I am a die hard Apple person. All my desktop computers at home are Apple, my other 4 family members all have iPhones and we have laptops that are all Apple. Not really sure why I decided to try out the Samsung Galaxy S9+ but happy that I did so far. I was using a 4 1/2 year old iPhone 5s so I figured any phone would be a huge upgrade to the modern world. It still takes a little getting used to coming from the IOS system's way of doing things. I do lose the capability of iMessage and FaceTime. Not a huge deal and I can use the DUO app from Google which is the same as FaceTime. The key points with this phone are that the large and beautiful screen looks great. I like the haptic feel of the keys when texting how you feel the keys being pressed (a little buzz/vibration). I think the new iPhone X does this too but again, I'm coming from a 5s. My only two choices for a new phone were this S9+ or keep on with Apple and get an iPhone X. The X would have cost me $1150 plus an AppleCare warranty for $200. I got this Samsung (and got the Ultimate Play Bundle) for $840 plus $100 for the bundle. Took out a Square Trade 2 year warranty for $108 with only a $99 deductible should I need to use it. I have used Square Trade warranties in the past for other products and they have always replaced and stood by their guarantee. Square Trade is owned by Allstate so I have confidence in them. Getting back to the phone, the S9+ seems to work VERY fast when loading apps and pages. I use it for a lot of my wireless products at home (Nest thermostat, wireless cameras, LIFX lights, Liftmaster garage door opener) and all work fast and flawlessly. The audio when playing music sounds great. Plays very loud and clear for a phone. I like the fact that it does still have an earphone jack. I like the Android system as it comes with Google Assistant voice command. Most people hate the Bixby feature on this phone. My only real gripe with it is the large button on the left side of the phone and that when trying to adjust the phone volume I accidentally hit Bixby sometimes. I do like though that i's voice activated. I get in my car in the morning, speak to wake up Bixby and command it to open up whatever app I need (usually Waze). Once open, I speak to Waze to take me to work. All of this without having to look at my phones screen or take my eyes off the road. Also, the Bixby AI camera function is very cool too. There are about 8 or 9 different things it can do with the camera. Like, point the camera lens at a sign in a foreign language and have it live translate the sign to English or any other language on the phone (and there are plenty of them on this phone). Point it at food and it will tell you what it is and average calorie count. Point it at a wine bottle label and it will give you the information on the wine (type, year, etc...). The ONLY thing I think I will never use again and of course I tried it out is the Animoji of myself or any of my friends. It's scary weird. Everyone looks the same on this. I would personally like to see an update to the phone where they fix this to be more of a 3D type and look more realistic. I have been looking online for days at comparisons of the pictures taken on this phone compared to others. Mot notably the iPhone X. In my opinion, the X does do a lot of pix better. The contrast is usually better. The real advantage to this phone is it tends to overexpose a bit. So, dark scenes will look a bit brighter than on the iPhone X. The only thing I had to get used to is the colors on a Samsung phone are very oversaturated. Colors are very bright. There is a setting in display function that gives you 4 options of view. I turned it down to one of them and it now looks a LOT more realistic. I like the fact that this phone, as well as the iPhone X, features ability to record video at 4K 60fps. Looks great. On the Samsung though the optical stabilization doesn't work when shooting 4K 60fps. Keep a steady hand and this isn't an issue. For all other video formats, the stabilization on the Samsung works better than the X. All in all, I am happy I went with the Samsung. In a few months if I regret it, I can always keep it for a few months and sell it to get the new larger iPhone X Plus.

UPDATE: 4/7/2018. The voice unlock code is terrible. And, after searching through the options on the phone I came to the conclusion I don't need it. I have the face unlock or the fingerprint reader on the back. I actually go to the back fingerprint scan to unlock more than the other methods as it's just quick and easy to use. Battery life has been good so far after using this phone for 3 weeks now. One thing I find annoying that I didn't know would be a problem is the video and picture quality when someone sends me a large video via texting. Whether I send them a video or they send me one, it becomes such low quality that it's almost hard to see it at all. This is because of the compression the carriers use to send these video's or large picture files so it doesn't take up much space. I was used to having an iPhone and using iMessage. Send any size video to someone else with an iPhone and it was in great quality on both sides of the text. Not so with Android. Now this is not just Samsung but all Android phones. So, for now, I have to send videos via WhatsApp or Viber (or a number of other text apps). They do compress but not horribly. Oh, and one more note. I hope Samsung corp is reading this review. The Samsung customer service reps have to be the stupidest people I have ever dealt with for a tech company. I used to think Comcast was bad until I called a couple of times and had to speak with someone at Samsung. They just repeat my question and tell me they understand how I feel offering absolutely no answers. They put you on hold to find out but come back with no resolve. Just terrible customer service. 180 degrees from dealing with someone at AppleCare when I had a question about my iPhone or iMac computer.

2nd UPDATE: I didn't realize this and this is VERY important to know before purchasing. In fact, I'm on the AT&T network with my phone and the people in the factory store didn't know this. The sales people in Best Buy in the phone department did not know this either. When you buy an unlocked Galaxy S9 or S9+, your phone is $840. If however you want to buy it thru AT&T for their network and not a factory unlocked phone, it has different options on it. Meaning, the unlocked phone WILL NOT have: WIFI calling option, HD Audio option, VVM (video voice messaging) and you will not get video voice calling. The option for these features is not even on my phone. Now, you CAN buy the AT&T phone and pay $915 up front or on a plan (either way it's $75 more than the factory unlocked phone). After you pay $75 ,more and if you are paying the full price up front, you can get the AT&T phone unlocked and then you will have these features. Nowhere at Best Buy or any AT&T store do they tell you this. In my mind, it's a great misrepresentation that is omitted when purchasing. I picked up the bundle package here on Amazon for $100 more and got a lot of cool gadgets so I'm keeping my setup. I just want others to know there is a difference when buying the unlocked version both in price and the feature set you get. I figured the AT&T version just had a bunch of their proprietary apps pre-installed. Hope this helps out someone beforehand that really wants those features. And, I went to the AT&T store figuring there was a way they could flash the options to my phone. There isn't. They cannot update your phone to get these options.

3rd UPDATE: April 15th, 2018
I discovered a great feature today. I wish these Galaxy 9 phones had the rise to wake feature which is what the iPhone X has. You pick up the phone and just look at it to unlock via your face and it's good to go. What I discovered is setting the Google Assistant to open the Galaxy EVEN FROM the locked screen via my voice and the phone unlocks and does what you ask the Google Assistant to do. Love this feature immensely.

4th UPDATE April 23, 2018
As I play around more with this phone, I am learning some cool things it can do. For instance, from the factory it come pre-set so that whether you swipe up or down the phone will go to your app tray. No need for repetition with swiping either up or down. There is a setting so that when you swipe up it opens the app tray (as it come from Samsung pre-set) but change the setting and when you swipe down from any place on the phone and you've got your phones popular settings in front of you. Even better, if you swipe down using two fingers from the top of the screen, it opens the second part of the settings which control other functions (usually this is a two part deal so this makes it one step easier). Also, one thing Samsung addressed with the 9 and 9+ (using the Oreo software) is a problem people using these phones prior used to hate. Now, you can set the up/down volume buttons to control MEDIA volume no matter what you are viewing. And, if you want to control the ringtone or another type of volume, when you push up or down on the volume and the MEDIA volume shows just tap on the down arrow on the top left of the screen and you have all the others ready to adjust exactly as you like them. Apparently from reading online this has been an annoyance of a problem for a long time with the Galaxy phones that is now solved.

Upgraded from the s6. Love it! Fingerprint on back is cool and hidden home button is good too. Activated verizon set up all online super easy. I bought a caseology case and screen protector. Needed to change the touch screen sensitivity to make it normal (for a while it was difficult to type).

I switched to the s9 after I saw the price of the iPhoneX. I am not disappointed with switching to Samsung, this phone has a much better display and camera than the iPhones do. The pictures in the dark are phenomenal. It was easy to transfer all the data from my iPhone because of the easy set up features. If your thinking about switching from the iPhone, do it, you will not be disappointed.

My husband bought me this phone in the lilac purple color for my birthday,...it's gorgeous! I love the display and the infinity edge. For me this is a total upgrade from the S5 I've been using, I'm so glad I waited! Everything shows up bright and crystal clear. Even my email looks nicer!

The emojis you make using the camera do turn out a bit creepy,...they look like you but not really. At my age I don't think this is something I see myself using too often in chat or messenger. It's fun for all of maybe 10 minutes.

The camera is nice, the pictures come out clean and clear. However I do wish all the features were explained a bit more in the manual to make it easier to figure out. It's nice being able to scroll through the different modes with a swipe of your finger but the how-to's on using some of the different options would be nice if they were printed out in the manual for reference. I'm sure it would be easy enough to look on YouTube or Google,....Haha I suppose this is what happens when you go from an old phone and leap frog over a few generations and find yourself in the future. :p

I'm not too crazy about Bixby though, there should be a way to reassign the button to something else and remove the app entirely if you choose. I also like my camera settings set so you say "Smile", "Shoot," "Cheese", "Record video", or another trigger word,... but unless you completely turn off the voice for Bixby you can't use the voice command on the camera. One feature should not cancel out another,... maybe there will be a software update later on. Or maybe I have completely missed the setting somewhere and will bump into it somewhere after I've used it more?

The speakers are excellent, music sounds great and phone calls come through very clear. Using speaker phone I actually had to turn call volume down, on my old phone it was hard to hear people talk and the mic didn't pick up very well either. Not the case here!

I love this phone! It's a nice size, easy to hold, and looks great! It was also very easy to set up and after I played with it for awhile I found it simple to navigate with a few cool surprises thrown in for me to discover. Having read how similar this phone is to the S8 I can understand some people being annoyed at spending all their money and not really getting much more than they already had, but I did read before these were released that they were similar and if I had an S8 I probably would not have bought this model. For the most part I still feel this is a great phone. I know for a fact I will have a great time taking pictures and videos of my kids and grandkids with it!

*3/21/18- Added a few sample pictures, one is a close up (approx.12" away, begging dog wanted my lunch), another a couple inches away, and the others from about 15 feet. No filters just had the camera set to auto and let it do its thing. Pictures come out clear and so much nicer than from my other phone. I've been playing with the other features as well and results are great too.

Using the volume button to snap a quick picture is convenient, it makes taking pictures with this size phone so much easier. I'll have a great time using this camera when the grand kids visit!

The lock screen is a little annoying when you have to click the power button then do the swipe screen, but in a way it's useful, my old phone did all sorts of things on its own while tumbling around in my bag. The hidden home button and the power button are both quick and responsive, either one quickly wakes the phone up but the home button brings up the home screen if you press it when the screen is off. You can always change the time out settings so your screen doesn't click off as fast to give you more time, so not really a big deal for me.

This is a fun phone to have. Battery life for me is great, I keep the display on bright because it's just so pretty. I also have the time out screen set for 5 minutes. I just charge my phone once a day and I'm good to go! No regrets with this phone. I'll update as I go along, good or bad.

Very nice upgrade from s7. I'm glad I went with the s9+ . I really like the big screen, and extra camera.

Wife is very happy with it so far. Fast, great battery, great camera. I see some people are unhappy that carrier visual voicemail is unavailable from the play store for this unlocked phone (and the s8) but it IS possible to get it working. I installed it from another source, called up carrier with sim imei and iccid and 2 min later visual voicemail was working great. I might buy another one for myself.

I was using Samsung so long ago then switch to iPhone. Well iPhone was better than Samsung after changing management they lost their quality. Samsung one of the best now in the market you can go ahead and buy one I think their design improved well and there is hopefully no battery faults.

MetroPCS initially had issues getting it added to my account, but I woke up the next morning and it was working fine. So, if anyone is wondering it DOES work on MetroPCS/T-Mobile network! :) IN the USA [I'm in St. Louis, MO