New images have now cropped up reportedly showing Samsung’s preeminent flagships in their “Polaris Blue” and “Alpine White” color configurations in the flesh. Posted to Twitter by Evan Blass, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is pictured in a shiny “Polaris Blue” that’s metallic-looking but somewhat darker than the currently available coral blue. That color tone shifts along a gradient from top to bottom, with the lower half appearing almost white. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is seen in a more classic “Alpine White” coloration, closely resembling the white used in previous iterations of the device. Although the images show the handsets as being fairly smudgy with fingerprints, both appear identical to the flagships that are already on the market and therefore genuine.
Background: Neither coloration shown in the newly ‘leaked’ images is much of a surprise since they have been circulating in the news for quite some time. The Polaris Blue Samsung Galaxy S9 has, in fact, already been revealed by the manufacturer via its Germany branch. The color will arrive in that region at some point in December for both the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, sold alongside the current ‘Midnight Black’, ‘Lilac Purple’, ‘Coral Blue’, ‘Titanium Gray’, and ‘Sunrise Gold’ variations. Real-world images have also previously shown up showing a starker contrast to the gradient than the newest photos do as recently as last week. First spotted in Samsung’s home country of South Korea, the color shift between blue and white for Polaris Blue looks similar to the ‘Ice Blue’ available to consumers in China — although the new color shown in live images does appear to be quite a bit darker on the blue side. Similarly, the new Alpine White configuration has already shown up in Taiwan and appears to be available for pre-order via the official Samsung site for the UAE region.
There’s no word yet as to whether or when the handsets will show up elsewhere in the world or if they might come to the US. It’s also not altogether surprising that Samsung is launching new colors as that has been a trend for its latest flagships. More recently, the company revealed that ‘Midnight Black’ and a new color called ‘Cloud Silver’ would be making their way stateside. The former color is one of the original schemes the phablet was shown in at its announcement. The latter is new and has a silver tone with subtle variations under different lighting in addition to light blue edging. The S-Pen for that design uses the same blue color as well.
Impact: Samsung seems to be either staggering the release of its color configurations for each respective world region or limiting the releases based on region. Sales for the two devices have been good for each but not phenomenal and a variation in colors could be enough to help win at least a few consumers over who may have held out for aesthetic reasons. Internally, these devices will be identical to their current Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 9 counterparts — announced in March and August, respectively.
Samsung GS9 and GN9 in Polaris Blue and Alpine White, respectively. [Thanks, tipster] pic.twitter.com/uEZcNGpVPW
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) November 30, 2018