Samsung's $1,000 Note 9 is great - but so is the cheaper S9

For $1,000, the premium Galaxy Note 9 is a superb phone that showcases the best Samsung has to offer.

It's also the phone most of you won't need. That's because you can get many of the same features in Samsung's Galaxy S9 for a few hundred dollars less.

The Note 9, available Friday, is the Android smartphone for those who want the latest and the greatest. There's a larger battery, with a 21 percent boost over last year's Note 8 model. The Note 9 gets 128 gigabytes of storage, double what's in the S9 and Apple's iPhones. And of course, a large screen.

FILE- In this Aug. 7, 2018, file photo, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is shown in New York. For $1,000, the Galaxy Note 9 is a superb phone that’s the best Samsung has to offer. But for a few hundred dollars less, the Galaxy S9 offers many of the features the Note 9 is now getting, including zippy speeds and camera improvements. (AP PhotoRichard Drew, File)

But there's not much "wow" beyond that. Smartphone innovation has slowed down in recent years. It's more noticeable with Samsung because the company spreads out those innovations between two major smartphones each year. One phone inevitably plays catch up with the other every six months.

So now we find that the Note 9 is getting the zippy processor and cellular speeds the S9 phones first offered earlier this year. It's also getting the S9's dual-aperture camera for better low-light shots as well as its gimmicky, but super-fun, ability to take video with super-slow motion.

And the S9 starts at just $720 through T-Mobile, and about $800 through Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. A Plus version that's closer in size to the Note 9 costs $840 to $930.

This combo shows photos of Central Park in New York on Sunday, Aug 19, 2018. Starting at the top left and going clockwise, the phones used are Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9, Samsung’s Galaxy S9, Google’s Pixel 2 XL and Apple’s iPhone X. (AP PhotoNick Jesdanun)

True, the Note 9 offers a little more wowness. Its camera uses artificial intelligence to optimize colors and lighting for what you're trying to shoot, be it food, a sunset or flowers. Many low-light shots were even better than what the S9 produced, even though both share the second aperture designed to let in more light when needed.

Of course, you're likely to see this feature in the S10 in about six months.

That brings us to one of the Note's remaining distinctive features, its stylus. It's useful for handwriting notes and signing documents on the screen. Now, it can control digital slideshows and music playback, too. The new stylus gets Bluetooth to double as a remote control. Selfies won't look as awkward when you don't have to reach for the on-screen button; just press the pen to snap the shutter.

FILE- In this Aug. 7, 2018, file photo the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is shown in New York. For $1,000, the Galaxy Note 9 is a superb phone that’s the best Samsung has to offer. (AP PhotoRichard Drew, File)

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot the remote feature can do yet. It's a promising feature — but could remain mostly a promise if app developers don't take advantage of it.

Many past Samsung features failed to gain traction because app developers couldn't be bothered to make the tweaks needed. For instance, Air View was supposed to offer pop-up previews just by pointing to an email and calendar entry, but it mostly worked only with Samsung's home-grown apps.

More recently, there's Bixby, Samsung's own digital assistant. While Samsung has worked directly with some services, including Uber and Spotify, on integrations, developers have largely prioritized Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant. It comes down to a chicken-or-egg problem: People need to see compelling capabilities to use a feature; developers need to see a strong base of users to spend the time developing compelling capabilities.

FILE- In this Aug. 7, 2018, file photo the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is shown in New York. For $1,000, the Galaxy Note 9 is a superb phone that’s the best Samsung has to offer. (AP PhotoRichard Drew, File)

The stylus remains the Note's signature feature, with or without extensive remote capabilities. No doubt the new edition will appeal to die-hard Samsung fans, hard-core gamers and on-the-go executives who are on their phones constantly and need the battery and storage boost. Though the Note 9 uses the same processor as the S9, it has a new cooling system designed to let you use those faster speeds longer.

But if you're not someone who needs all that power, you ought to take a second look at the cheaper, six-month-old S9.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Health tech gadgets displayed at the annual CES trade show make a lot of promises. A smart scale promoted a healthier lifestyle by scanning your feet to track your heart health, and an egg-shaped hormone tracker uses AI to help you figure out the best time to conceive.

Tech and health experts, however, question the accuracy of products like these and warn of data privacy issues — especially as the federal government eases up on regulation.

The Food and Drug Administration announced during the annual show in Las Vegas that it will relax regulations on “low-risk” general wellness products such as heart monitors and wheelchairs. It's the latest step President Donald Trump's administration has taken to remove barriers for AI innovation and use. The White House repealed former President Joe Biden's executive order establishing guardrails around AI, and last month, the Department of Health and Human Services outlined its strategy to expand its use of AI.

Booths at the conference showcased new tech designed to help people living in rural areas with their health care needs amid doctor shortages, boost research into women’s health and make life easier for people with disabilities.

AI technologies have benefits in the over $4.3 trillion health care industry, according to Marschall Runge, professor of medical science at the University of Michigan. They’re good at analyzing medical imaging and can help streamline doctors’ busy schedules, but they can also promote biases and “hallucinate,” providing incorrect information stated as fact.

“I would urge people not to think that the technology is the same as a well-resourced, thoughtful, research-driven medical professional,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Privacy protections like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act do not cover information collected by consumer devices, and the companies could be using the data to train their AI models, or selling it to other businesses, Cohn said.

With a lot of the gadgets at CES, it’s difficult to find out where your information is going, Cohn said.

“You have to dig down through the fine print to try to figure that out, and I just don’t think that’s fair or right for the people who might rely on it,” she said.

But the creators of the products say their innovations fill in health care gaps, and they maintain they protect their customers’ privacy.

Sylvia Kang, founder and CEO of Mira, said she created the egg-shaped hormone tracker because many of her friends were trying to conceive and realized they had no knowledge of their hormonal health. To use the “world’s mini hormone lab,” you dip a wand in urine, insert the wand into the monitor and look at the results on the app.

Kang said her company uses AI to analyze female hormone data and has one of the world’s biggest hormonal health banks. The data is stored on the cloud and is not shared with anyone, Kang said.

“There was no such thing before,” Kang said of her $250 product.

Many gadgets at CES focused on women’s health, which has been historically under-researched and underfunded. Before 1993, women were excluded from clinical trials, and there still is little research on areas like menopause.

While not every woman will have a baby, all women go through menopause, and “yet we know nothing about it,” said Amy Divaraniya, founder and CEO of the women’s health company Oova, during a session.

One gadget called Peri aims to better understand perimenopause — the transitional phase before menopause. The wearable device monitors hot flashes and night sweats and provides the data via an app.

Other products at CES were promoted as a way to increase accessibility to health information. The free medicine-focused AI chatbot called 0xmd helps improve access to medical information in areas with doctor shortages and provides a cost-effective alternative, said its founder and architect Allen Au. People can ask the chatbot questions about medicine, upload photos of a mole or rash, and submit their doctors’ notes for an easier-to-understand translation, Au said.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think we will replace doctors,” but it can give people a second opinion, Au said.

OpenAI announced on Wednesday its launch of ChatGPT Health, a similar platform.

Cohn remains skeptical of consumer tech. She said they can help prepare people to ask the right questions of their medical professional, but they’re not going to be a substitute for a doctor.

“People need to remember that these are just tools; they’re not oracles who are delivering truths,” she said.

A Peri device is seen on display during the CES tech show Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)