Inner Workings of Samsung Galaxy S9+ Exposed!

Samsung's new pair of flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+, feel more like
evolution than revolution. Still, they do have a few interesting new features, such as animated emojis and, in the case of the S9+, a dual camera on the back.

Now, the folks at iFixit have torn down the bigger of the two phones to bits, exposing the inner workings of Samsung's camera magic.

In the case of the animated emoji, there is no magic, really. Unlike Apple's iPhone X, which uses its TrueDepth camera to create a 3D image of the user's face, the Galaxy S9+ has pretty much the same setup as last year's S8: an iris scanner, a regular camera, an IR blaster and a proximity sensor. The lack of true 3D imaging tech likely explains why Samsung's animated emoji can be sort of glitchy and odd-looking at times. 

On the back, the situation is far more interesting. The S9+'s dual rear camera can switch between a f/1.5 aperture in low light situations and f/2.4 in well-lit scenarios, but the question was how did Samsung manage to cram this tech into a sensor small enough to fit on the back of a smartphones. The company did it by using just two aperture blades (instead of five, which is typical for standard camera lenses). 

Pretty.

IMAGE: IFIXIT

To me, the most striking feature of the Galaxy S9+ innards is how neat it all looks. With the two rear cameras vertically aligned with the fingerprint sensor on the back, the phone has a nice symmetrical look both inside and out.