Last week brought the not totally unexpected news that the next Samsung flagship handsets, the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, would be unveiled sometime during Mobile World Congress (MWC) next month; not, as some suspected, at CES. Now, the alleged pre-order and release dates have been revealed.

The information once again comes from reliable leaker Evan Blass. He tweeted that, according to a C-level executive at a major case maker, the S9 handsets will debut on February 26, which is the start date for MWC.

More importantly, Blass says pre-orders for the smartphones will begin on the last day of the conference: March 1. The shipping/release date, meanwhile, is said to be a little over two weeks later. March 16 is when consumers should get their hands on the devices.

It was suspected that the S9/S9 Plus would follow this timeline. 2017's S8 phones were revealed at a dedicated Unpacked event in New York last March, with the devices going on sale on April 21. But this was due to delays as Samsung did extra checks in the wake of the Note 7 disaster. 2016's S7 and S7 Edge, however, were unveiled at that year's MWC and launched in March.

The new phones will almost certainly be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 SoC, with international versions expected to come with Samsung's Exynos 9810 chip. It's thought that the 5.8-inch S9 will have a single camera setup and 4GB of RAM, while the S9 Plus will feature two lenses and 6GB. Both handsets will reportedly feature 64GB of internal storage as a base specification, with prices starting at $700 for the smaller phone and $800 for the S9 Plus.