The Galaxy S8 was a significant milestone in smartphone design, not just for Samsung but the entire industry. So, when Samsung announced the Galaxy S9 and S9+ on Sunday, they didn’t change much in terms of design compared to the predecessors.
The Galaxy S9 does bring some design changes to the table, but they are all subtle refinements to the Galaxy S8’s design, like a repositioned fingerprint reader, increased durability, and also slightly smaller bezels. The bezels on the Galaxy S8 were already quite small even after packing a crazy amount of tech. The S9 and S9+ come with even smaller/narrower bezels while adding more tech to the front of the phone.
Smaller, less distracting bezels
Exactly how small are the bezels on the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+? The top bezel on the Galaxy S9 is 8.18 mm, 0.48 mm narrower than the Galaxy S8. The bottom bezel is 6.96 mm, which is 0.76 mm smaller than its predecessor. The narrower bezels together make the Galaxy S9 1.2 mm shorter than the S8 while retaining the same display size.
The Galaxy S9+, on the other hand, has an 8.21 mm bezel at the top and 6.99 mm bezel at the bottom, resulting in 0.39 mm and 1.01 mm smaller bezels respectively compared to the Galaxy S8+. This makes the Galaxy S9+ 1.4 mm shorter compared to the S8+ even as the screen size remains the same.
The story about bezels doesn’t stop there. The Galaxy S9 and S9+ also have less visually distracting elements in the top bezel. Samsung has applied a low-reflective film to make the display flow more seamlessly into the bezel. The company also managed to make the iris sensor blend into the bezel in a manner that makes it impossible to know the sensor is there when it's not scanning your eyes.
The Galaxy S9 duo may have smaller bezels, but the rear camera protrudes 0.2 mm and 0.15 mm more than the S8 and S8+ respectively. Samsung attributes this increased camera protrusion to the high-speed sensor and Dual Aperture in the Galaxy S9. Not a bad trade-off we think.
