2017 smartphones are so last year (literally), and Samsung is kicking off the 2018 phone race with its traditionally early announcement of the Galaxy S9 at Mobile World Congress 2018, as a follow up to last year’s Galaxy S8.

For years now, the story of these flagship phones has been trying to transcend a simple spec shootout, with devices attempting to compete on offering the best experience, and not necessarily the most powerful hardware. This time, the Galaxy S9 is actually a pretty simple device to explain. In essence, it’s the Galaxy S8, with a couple of tweaks (like moving the fingerprint sensor to a more sensible location), and all the specs jacked up to the absolute max for the most powerful device on the market — at least, on paper.

The larger S9 Plus takes things a step further, with more RAM and a second camera, but the philosophy is the same: keep what worked great with last year’s well received S8, fix what didn’t, and make it all even more powerful.

Can Samsung make lightning strike twice with a similar design? It’s still too early to tell, and we’ll have a review soon that should tell you exactly how good Samsung’s newest flagship is. In the meantime, we’ve put the S9 and S9 Plus head-to-head against some of its biggest competition, including the Pixel 2, iPhone X, the Essential Phone, and more to give you a better idea of what the smartphone landscape looks like and help you start making the decision of what phone should get the coveted spot in your bag or pocket.