Samsung Galaxy S9 release date news, specs rumors: Next flagship phone to feature 6GB RAM, 3D face scanner

Promotional ad poster for the new Galaxy S8Facebook/Samsungmobile

If the latest rumors are anything to go by, it seems like Samsung is adapting the defining feature of their rival Apple's flagship handset, iPhone X. It is expected that the Samsung Galaxy S9 will have its own version of a 3D face scanner. The device is also likely to receive a bump to 6GB RAM capacity. The follow-up to Galaxy S8 is said to arrive in Q1 2018.

According to recent reports, Samsung is preparing for a 3D sensor to be placed in the front camera. This caused speculations that the South Korean tech giant is trying to adapt their rival's TrueDepth 3D face recognition sensor, which is a vital hardware feature for the iPhone X's Face ID biometrics. The company may be planning to catch up with Apple in terms of security measures, as the latter is already ahead of the race with the Face ID.

It is still unclear, however, if the Samsung Galaxy S9 will entirely follow the biometric security changes in iPhone X. For one, the 10th anniversary iPhone handset ditched the Touch ID feature for Face ID. It is still possible that the Galaxy S9 will have both the facial scanner and fingerprint reader.

Still, there could be a few setbacks if ever Samsung pushes through with a 3D face scanner for the Galaxy S9 smartphones. There are reports that Apple itself is having troubles in the manufacturing of iPhone X with the 3D face scanning technology. This was also pointed out as a reason why Apple is not yet sending the iPhone X handsets to shelves. If the problem persists in the coming months, it is feared that there will be a supply shortage of iPhone X until 2018 due to "component supply bottleneck."

Meanwhile. WCCFTech reported that the Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones will highlight an impressive specs upgrade. Specifically, the base Galaxy S9 will have 6GB RAM, supported by 128GB worth of internal storage. This is a huge leap from the Galaxy S8 specs, in which the standard model only had 64GB onboard memory.

Samsung has not revealed their plans to release the Galaxy S9 next year. Although, rumor has it that their next flagship smartphone will have an earlier launch in 2018. The unveiling of the premium device is expected in January 2018, a few months earlier than the Galaxy S8's March release date.