Skip to main content

Smartphone face-off: Galaxy S9 Intelligent Scan vs iPhone Face ID

 

With the launch of the iPhone X, facial unlocking — that is, the ability to unlock your smartphone with nothing more than your smile — has become more and more mainstream. Because of this, other manufacturers are beginning to place the feature at the forefront of their ad campaigns, taking a cue from Apple’s marketing push.

Recommended Videos

Samsung, for instance, recently launched Intelligent Scan on the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, combining the company’s iris-scanning technology with a facial unlock feature. Basically, the built-in cameras on the S9 and S9 Plus scan your iris, then utilize the aforementioned facial unlock feature if they can’t properly identify you with the former piece of tech. This happens within milliseconds, though, meaning you don’t really have to worry about your phone swapping between the two security measures.

But how does Samsung’s latest security tech compare with Apple’s?

how to take a screenshot on an iPhone X
Digital Trends

In order to determine which is faster, we recently devised a little experiment. Digital Trends contributor David Cogen set up his face in both Intelligent Scan and Face ID at roughly the same time, preventing any discrepancies that might arise from photos taken at different time periods. Then, he tested the features in several scenarios, allowing him to see which feature is quicker in a side-by-side comparison.

First, he tested each feature in a well-lit room. The iPhone X came out on top by about a third of a second, regardless of whether he wore glasses or removed them from his face. The X was also quicker when working with sunglasses — it beat the S9 by more than a second — and nearly twice as fast when used in the dark. This is to be expected because the X has specific hardware built in for facial recognition, whereas the S9 doesn’t (at least, not really).

So, while Apple’s headset is faster when it comes to unlocking your phone via facial recognition, the S9 still performs admirably given it lacks the aforementioned, specialized hardware. The fact that setting it up is a breeze just makes Samsung’s counterpart even more welcome.

David Cogen — a regular contributor here at Digital Trends — runs TheUnlockr.com, a popular tech blog that focuses on tech news, tips and tricks, and the latest tech. You can also find him over on Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.

Brandon Widder
Brandon Widder is a multimedia journalist and a staff writer for Digital Trends where he covers technology news, how-to…
2024 was a huge rebound for smartphone sales, but not for the iPhone
Photo of the rear of the iPhone 16 Pro, Galaxy S24 Ultra, OnePlus 12 and Pixel 9 Pro

After two years of decline, smartphone sales are projected to rebound strongly in 2024. However, IDC (via Bloomberg) shows this growth does not extend to Apple, which is expected to see only modest year-over-year gains.

The market tracker forecasts that smartphone sales will grow by 6.2% this year, pushing total units sold worldwide to 1.24 billion. In contrast, Apple is anticipated to experience only a 0.4% increase in iPhone sales.

Read more
The iPhone 16 just beat the Galaxy S24 in a 5G speed test. Here are the results
A person holding the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Ookla recently conducted 5G speed and latency tests for the iPhone 16 series. The results showed that these phones performed exceptionally well compared to their predecessors and major competitors — even outperforming the Samsung Galaxy S24 series.

According to Speedtest data collected from 11 selected countries worldwide, the iPhone 16 series surpassed the earlier iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 series in terms of speed and latency. Compared to competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S24, the iPhone 16 achieved mixed results, yet still scored well overall.

Read more
Google Gemini arrives on iPhone as a native app
the Google extensions feature on iPhone

Google announced Thursday that it has released a new native Gemini app for iOS that will give iPhone users free, direct access to the chatbot without the need for a mobile web browser.

The Gemini mobile app has been available for Android since February, when the platform transitioned from the older Bard branding. However, iOS users could only access the AI on their phones through either the mobile Google app or via a web browser. This new app provides a more streamlined means of chatting with the bot as well as a host of new (to iOS) features.

Read more