Introduction
Samsung popularized the big screen smartphone back in 2011 with the launch of the Galaxy Note. Back then, the phone was considered freakishly large and was laughed off for being too big to be successful. Fast forward six years and now every smartphone being launched has a over 5.0-inch in size, with 5.5-inch being the norm. In contrast, the original Galaxy Note had a display that measured only 5.3-inch in size.
And with big screen phones growing in popularity today, going even bigger seemed a logical path to take. Enter the 6.0+ inch phones. Samsung is surely no stranger to this category - but it seems phones like the Galaxy Mega 6.3 came too early to a market that wasnt quite ready for it. Today, however, 6.0-inch phones suddenly dont seem all that big so this might be the perfect time to jump back into this segment and try your hand at it . And so we have the Galaxy C9 Pro.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro key features
- 6.0-inch, 1920x1080 Super AMOLED display
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 653; 4x Cortex-A72 at 1.95GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 at 1.44GHz; Adreno 510
- 6GB RAM, 64GB storage with microSD support
- 16 megapixel rear camera, f1.9 aperture, PDAF, two-tone LED flash; 1080p video
- 16 megapixel front camera, f1.9 aperture, 1080p video
- VoLTE, dual SIM, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, A-GPS, USB-C
- Stereo speakers; fingerprint sensor; FM radio
- 4000mAh battery, Quick Charge 2.0
- Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
Launched first in China, the C9 Pro has now made its way internationally and we have the Indian model here for review. Users in both China and India have shown considerable interest in big screen phones and as such are perfect for the C9 Pro. But Samsung hasn t just stopped at the screen size; it seems the Korean giant has taken some pointers from its Chinese rivals. So now the 6.0-inch display is coupled with a powerful octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and a big 4000mAh battery. Because if theres one thing that Asian markets like its big numbers, and the C9 Pro has them in spades.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro press photos
The C9 Pro specs get about as good as a non-S or Note series device specs can get. Samsung even went overboard with 6GB of RAM, which is a first for any Samsung phone. But numbers only tell part of the story so lets get to the part where we use the phone and see what its really like.
Design
At first glance, the C9 Pro looks pretty much like any other Samsung phone. But hold it in your hand and you realize it is easily one of the biggest phones the company has ever made.
There is no getting around the fact that the C9 Pro is a big phone. However, due to some clever packaging, the phone isnt all that much bigger than the iPhone 7 Plus, which has a smaller 5.5-inch display.
Front • Navigation keys
The front of the phone is classic Samsung. On the top is the earpiece with a metal grille, flanked by the front facing camera on the left and the notification LED and sensors on the right.
Below the display is the physical home button with integrated fingerprint sensor. On its left is the multitasking key and on the right is the back button. Android purists might bemoan the reversed order of keys compared to what Google likes to do by default, however, right handed users will definitely appreciate having the more commonly used back button closer to their hand on the right. Both capacitive keys are backlit and without the backlighting the keys become invisible.
Right • Left
On the right side of the phone is the power button. Below the button is a tray for the microSD and below that is another tray for two nano SIM card slots. Unlike most phones these days, the C9 Pro does not make you choose between a second SIM and a microSD and is a true dual SIM phone.
On the other side of the phone are the vo lume buttons. The volume buttons are placed slightly higher than the power button so when you grip the phone to use the power button you dont end up pressing the volume buttons on the other side but the same cannot be said about using the volume buttons. In the end, there is still some amount of unintentional button pressing happening and it would be nice if Samsung just switched to having all the buttons on the same side.
And while we are on the subject of buttons, Samsung still requires you to press the power and Home buttons to take screenshots, which unnecessarily requires two hands when the default Android configuration of power and volume down can be used with one hand. But thats nitpicking.
Bottom • Top
Moving on, on the bottom is a headphone jack, a USB-C port, a microphone, and a loudspeaker. The bottom speaker acts as the right speaker along with the earpiece, but we will talk about the speakers in detail later on. On the top is another microphone.
Back
The back of the phone features some of the neatest antenna lines on any phone. The split triple bands running across the top and bottom take up less visual space and also look a lot cooler than a single thick band.
Near the top is the camera (with an ever so slight bump) along with a two-tone dual LED flash.
Overall, the C9 Pro is a beautiful device. The unibody metal construction is absolutely rock solid with no flex or creaking. Even deliberately attempting to bend the phone with a small amount of force didnt cause it to give in. The phone feels like a tank in hand a nd although its unlikely the glass will survive a drop considering it goes all the way to the edge, the phone should handle everyday use with absolute ease.
Size comparison with OnePlus 3T and iPhone 7 Plus
As for usability, it is a big phone and it wont be ideal for those with small hands. However, it is remarkably thin and reasonably heavy so if you can get used to the width and the height, it would be fairly easy to live with it.
Display
The Galaxy C9 Pro has a 6.0-inch, 1920x1080 Super AMOLED display. First things first, pixel density really isnt a concern at all. Even at 6.0-inch, the pixel density is sufficiently high and images and text look sharp. This is not true for VR applications, however, and if you care about VR performance then you should be lookin g elsewhere.
Display settings
In terms of image quality, out of the box the colors are oversaturated and the white point temperature is set too high meaning some whites and grays can appear bluish if you have reference color to compare them to. However, Samsung offers handy controls in the Settings menu and switching to Basic mode allows the screen to render colors as they were intended. You do use some of the contrast and punchiness, however, so we found Amoled Photo to strike a nice balance between accurate and pleasantly saturated. If you care about color accuracy, you can always switch back to Basic mode when you need it.
As for other aspects, the display gets sufficiently bright and is perfectly vi sible even under direct sunlight. Under auto brightness the display will boost brightness and saturation to extreme levels beyond what can be manually set to increase visibility. This kicks in even if auto brightness is disabled but only if you are already at maximum manual brightness.
The viewing angles are good for the most part, however, at extreme angles the colors distort and a rainbow patterns appears on screen, which is common for AMOLED displays. Its not a problem at the viewing angles you will probably use it at.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow with a new face
The Galaxy C9 Pro runs on the latest iteration of Samsungs UI based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. It first debuted on the ill-fated Galaxy Note7 and featured a lot of minor UI improvements all around over the previous version.
Homescreen
Starting with the launcher, we see that Samsung is still very much committed to the homescreen + app drawer layout, complete with the app drawer button in the corner that is obligatory for Samsung phones. The leftmost homescreen is still taken over by Flipboard Briefing but that can easily be disabled.
The C9 Pro comes with 5x5 layout by default for the icons, which makes great use of the available screen space.
You can press and hold on the icons to get a small popup but instead of having some interesting app specific options such as on the Pixel launcher or 3D Touch on iOS, you just get the options to uninstall the app or to put it to sleep.
By default, all the icons have a square border around them, something Samsung picked up f rom the Chinese OEMs. The good thing is this can be disabled and you can just have the default icon shapes for every app if thats how you prefer them.
The App Drawer
The app drawer still has the sliding pane design unlike the vertical scrolling in the Pixel launcher. You get folder support and by default most of the apps are grouped together in some folders.
You can choose to arrange the icons in alphabetical order, which doesnt upset your folders. When you have the apps sorted alphabetically, the new apps that you download no longer go to the end of the grid but instead fall into place in accordance with the alphabetical sequence.
Notifications
The notification shade has also been improved with a row of toggles that does not slide horizontally as before and can be expanded by swiping down again. Being a dual SIM phone, you also get options to choose your default SIM for calling, texting and data but you cant change anything from here and tapping any of these opens the Settings app.
Unfortunately, Samsung has buried the brightness slider in the second level so you have to swipe down twice to adjust the brightness wher eas previously you could just swipe once.
Additionally, Samsung continues to use a tiny Clear all button that requires way too much precision on the users part to touch it without hitting the notification below which it appears.
Settings app • Wallpapers, themes and icons • Advanced features
The new UI also comes with a new Settings app, which has a simplified structure and the top level menu items list some of the options contained within to make things easy to find. Its still quite convoluted, however, and youll often need to use the search function to find things in here.
Multitasking • Split view • Pop view
Samsung has always been at the forefront when it came to having features built-into the UI. However, that has changed in recent times and theyve dialed back on going too crazy with new features They are instead focusing on mostly the tried and tested (and most of all practical) features.
Well try and sum these up:
- Split-screen mode, which would normally require you to have Android N ougat
- Blue light filter
- Easy mode for a simplified interface
- Always-on display that show the time and date along with your notifications when the screen is off
- Customizable icons and themes
- Single-handed mode, which can be enabled by triple tapping the home button
- Game mode, which automatically combines all your games in a single folder and provides options like suppressing alerts during gameplay, locking the tough keys under the screen, locking the touch input on the screen, taking screenshot of the gameplay or even recording the action as a video.
- Locking apps on the device with your fingerprint or passcode.
- Quick launch of the camera, which lets you start the camera by double pressing the home button.
- Smart capture, which shows additional options for sharing, drawing, cropping and even taking a longer screenshot after you capture one
- Direct call that calls the number on screen by simply picking up the phone and putting it against your ear
- Smart alert, which vibrates the phone when you grab the phone if you have pending notifications
- Easy mute, which lets you silence the phone by keeping your palm on screen or turning the phone over.
- Unicode 9.0 emoji set, which Google introduced on in stock Android only in Android 7.0 Nougat but is available here even though the C9 Pro runs on Marshmallow.
- Finally, there is a background app monitor that puts apps to sleep if you dont use them often.
Then there are some frivolous features, such as swiping your palm on screen to take a screenshot. Or the Pop-up view gesture, which shrinks the current app down to a small window so you can run it on top of other apps. This one is yet to prove useful considering the screen is not big enough to have multiple apps on-screen at the same time. And finally, there is the ever-so-popular (and not really needed) storage and RAM cleaner.
Device maintenance options
But frivolous features is fine. What isnt fine is the amount of bloatware that comes installed. Samsung still insists on having the entire Microsoft suite pre-installed. That means Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, OneNote, and Skype are just chilling there on your phone, taking up space. Naturally, you cannot uninstall any of them.
Then theres Opera Max , which is a VPN service that also compresses data. The app is probably not all that bad to have on its own but the phone will remind you to use it literally every single time you turn on Wi-Fi. In fact spam notifications are a bit of a concern on their own, as there seem to be a myriad different apps and services on the phone that will spit notifications at you every now and then.
The Opera Max integration can be nagging
Device performance
In terms of performance, we found the Galaxy C9 Pro to be reasonably competent. The phone is perfectly usable for daily use and performs basic tasks with complete ease. Standard activities like opening and clo sing apps, scrolling, and multitasking are handled quite well and even more adventurous use cases like running two apps in split-screen mode or running six apps side by side in Pop-view mode are also no big deal when you have 6GB of RAM at your disposal. Samsung never quite got around to improving the memory usage of its software but the solution to throw more memory at the problem seems to have worked great.
Games work fine too on the C9 Pro. Most of the games we tried ran perfectly fine without any performance issues.
There is one drawback to all the power under the hood, and that is thermal performance. The C9 Pro stays cool in normal every-day use but push the CPU or GPU hard and the temperatures rise quickly. The top part of the phone can get significantly hot at times, which can be uncomfortable.
GeekBench 4 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
4364 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
4102 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
3976 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
3754
GeekBench 4 (single-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
1890 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
1440 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
1332 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
776
AnTuTu 6
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
165097 - Huawei Mate 8
91609 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
85181 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
81615 - Xiaomi Mi Max
74488 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
64591 - Samsung Galaxy C7
62818 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
60767 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
50109
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
49 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
21 - Huawei Mate 8
18 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
17 - Xiaomi Mi Max
15 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
14 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
13 - Samsung Galaxy C7
9.8 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
7.2
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
48 - Huawei Mate 8
18 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
17 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
15 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
15 - Xiaomi Mi Max
15 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
13 - Samsung Galaxy C7
9.6 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
7.5
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
33 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
15 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
11 - Huawei Mate 8
10 - Xiaomi Mi Max
9.4 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
9.3 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
9.1 - Samsung Galaxy C7
6.2 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
4.7
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
33 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
11 - Huawei Mate 8
11 - Xiaomi Mi Max
9.4 Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
9.1- Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
9 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
6.7 - Samsung Galaxy C7
6.1 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
5.1
GFX 3.1 Car scene (offscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
20 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
5.8 - Xiaomi Mi Max
5.5 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
5.2 - Samsung Galaxy C7
3.4 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
2.5
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
20 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
5.8 - Xiaomi Mi Max
5.4 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
5.2 - Samsung Galaxy C7
3.4 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
2.7
Basemark X
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
36958 - Samsung Galaxy Note5< br />26281
- Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
15814 - Huawei Mate 8
15593 - Xiaomi Mi Max
15487 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
15290 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
14619 - Samsung Galaxy C7
10445 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
6754
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
2678 - Huawei Mate 8
2017 - Samsu ng Galaxy Note5
1880 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
1770 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
1529 - Xiaomi Mi Max
1362 - Samsung Galaxy C7
1222 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
987 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
497
Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal
Higher is better
- OnePlus 3T
641 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
316 - Huawei Mate 8
311 - Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
261 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)
253 - Xiaomi Mi Max
238 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
229 - Samsung Galaxy C7
137 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
131
Other aspects of day-to-day use
The C9 Pro is one of the few Samsung phones to have stereo speakers. The phone makes use of the earpiece at the top as the left channel and the speaker at the bottom as the right channel.
There are a few problems with Samsungs implementation. Like HTC with the HTC 10, the C9 Pro uses the earpiece speaker as a tweeter and the bottom loudspeaker as the woofer. The earpiece can on ly really produce high frequency sounds, which form about 10% of the total sound being produced by this speaker. If you cover the earpiece, most of the time you can barely tell that its not playing but cover the bottom speaker and suddenly almost all the sound is gone.
While it sounds okay in portrait mode, in landscape mode you can clearly tell the left and right channels are on different levels, which makes the sound feel unbalanced for the user. While your right ear is getting most of the sound the left ear is only really getting the high frequencies. This was the case with the HTC 10 too although HTC cleverly never marketed the phone for having stereo speakers.
The second problem is that because of the size of the phone, the two channels are really far apart from each other. This means mono sounds dont really seem to come from the center of the phone but from the two corners, which is less than ideal.
Lastly, unlike the iPhone 7, the C9 Pro does not flip the ch annels when you flip the phone. Regardless of how you hold the phone, the earpiece speaker always plays the left channel while the bottom speaker always plays the right channel. If you dont hold the phone correctly, you are going to have the sounds coming at you from the wrong sides. With the iPhone 7, there is no wrong way of holding the phone as it adjusts the speaker output to the way you hold it.
Stereo mode is optional
One interesting thing about the C9 Pro is that it only plays multimedia sounds in stereo mode. Also, the phone lets you disable stereo mode entirely and play all sounds from the bottom speaker only. If you ask us, its better to have it turned on at all times, we just would have preferred it if Samsung had implemented it properly as the stereo effect and even the actual quality of th e speakers isnt great.
Fortunately, the phone still comes with a standard headphone jack and the in-ear headset provided in the box is also good quality, and has built-in remote controls.
The fingerprint sensor performance on the C9 Pro is a bit of hit or miss. While it is fast and you dont even need to press down on the home button to unlock, it is still frequently bamboozled if you use the finger at a slightly odd angle or use one of your lesser used saved prints. For example, while we had both our left and right thumb prints saved, the right one was used most often and the few times the left print was used the phone would often fail to recognize unless the thumb was very precisely on the button, which wasnt the case with the right thumb.
Fingerprint settings
Also, for whatever reason, Samsu ng only lets you save three prints on this phone unlike five on most other devices, including some of Samsungs own. Samsung frequently does this on its cheaper phones, as if there is some weird correlation between the amount you pay for your phone and the number of fingers you can have recognized.
Camera
The Galaxy C9 Pro has a 16 megapixel camera on the back with f1.9 aperture, phase detection autofocus, and two-tone dual LED flash. The camera can also record 1080p 30fps video.
Camera app
The camera software on Samsung phones has been refined over the years and remains one of the best out there. However, the app on the C9 Pro is a bit too simplified, as is often the case with non-flagship phones.
There is a Pro mode but its simplified and it doesnt offer shutter speed control or manual focus adjustment.
Fortunately, there arent too many compromises in image quality and photos taken with the C9 Pro generally come out looking good.
Photos taken by the Galaxy C9 Pro
Daylight images have good level of detail and accurate colors. Closer inspection reveals some smearing of finer details and occasional patchiness but it does help keep the noise level down and isnt too distracting.
The dynamic range isnt great and the center-weighted average metering often blows highlights to keep the center of the frame well lit.
Fortunately, the HDR mode works really well most of the time, dialing just the right amount control for the shadows and highlights depending upon the scene. Unfortunately, it doesnt offer live preview or auto mode.
HDR Mode: Off • On • Off • On
In low light, the image processing gets a bit more aggressive and we see more of the smearing and patchiness in finer detail but again its not particularly problematic. The phone does come with a very capable Night mode, which takes multiple shots and combines them, much like the HDR mode, to clean out the noise and restore some of the lost detail.
The video capturing doesnt come with Slow motion mode, 60fps option or electronic stabilization (EIS), with the latter being its biggest drawback.
The video quality is also quite good. The dynamic range isnt gre at but the level of detail, colors, and the focusing are perfectly fine. The lack of stabilization does make the video quite shaky, though.
Battery Life
The Galaxy C9 Pro has a massive 4000mAh internal battery. The battery is not replaceable but thats fine because it does last a really long time.
The average Screen-On times we got are generally between 6-7 hours even with heavy use. The overall standby times are generally over 24 hours, which means the phone can easily get you through an entire day and still have some power left towards the end.
Battery life times
If thats not good enough, you also get Quick Charge 2.0 support, which means the phone does a full charge in just under two hours. The downside to this is that the phone gets ridiculously hot while charging, which is a common problem with Quick Charge devices.
If you are someone who charges the phone overnight, it would make sense to use a standard 5V 2A charger and use the bundled fast charger only for when you are in a hurry.
Verdict
Samsung played a huge part in carving the phablet niche out of nothing with its Note series. Of course, up until recently, having a 6+inch phone seemed like an outlandish idea. But now that users are finally warming to the idea of having the biggest possible screen in their pocket, there is no better time for Samsung to have another go at this segment. And so we have the Galaxy C9 Pro.
In our time with it, the C9 Pro proved itself as a really good smartphone. It is well designed and very well made. It has an excellent display, an ex cellent battery life, good performance, good camera, and a full bag of proprietary software features, which add positively to the user experience.
It may not be as good value as something like the Xiaomi Mi Mix or the OnePlus 3T but if you want the peace of mind that comes with a big brand like Samsung and are also looking for a big screen phone then you cant go wrong with the C9 Pro.
! ( hope useful)
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