Time for a biometrics faceoff.

On the left, looking pretty much exactly like what we found last year, we have the S9+ hardware: iris scanner, front-facing camera, IR emitter, and proximity sensor (likely AMS TMD4906).

On the right, the raison d'être for Apple's infamous notch: Face ID hardware including a front-facing camera, IR dot projector, IR camera, plus room for the flood illuminator and rangefinder embedded in the display.

Some assembly required.

Based on early reviews, it may have been overly ambitious of Samsung to jump on the Animoji train without a hardware update to bring it up to speed.