Galaxy A9 (2016) “Big Performer” In-depth Review

Possibly releasing on August 10, Samsung’s new “high end” mid-range smartphone Galaxy-A9 is surely going to appeal to certain groups of people.

BUILD

Talking about the build of the phone, it has got a 6-inch screen with gorilla glass 4 at the front and the back which makes the phone big and the glass acts as a fingerprint magnet. There’s metal around edges of the phone which makes A9 a heavy phone to hold, but on the other hand, the use of metal and gorilla glass provide some amount of sturdiness to the phone which means it is going to be able to survive some drops.

The phone is 7.4 mm thin and the camera sensor sticks out just a little from the phone. The volume buttons are on the left side and the power button is on the right just like other Samsung flagships. On the bottom of the phone, there’s a USB port, headphone slot and speakers. There are two SIM card slots in this phone with an additional micro SD expansion slot up to 128 GB. It also has a fingerprint sensor on the front which performs really well.

There’s no heart rate monitor and LED notification on the front but it shouldn’t have much impact on the overall build quality of the phone. Overall, the phone has a solid build quality and it kind of looks like a really big S6.

DISPLAY

A9 has a 6-inch super AMOLED display with 1080p resolution, and since it such a big screen, it’s going to be difficult to handle with a single hand. But the phone has really thin bezels which makes it one of the compact phones that has a 6-inch display. Due to its size, this phone is great for multimedia consumption. Whether it be browsing the internet or watching movies, it does the job well. Although some pixels can be noticed of looked really closely, the display is perfect from a normal viewing angle and has a great color reproduction.

The phone gets really bright for outdoor uses and gets really dark in low light environment, thanks to the super AMOLED display. If Samsung had included front facing speakers, A9 would have been a really great device for multimedia usage but since the speaker is at the bottom, it gets covered with hands pretty easily while watching movies or videos.

SOFTWARE

While many might hope for android marshmallow, A9 comes with Android lollipop. As usual, it uses Samsung’s TouchWiz. Some might like it while some might dislike it, it all depends upon particular user’s experience. It is fully customizable and one can replace it with any custom theme from the store. It supports multitasking features meaning one can run a bunch of apps at the same time.

PERFORMANCE

Talking about performance, it has a Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor with Adreno 510 GPU and 3 GB of RAM. With these specs, one can expect smooth performance from the phone. The specs and large display also make the phone a nice gaming device.

CAMERA

The rear camera is 13 MP with f/1.9 aperture with optical image stabilization and a LED flash. Though people might find the camera not so fancy compared to other flagships, it does a pretty good job at the given price point. The images are sharp and color reproduction is great just like other Samsung flagships.

The front facing camera is 8 MP with f/1.9 aperture which captures very crisp and detailed selfie pictures. Some camera modes are missing and it can capture only up to 1080p videos with some color shift in different environments, these might displease some of the customers.

BATTERY

A9 has one of the biggest batteries in any smartphone out in the market with 4000 MAH that gives 8 hours of screen on time, and can last a day and a half with normal usage. This might just be the biggest selling point for this phone. Samsung has done a nice job on really utilizing the big size of the phones. While it supports quick charging, it will take its time to charge due the massiveness of the battery.

In a nutshell, Galaxy A9 is possibly going to be a big hit among people who want some high-end specifications in a mid-range smartphone. Its price is fixed at $480 USD (32000 INR).
Galaxy A9 is yet to hit the market in Nepal but you can order the phone from CTV apple world(https://www.facebook.com/ctvappleworld/) for Rs. 65,000.

If galaxy A9 is officially launched in Nepal the price should be around Rs. 53,000-56,000.