In the past, Samsung has always been able to leverage its brand equity and get away with skimpier hardware as compared to the competition. And perhaps that’s the baggage that would weigh in when you inevitably compare its latest mid-range offering, the C9 Pro, to the very popular and adored OnePlus 3T. However, living with it for the past two weeks has made it amply clear that the Samsung Galaxy C9 pro pretty much stands alone in its own league. Let’s share our experience with Galaxy C9 pro to help you decide if this is what you need.
Also Check: Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro FAQ with Benchmarks, User Queries, Pros and Cons
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Specifications:
- 6-inch Super AMOLED, 1,080 x 1,920 resolution (Full HD), 367 PPI, 75.5% screen to body ratio, Gorilla Glass protection
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 chipset; 28nm HPM fabrication process; Octa-core (4×1.95 GHz Cortex-A72 & 4×1.4 GHz Cortex-A53); Adreno 510 GPU;
- 6GB of RAM
- 64GB internal memory
- Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, TouchWiz OS on top
- 16 MP, f/1.9 aperture lens, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash, 1080p videos
- 16MP front camera, F/1.9 aperture lens, 1080p video
- 9 x 80.7 x 6.9 mm and 189 grams
- Home button with fingerprint scanner
- Dual SIM slots, LTE with VoLTE, 802.11 a/g/b/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, NFC
- Gyroscope, Magnetometer, accelerometer, proximity, Ambient light
- 4000mAh battery
- Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro price in India is 36,900 INR at the time of writing
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Design and Build
As far as design goes, the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro is phablet done right. If we were to buy a big display phone (and that’s a big if), we would surely want it to be extremely slim and as compact as possible. Those are the traits you will find in the C9 pro. The elegant full metal rear and 2.5D glass laden front are additional perks. At 189 grams, it’s definitely not light, but it’s still manageable for a big phone that it is.
This is essentially a stereo speaker handset as the earpiece on the front can also thrust audio. However, its audio output quite feeble. The other speaker, placed on the bottom, works fine. Around the periphery, you will also find a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm Audio jack, power button, volume keys, a dedicated SD card slot and a dual SIM tray.
The volume rocker is placed close to the top left corner, which makes it inaccessible when you are using your phone with one hand. That’s not a deal breaker as the C9 Pro is not meant to be One-hand-usage-friendly in the first place. Besides, these volume keys are within easy reach when you are watching videos in landscape mode.
The front home button is clubbed with a fingerprint sensor, which isn’t as accurate as we would want it to be.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Display
The C9 Pro comes with a crisp full HD AMOLED display. Of course, QHD would have been better considering the display size and type, but the difference in sharpness felt almost negligible when we compared it side by side to the relatively smaller OnePlus 3T screen with same FHD resolution.
Samsung is using a high quality and well-calibrated panel for the Galaxy C9 Pro. The characteristic AMOLED high contrast makes it ideal for consuming video content. The ‘Always On’ display lets you monitor time, battery percentage and check notification count, thus ensuring that you don’t power on your phone all that often. You can always disable it from quick settings. And, the display is perfectly legible under direct sunlight.
On the downside, there were quite a few accidental touches that we had to combat while using it over the last couple of weeks. That’s perhaps a small price you pay for those captivating narrow bezels.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Performance and Software
The Galaxy C9 Pro is powered by 1.9GHz octa-core Snapdragon 653 chipset, or a minor upgrade to Snapdragon 652. This isn’t the best you can get at this price, but is good enough to handle more than what most people would need. The handset isn’t as snappy as, say, OnePlus 3T, but does everything we need it to with ease. Well, almost.
Asphalt 8 didn’t run perfectly smooth at high graphics settings, but other than that all other games that we tested ran fine. We didn’t notice any lag with day-to-day usage either.
The phone won’t be setting benchmark charts on fire by any measure, but practical usage experience is flagship grade. Besides, ample free RAM makes multitasking very convenient.
The TouchWiz UI on C9 Pro is close to what was present on Galaxy Note 7. Signature Samsung add-ons like Always on display, UDS, S power planning are present as well. So are a bunch of Microsoft and Samsung apps that you don’t need. That does significantly cut built-in storage.
If you can look past that clutter, TouchWiz UI is actually quite evolved and has all the right options in right places. We couldn’t resist the urge to replace the launcher, though.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Camera
The camera on the Galaxy C9 Pro (and the software) is missing some key features like OIS and laser AF, but makes the most of what it has got. You can shoot detailed images in good outdoor lighting but the camera struggles to find focus at times. The camera performance is good enough in low lighting, but there is certainly a big room for improvement here, especially considering the price. In comparison, OnePlus 3T, Vivo V5 Plus, and Huawei P9 are miles ahead.
The selfie camera too does a fine job, but motion blur creeps in rather frequently.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Photo Gallery
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Battery Backup and More
The 4000mAh battery on the phone can comfortably last for one day with a remaining battery percentage that doesn’t warrant immediate charging. On particularly demanding days when we had to do a lot from our phones and had to keep 4G running for the most part, we had to ensure that it was 100 percent charged at the start of the day. Compared to other popular phones in this budget, battery backup is above average.
Call quality is excellent in our area. The Audio output via headphones is immersive. The fingerprint sensor isn’t accurate and that can be very annoying.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro?
The Samsung Galaxy Pro isn’t the best-specced phone in its class, but it’s a great option for anyone who is looking forward to enjoying multimedia content on a large display phone. To that effect, it meets all the requirements of the target audience.
So, if you are particularly drawn by large display phones and looking for a phone around 30K, you can look past 5.5-inch display devices like OnePlus 3T and Vivo V5 Plus and side with the Galaxy C9 Pro with conviction. You won’t be missing on much. If a large screen doesn’t mean much to you, you can choose from other 5.5-inch display options.
Pros
- Vivid AMOLED display with narrow bezels
- decent battery life
- Slim, Elegant Full metal unibody design
- Intuitive software
Cons
- Inaccurate fingerprint sensor
- Low light camera performance could have been better
- Doesn’t support Samsung Pay
Dear Mr. Deepak Singh, Thank you for your review of Galaxy C9 Pro. I am thinking of purchasing C9 Pro now because I like big wide screen and Samsung UI. However, this phone is reach it’s end of life for security update (about three years now since it’s release.) Is it still wise to purchase this device and what are the probable ways to get security updates for this phone for at least a year from now? Thank you.
No. Don’t buy this now.