Smartphone speed demons! Is Samsung’s Galaxy S9 Plus the fastest off the line?

The Galaxy S9 Plus is Samsung’s newest flagship, and it packs some imposing tech under the hood. With a newfangled Snapdragon 845 processor — comprising an 8-core CPU with 2.8GHz clock speed, and Adreno 630 graphics processing unit — and 6GB of RAM, the S9 Plus can run the latest mobile games with ease. In our review of the phone, we noted that it’s “the first phone we’ve tested with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor, and we’re happy to announce the new chipset delivers great performance. Apps open quickly, and moving throughout the user interface is mostly smooth,” and that “games like Tekken, The Sims: Mobile, and Sonic Forces run without flaw, offering a fluid experience,” although there was occasional stuttering.

Given how crowded the smartphone market is these days, one may wonder how the Galaxy S9 Plus stacks up against other notable flagships. That’s why, in an effort to determine which is the quickest smartphone on the market, we pitted the S9 Plus against a host of competitors — including the iPhone X, Mate 10 Pro, Note 8, OnePlus 5T, and Pixel 2XL — in a test of speed, seeing how quickly each device could launch different apps and games.

We launched each app on each phone, and recorded the amount of time required to do so. It’s a simple test, yes, but illuminating. The S9 Plus was the quickest to launch Twitter, and tied with the Pixel 2XL when launching Google Maps. In most other cases, it finished near the top of the pack, though not in first. In a couple instances, it even lagged behind the Note 8, which has a Snapdragon 835.

Given that it placed close to first for most of these apps — Facebook and Super Mario Run included — it’s clear that the S9 Plus is a premier smartphone. Although it lost out a few times to the Pixel 2XL and OnePlus 5T, that makes some sense, given that those phones run stock Android, which tends to be more efficient than proprietary versions.

In general, if you’re looking for a phone to play Fortnite on, the S9 Plus is one of your best options.

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 at Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.