the background. Now the camera is excellent. I've always had phones with ok cameras. The moto z play had a terribly crap camera. The camera on the S9 compared to the Z Play was a difference of night and day (seriously, low light pictures come out great). The front facing camera is also very good. Excellent for doing video calls. Definitely a great phone, but not perfect. If it weren't on sale, I probably wouldn't have purchased the S9, but for an extra $100 off, I believe it was worth it.

To be sincere, I was very skeptical about buying this phone because I had heard a LOT of bad reviews about it. Too many to be honest, so i was between buying this one, the Note 9 or wait for S10 which comes this year. I was even thinking about going for my second favorite brand that is LG. Furthermore, I gave in and i was hoping I was getting my money's worth, and i can say I did. My S7 was a sharm, i loved my phone so much, It lasted me about two years if I am not mistaken, I was only hoping my S9 was an upgrade and not a downgrade which thankfully it was an upgrade. The screen is slightly taller, and the ohone it is thinner which i do enjoy. I thought i was going to have a problem with not having the home button at the front, but in reality, it doesn't take much getting used to. I also thought I was going to take some getting used to with the fingerprint on the back, but that wasn't a problem either. Love the graphics of the phone and LOVE the battery life most of all! My phone lasts all day and I use my phone frequently. Speakers are great as well, i love that it's pretty loud. No problem with hearing other people either and also no problem with connecting it to my fitbit or any Bluetooth device I own. I also love the fact that my phone has 64gb internally and I can still add an SD card to my phone. Phone is super responsive, no problems at all with that and has not frozen on me or rebooted by itself like my S7 started to do (it was old). I definetely recommend this phone. I don't know to what extent did other people used their phones that they didn't like it or love it for that matter, but i believe it's a great phone. Maybe because I never owned the S8 so I cannot tell the difference. Great phone over all.

Switched from using Iphone's to this. Here are just a few things that I don't like: When you receive a text message you can either have it set to show who the message was from and what the message says or you can have it set to say Text Message, meaning when someone texts you it just shows you that you have a text message. So you don't know who text you. This bugs me very much because on my Iphone when someone texts me, it would say who the message was from. Then I could determine if it was something I should view right away or if it was just a spam message (like from a sale from cherry berry). The next thing that bugs me is the ringtone, notification tone, media, and system are all separate volume controls, which usually would be nice. However, you would think ringtone would me from a call and text message and it's not it is strictly phone calls. They lumped text messaging into notifications. So now if you want to turn your text message volume up you have to here all your notification tones. I have shut most of them off, but I still like getting notifications from some and there is no way to just turn the volume off on those. So the phone will randomly makes noises if I have the notification volume up and half the time I cannot figure out what the sound is for. One more thing, when I try to send a video to someone it won't let me because it is to big. I am only trying to send a short little 1 minute video and I believe the biggest I can send is 15 seconds. This is just ridiculous to me. I can't send send a partial of a video without cutting the video down to size loosing the rest of the video completely. Also the keyboard on this phone really sucks. I know you can change it but, it is set up the same way on the iPhone and it just adds random letters or words or doesn't type the word. I know it has taken some time getting used to this versus an IPhone but there are just those couple things that almost make me want to switch back. Overall it is a good phone though.

This is my first unlocked smartphone buy in USA. The sales person was real honest and explained me about the product details/offers. I used lyca prepaid sim (lyca uses T-mobile network) and it started working instantly. Data speed is high. Don't know if this phone will work in India, experiment that in the next month during my vacation, hope this will work with the networks in India as well. So far this phone works great. It was 38% when I bought this mobile, the whole night i played around the options and settings (got a little eye pain may be i have to adjust the resolution or contrast) and after 5 hours the mobile started getting little heat, i will continue to monitor the performance of the mobile for the next 14 days. pros: current phone with almost all options, good camera. Got a freebie of Home monitoring kit, dont know how to use it but will give a try this weekend.. :) cons: phone is getting heat after 3-hrs. Compare this model with Samsung.com. With samsung online, you could save some 60-70$ bcos there is no tax charged. I should have done this thru Samsung site, I thought I could save some dollars by going with Best Buy Credit Card. But no much difference becos of the Tax. So, unless you get big rewards or discounts, dont go for Best Buy credit cards, thats waste of time and one additional unnecessary hard credit check. 5% reward back, 25% accessory/other bundle offers...STILL the Tax amount you have to pay to BestBuy will be more than the savings.

I have always had Samsung since the smart phones began. My S7 was damaged and the insurance had expired. After checking the prices, the S9 was only $100 more than the S7. It is all right so far, a lot I need to learn before I can say for sure. There are a few things I do not care for. I do not like the the home or back buttons on the screen. Nor do I like the way you send a call. No more just finding the name and swiping to the right. I guess I will get use to it. If not I have 30 days to exchange it for another S7. The camera was rated high on the reviews, which was one reason I went with the S9. I am not impressed. I can see a small difference in the quality. Maybe once I read and experiment with it, that will change also. Do not care for the way the picture folders are setup, nor being notified when contacts update their pictures. Too personal and I will change that once I figure it out. Had to make changes to get it to connect to my Sony Android TV. Though the websites said they were not comparable. Started to return it before I researched it. The search and download speed is a bit faster, but the upload speed is a bit slower than the S7. I am just getting use to the apps button being replaced with swiping upward. And finally this Bixby thing keeps trying to turn itself on, after I disabled it. I have only had it for a few days so maybe I am speaking to soon. But I will update my review once I decide.

I purchased this phone with high expectations and they have been met. Though I originally thought to buy it new I ended up going with the open-box excellent option and have NOT been disappointed. True to their title the phone was in excellent condition and I personally couldn't and still can't find a single bit of damage. It was essentially brand-new; but considerably cheaper. All that aside the phone runs great and has soo many useful (for me) features in comparison to my previous Samsung, the S5 Active. That thing was long overdue for a replacement and I couldn't have asked for much more out of one at the price. I wish they would have included the second rear camera on the smaller version as the 9+ was just too big to me; but that isn't a deal breaker. The camera is Amazing and so is the screen. With pictures I wish I could take pictures larger than 4:3 without compromising picture quality; but that's a limitation of a 12mp camera I suppose. And then there is YouTube which like most all video apps or video players won't fill in the entire screen due to most all video today being shot in a 16:9 aspect ratio; whereas i believe this phone has a 18.5:9 ratio. You can zoom in on YouTube thankfully, however it does cut the image off a bit. But for MOST videos it's not too bad. Anyway, they are all minor complaints and again this is still a great phone.