A Samsung Galaxy S9 Active looks unlikely this year

Phone

The Galaxy S7 Active and the Galaxy S6 Active were announced in June 2015 and 2016 respectively. The Galaxy S5 Active went official in May of 2014. It's mid-August right now, and by this time last year, the Galaxy S8 Active had gone official for North American carrier AT&T. With the Galaxy Note 9 set for a worldwide launch in late August, it doesn't look like a Galaxy S9 Active is on the cards, and you might want to stop waiting for it.

No real reason for a Galaxy S9 Active to exist

Of course, it's unclear if many people are waiting for an S9 Active. The Active phones are usually based on the smaller of the two Galaxy S flagships, which would make the Galaxy S9 Active quite unattractive. That's because the Galaxy S9 only has a single rear camera and 4GB of RAM. While Samsung could increase the latter for the S9 Active, the company has already claimed that it had to use a single camera for the S9 in order to make sure they didn't have to downsize the battery to a capacity lower than 3,000 mAh.

If that is indeed the reason, then it would be near impossible for Samsung to put in a 4,000 mAh battery for the Galaxy S9 Active. The Galaxy S Active phones are usually thicker than their regular counterparts thanks to military-grade ruggedness, but the other dimensions don't change as much. That leaves very little space for a big battery for converting the non-Plus Galaxy S9 into an Active version. Samsung could use the S9+ as a base, but then consumers would have little reason to go for the Galaxy Note 9, for which the Korean giant is using a long-lasting battery as one of the main highlights.

And, of course, the biggest clue for the non-existence of a Galaxy S9 Active is the fact that we haven't seen any rumors or leaks in the last couple of months. All we saw was a rather fake leak that claimed to show the S9 Active's specs. There's no firmware for the device in development, either, as far as we know. Too many indications that a Galaxy S9 Active isn't coming, so if you had even the tiniest bit of hope, maybe it's time to let go.

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

am@sammobile.com

First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.

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