Samsung’s decision to launch the Galaxy Note 9 earlier than usual will be followed by an equally early pre-order period, The Korea Herald reports. The South Korean branch of the company will start accepting advanced orders on the Galaxy Note 9 on Monday, whereas local carriers first wanted to follow suit on Tuesday but will now open their reservations even earlier on Samsung’s insistence, industry sources claim. The last-minute availability changes are aiming to get the Galaxy Note 9 to the market as soon as possible so as to help Samsung try to revitalize its mobile sales that have been declining over the course of this year, particularly in the premium segment of the smartphone market.
That state of affairs was largely prompted by a poorer-than-expected performance of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus, Samsung’s main flagship releases of the year whose sales are now officially being described as “slow.” Galaxy S9 shipments amounted to some 19.2 million units in the second quarter of the year, with the series now being widely predicted to be the most unsuccessful generation of the Galaxy S line since the Galaxy S3 family launched in mid-2012. South Korean consumers will be able to purchase the base model of the device with 128GB of flash memory and 6GB of RAM for the equivalent of $975, whereas the top Galaxy Note 9 variant offering twice as much storage space and 8GB of RAM will set them back around $1,200, as per the same report.
Compared to the Galaxy S9 line, the new Android flagship will offer a higher-capacity battery, a Bluetooth-enabled S Pen stylus, more advanced imaging AI designed for automatic scene and subject recognition, as well as a significantly improved version of the Bixby assistant that’s now finally promising to deliver a fully conversational voice interface. The Galaxy Note 9 is expected to be released globally on August 24, whereas Samsung will be announcing it in New York City today at 11 AM EST (8 AM PST).