I would normally never do this... When I'm reviewing a device, it's usually my policy to use it like an everyday, normal person would, preferably for at least a couple of weeks, before passing judgement.
When it comes to the best phone in the world, sometimes you have to make an exception...
As far as I'm concerned, Samsung’s been leading the pack for several years now, with both the S and Note series. Granted, the more flammable Note7 wasn't perfect, but overall, the flagship handsets from Samsung have pioneered advances in screen technology, wireless charging, water and dust resistance and camera quality.
I'm breaking my routine and publishing this review on the day the Galaxy S9 and S9+ have been launched because I was lucky enough to have a brief sneaky peek at these new devices before they actually go on sale in a few weeks' time. Although I only had about an hour to play with them, some of the new features made such an impact on me, I thought I'd give you my take which may be of assistance if you're considering pre-ordering a shiny new S9 or S9+.
Available in black, blue and for the first time, lilac (which I can assure you, is definitely not pink) the latest models in the Samsung Galaxy line are again the most beautiful phones I've ever seen. The (by now) trademark curved edges of the all glass front and back, now recess slightly into the bezel making the S9's easier to grip than their predecessors. Like the S8's, the fingerprint sensor is still on the back but to placate last year's moaners, it's been centered to a more sensible position below the camera instead of beside it - so no more accidental fingerprint smudges on your camera lens.
The camera features wider aperture capabilities than ever before - right down to F1.5 in fact, which as far as I am aware makes it the widest aperture lens currently available. This should mean the best low-light shots ever seen from a smart phone and while I didn't have the opportunity to try it out myself, I saw some very nice shots taken in near darkness that certainly looked the goods. If you prefer a dual-lens configuration, you'll have to go for the larger S9+. For some reason, I assume budget, the S9 has just the single rear-facing lens although it seems to offer most of the same photo-functionality as its big brother.
One of the new, and perhaps the most exciting photographic features is Super Slow-Mo video recording. This means you can create your own GIFs that transition from normal time to slow-motion and back again effortlessly. I had a good play around with this feature and it's the real deal. Think capturing that kid crossing the finish line, blowing out the birthday candles or throwing a bucket of water over your dad - the S9's can easily record these moments in Super Slow-Mo and then they are instantly shareable.
While you're sharing things, you might want to create your own AR Emoji - one selfie is all it takes to convert your image into an animated 3D avatar that can be attached to messages or sent in a variety of emoji GIFs. Personally, I hate emojis... but I have to admit - when they look a bit like me and they blow kisses, cry tears of laughter or have bright ideas, they're a lot more fun.
This facial scanning technology also lends itself to an enhanced facial unlock, which combined with the retina scanner makes for a more reliable and secure phone all round.
For the first time, thanks to its recent partnership with Harman audio, Samsung now introduces AKG-tuned stereo speakers to make the most of what you're watching or listening to. The result is genuinely loud and crisp, perhaps the best I've heard from phone speakers to date. Although there's also a very nice pair of AKG earbuds included in the box, I imagine there'll be situations when you won't even plug them in and choose to use the speakers instead, especially watching Netflix etc - the sound really is that good.
Some things haven't changed much since the S8's of May last year. Both versions are more or less the same size as their 2017 counterparts (within a millimetre or so). The screen sizes remain the same; 5.8inches for the S9 and 6.2inches on the S9+. Unusually, the battery size hasn't changed either, although because the S9's now feature a faster, more intelligent processor, the team at Samsung assure me they're getting better performance from the battery than ever - obviously, there was no way for me to test this in the hour I had with the devices so we'll just have to wait and see.
There are a few software tweaks I like too; you can now pin multi-tasking shortcuts to the homescreen (previously you could only do this with the edge-screen) This means you can open two apps at once, eg: browser and email. What I've only just discovered though, is you an also open the same app twice. Why? How about moving files from one folder to another? It's a lot easier to do if you have both those folders open on a split-screen. Yes, the processing power of these new phones rivals a more conventional desktop PC experience. What's more, both models come in 256GB variants with the option to expand that storage via microSD. There are now 400GB microSD cards on the market, so potentially these phones can hold over 650GB of stuff. That's better than most laptops. Crazy.
Samsung's virtual assistant, Bixby is also being constantly refined. I already find Bixby's voice and text recognition capabilities indispensable, but the latest version has been pimped up to perform even more clever tricks, like helping you find nearby points of interest just by holding the camera up, translating foreign text in real time and even giving you the weather by pointing your phone skywards.
As I have mentioned, I haven't used these phones long enough to share the full experience, but even this small taste pretty much blew my mind. As usual.
Whether you choose the S9 or S9+, no matter what your previous phone was, I'm already convinced these handsets will not disappoint.
Click here for more information and pricing on the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+
There's no denying it, you no longer have to pay big-brand prices for a phone with premium features. But can you get all the features for under $1000?
OPPO's latest handset takes a pretty good run at it...
Whether you choose black, champagne or red, the OPPO R11s is unarguably one of the most attractive phones on the market. The brushed metal finish, curved lines and narrow bezel all combine to produce a truly first-class look. As usual with OPPO devices, this phone stops you in your tracks with its feather-light and super-slim feel.
If it seems like I'm starting this review pretty hot straight out of the blocks, that's because the first impression the R11s gives is one of sheer luxury. Like the R11 from a few months ago, it's hard not to compare the look of this phone with the latest Apple handsets - especially now OPPO has moved its fingerprint sensor round to the back (the best place for it) and eliminated the physical home button (which wasn't even a button, just a place to rest your finger) altogether. This means the front of the R11s is pretty much all screen.
That fingerprint sensor has to be one of the fastest out there and you can now choose to unlock the device via facial recognition too. I'd seen some comments about the facial recognition being a bit fiddly to set up, but I had the opposite experience (or is that the OPPOsite experience?) I was mucking around with the phone settings just after I'd taken it out of the box. I looked down at the phone and discovered it was unlocked. I could have sworn I'd put a lock code on it by that stage, then I realised I'd also set up my facial recognition almost without even trying. It was working, and working instantly. Impressive, considering I was sitting in a dimly lit hotel bar.
It's that kind of premium-level functionality that makes the R11s feel like it's worth about $1000 more than what they're charging for it. The processor is fast and powerful which means apps download, install and run quickly and smoothly. While this is an Android phone (running Android 7.1) OPPO's ColorOS 3.2 provides a user interface that's probably more familiar to iPhone users. Quick settings like sound, WiFi, bluetooth, mobile data and brightness are all accessed with a swipe-up from the bottom of the screen, which is how Apple's iOS does it. A swipe from the top gives you access to any app notifications. For some reason you can't just swipe these away, you have to swipe, then delete.
Another way ColorOS 3.2 mimics iOS is the default launcher configuration, with any newly installed apps just loading their icons onto the home screen, creating new pages ad infinitum as required. This is of course messy, inefficient and stupid, but Apple cult members might find it reassuring. The rest of us normal people can easily install an alternative launcher with a proper app drawer or just go with Google Launcher as it is already installed out of the box.
Still just the single speaker at the bottom of the handset, but I found this surprisingly loud and clear. Bluetooth connectivity was also strong, loud and clear - not to mention reliable, be it in the car, or paired with speakers or earphones.
So what doesn't the R11s do? There must be some limitations for it to be retailing under $800...Well for starters, it's not water or dust resistant. This didn't really bother me at first as I'm not the person in our house with a history of toilet-dropping when it comes to phones. However... my heart did skip a beat the other day when I stopped to take a picture of the shark that had washed up on our local beach and then immediately proceeded to drop the R11s face down on the wet sand. I picked it up to discover the screen was now completely covered in clumps of damp beach. Obviously I didn't want to risk scratching the screen by wiping it on my shorts, but due to its lack of waterproofness, I couldn't run it under the tap either. Tricky. Thankfully, the R11s comes with a factory-fitted screen protector which probably helped mitigate any damage that may have been caused by my klutziness.
The R11s does not charge wirelessly. Now, this is something I'm always banging on about because personally, I love wireless charging. My constant moaning about how slow most manufacturers are to adopt it has pretty much been falling on deaf ears and I have a theory why; wireless charging might be one of those features you don't realise you're going to love until you have it. Of course, now the cult-leaders at Apple have finally put a phone out that charges wirelessly, maybe the trend will change. In defence of the R11s, it does charge incredibly quickly, using OPPO's VOOC Flash Charger (included). At 3205mAh, the battery provides plenty of oomph for a whole day or more, probably due in part to the somewhat aggressive powersaving proccessess the R11s runs in the background by default. While many phones will politely ask you if you'd like to put idle apps to sleep or keep them running behind the scenes, the R11s treats most apps as battery-hungry demons that must be killed off the moment they're not being actively used. You can change this in the battery settings menu but I'll admit, it's a bit of a hassle. One more slight charging niggle, the R11s still uses microUSB instead of the newer, reversible Type-C connector. Not a major, but it does mean a bit more fiddling around with the cord.
Final fancy feature the R11s is missing? NFC. You won't be able to tap'n'go with this one. Again, not exactly essential, but if, like me, you've become accustomed to leaving your wallet at home and waving your phone at the supermarket checkout, it's a bit of a pain.
Of course, OPPO has always proudly labelled their handsets as "Camera Phones" and once again, with the R11s you're getting a first-rate camera configuration at a mid-range price. While other brands use two lenses with different apertures to make the most of the rear-facing camera, OPPO's 16 and 20megapixel lenses have the same aperture. I have no idea how these things are supposed to work, but certainly there's a noticeable improvement in terms of low-light shots when compared with last year's R11.
The dual rear camera also offers an impressive 10X zoom - although at the maximum setting, there's a lot of noise and the pictures are not particularly clear. Generally, the pictures I took, either outside or indoors came out very clear and well defined, if a little dull. While some phones I've used recently seem to add too much colour, I felt the R11s could brighten things up just a tad. Playing around with the expert settings certainly helped with some of these issues and the panorama option works extremely well.
The portrait settings on both the rear and forward-facing cameras are probably the highlight. If I thought the R11 selfies were the best I'd ever seen, the R11s takes it a step further, now using Artificial Intelligence to compare each facial shot with millions of others to make small improvements. Even my ugly mug suddenly becomes almost viewable.
Other than the lack of wireless charging, NFC and water/dust-proofing, the R11s impresses in every other department. Even the 64GB of internal storage is more than you might bargain for in an $800 phone - and unlike an iPhone, you can expand that storage out to a whopping 256GB.
It really is hard to justify paying over $2000 for Apple's latest top-of-the-line handset when OPPO's R11s delivers almost all the same features for way under half the price. And it comes in red. I mean, come on.
Click here for more information on the OPPO R11s
