When Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. launched its latest flash Galaxy S9 mobile phones at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona today, it had one product dead-center in its sights: Apple Inc.’s iPhone X.

As expected, Samsung released two new smartphones, the 5.8-inch S9 and 6.2-inch S9 Plus. Although both phones look visually similar to their S8 predecessors, it’s the camera features in both models that were the standout differences.

Only the S9 Plus sports a dual-lens setup, but despite competitors mostly moving to that camera mode with their high-end phones, the 12-megapixel camera on each one now offers a variable aperture, the first time the feature has been fitted to a smartphone. That feature allows users to take better shots in low light with the ability to switch between an f-stop of 1.5 for low-light photography and 2.4 for shooting outdoors. In addition, the camera now also supports 960-frames-per-second slow-motion video.

“With the S9 and S9+, Samsung resets the bar for a line of premium smartphones,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

The other major difference from their predecessors is that the fingerprint scanner has been moved to the middle of the back of the phone, addressing a criticism that its location on the S8, directly under the phone camera, was difficult for users to access.

Under the hood, both phones sport upgraded processors in the form of an eight-core Qualcomm Inc. Snapdragon 845, with four cores running at 2.8 GHz and four at 1.7 GHz. : The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with the X20 modem brings the highest-performance Android processor and graphics and the industry’s highest performance 1.2Gbps LTE modem, twice the max modem performance of the Apple iPhone X,” Moorhead noted.

The Infinity Display that debuted on the S8 range remains, and Samsung again touted it as not only being best in the market but not featuring something found in Apple phones. “And as always, you know, there’s no notch,” the company pointedly said, boasting of refining its end-to-end display even further.

Samsung did take one play from Apple’s book: The new models added more support for augmented reality, including animated AR emojis that allows users to scan their own faces and reactions to create animated characters.

Other features include both phones now supporting microSD cards up to 400 gigabytes, and there are now 128GB and 256GB models available.

“The Galaxy 9’s new dual-aperture camera lays a strong foundation for a true AR experience, one that goes beyond gaming and into the business world,” said Roman Taranov, chief executive officer of RGK Mobile. “Samsung has made extensive investments into IoT and it only makes sense that mobile phones, our closest, most intimate companion, will be joining this package.”

He added that the refinements transforming phone usage into an immersive experience — “aware of our surroundings, personal needs, behavior and business activity, enhancing these with added on features that not only ease our lives but dramatically change them with prediction, proactive actions and supplying added-on data.”

Moorhead told SiliconANGLE that the launch was very much in response to the current state of the mobile phone market. “With smartphone market growth flat to down, we should expect similar behavior from every flat to declining market: consolidation, share shift, specialization and a focus on marketing,” he said. “It is becoming a two-horse market share race in the premium phone space $499 and above with Samsung and Apple, and neither company is letting up in driving innovation.”

Moorhead also praised the cameras and the displays “Samsung’s giant OLED Infinity Displays are incredible, highly rated, and I am looking forward to the Display Mate shootout,” he said. “If displays are your thing, you must consider the S9 and S9+.”

Not least, he likes changes to the phones’ audio, which now supports Dolby Atmos 360 capabilities, as well as enterprise-oriented features and accessories, such as the Galaxy S9 Enterprise Edition and the new DeX Pad, an accessory that turns the phones into a PC workstation.

“Both give me more reasons to recommend Samsung to enterprises,” Moorhead said. “No other smartphone vendor combines the security, breadth of product line, breadth of extensible use cases with VR and DeX, and tools, like Samsung.”

Both phones are scheduled to go on presale March 2 and actual sale March 16.  The Galaxy S9 has a list price of between $720 and $800, with the Galaxy S9 Plus available for between $840 and $930.

Photo: Samsung