Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro review: The affordable flagship
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro was launched in India in January this year at Rs 39,900. It is also one of the few Galaxy handsets to sport 6GB RAM. Based on the specs list, Samsung aims to put its Galaxy C9 Pro against some high-end smartphones in the market without making any tall claims.
The smartphone seems to blend a perfect combination that includes an AMOLED display, mid-range yet-powerful processor, generous amount of RAM, high-capacity battery and a sleek built. Let's see if it is worth spending your money on.
Design
When it comes to the design, the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro breaks the notion of most Samsung smartphones looking same. The industrial design of the device is fresh and has a premium-look. We reviewed Samsung’s battery beast, the Galaxy A9 Pro sometime back and found that the C9 Pro’s design has an uncanny resemblance, only thinner and ergonomically better.
Measuring 162.9x80.7x6.9mm, the C9 Pro also happens to be slimmer thanOnePlus 3T , LG G6 and even its in-house flagship, the Galaxy S7 Edge . We received the Black colour variant, which has a stealthy look given the less-reflective matte metal black body at the back and 2.5D glass covered front panel with black bezels. Mix that with AMOLED black wallpaper and you get a near-perfect looking smartphone.
There’s a physical home button below the display with embedded fingerprint sensor. The sensor is accurate most of the times but in our day-to-day usage it sometimes failed to recognise fingerprint repeatedly. Setting up fingerprint lock is easy. The physical home button is accompanied by two capacitive (backlit) touch buttons on either side.
While the placement of home button, front-facing camera, proximity and ambient light sensors and the multi-colour notification LED largely stays the same, there's a refreshing change at the back. The smartphone sports an unconventional three-line antenna on top and bottom with camera placed at the middle along with dual-tone LED flash.
The Galaxy C9 Pro is thinner than iPhone 7 Plus and still sports a 3.5mm headphone jack (pun intended). The headphone jack is placed besides the USB Type-C port and a speaker, which is surprisingly louder than other handsets sporting single speaker. Samsung claims that its C9 Pro has dual speakers with second speaker placed on the main speaker grille above the display. But we think that the second speaker just reflects the sound resonating inside the device, coming from the primary speaker.
The SIM card and microSD slots are on the right side below the power button, while the left side has the volume buttons. The placement of volume buttons in all probability will make you adjust the grip of the phone every time. What we liked here is that Samsung has given three separate slots for two SIM cards and a microSD card so you don't have to compromise.
Display
Recent cadre of flagship smartphones have started using AMOLED displays but Samsung is no doubt the numero uno in the particular segment. The 6-inch Super AMOLED full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) screen of the Galaxy C9 Pro won’t give you any complaints regardless of the conditions you use it in. Viewing content from different angles is possible without any colour tone change.
Although full-HD resolution in particular is something we don’t expect from a Rs 39,900 smartphone but the deep blacks and vibrant colours manage to compensate for it. For end users the resolution may not make much of a difference.
The screen is bright and comfortable to use under sunlight and can go dim enough in low light to prevent eye stress. You can also turn on the Blue Light filter manually or for a particular set of hours. Like in other Galaxy smartphones, here too you can even tweak the font size, always-on display, status bar and more. The always-in display lets you play with different layouts of clock as well.Like the situation with every handset with 2.5D glass, the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro’s display is prone to minor scratches if not protected with a screen guard.
Performance
The performance of a smartphone is one factor that either makes it or breaks it for the device. What runs the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro is one of the newest mid-range processors, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 instead of the Snapdragon 821 or the 820, which were the flagship processors of last year. We think this is one of the spec compromises that Samsung might have made for the C9 Pro besides the full-HD display. But nonetheless, the processor runs flawlessly.
The smartphone scores 83211 on Antutu, which is above this but way below this and this. However, it is still a decent score for a mid-ranger.
The smartphone scores 83211 on Antutu, which is above this but way below this and this. However, it is still a decent score for a mid-ranger.
A bunch of credit for the smooth performance also goes to the ample 6GB RAM. We opened around 20 applications in Galaxy C9 Pro including chat apps, video chat apps, heavy games, photo editing apps and even browsers with multiple tabs. But there was still around 1.5GB RAM remaining idle. Due to its massive RAM size we were also able to swap between different applications easily without slightest hint of stuttering.
To keep the performance top-class, Samsung also gives you a ‘Device Maintenance’ option under the Settings page. Here you can track the smartphone’s performance, extend battery life, clear unwanted cache files, free some RAM, save data and even scan your device for potential malware.The network reception was absolutely fine and the call quality was loud and clear. As we mentioned above, the speaker was impressively loud even while on a call. Connecting with Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G services was not an issue.
On the OS front, the smartphone was bit underwhelming given that it ran Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow OS, which was a thing back in 2015. Even the Android security patch is stuck at January 2017 version. Being one of the newest smartphones in the lot, Samsung could’ve at least regularised OS and security updates with the Galaxy C9 Pro. At this point nothing is concrete regarding the smartphone’s Android Nougat OS update.
Understanding the TouchWiz UI is a no brainer. Navigating through the interface is easy and pretty straight-forward. Like with other smartphones, you can long press on the home screen to change the wallpapers, widgets and screen grid. Samsung also has its own library of wallpapers, themes and icons. Accessing Flipboard-powered ‘Briefing’ section is also possible by swiping right from the home screen. Those who have already used a Samsung device before will get used to it in no time.What, however, is likely to sway users away is the bloatware, the extra apps that come pre-loaded inside the device. Samsung has about 14 applications pre-installed in its Galaxy C9 Pro, excluding the basic apps such as Camera, Radio, Contacts and Calendar. Though some are useful, some may not be used ever. The device also comes with Microsoft and Google apps as well, something which is not necessary.
Although the C9 Pro eats a massive 12GB of inbuilt storage, leaving around 52GB out of the 64GB space for users, it is still a generous amount to store audio/video content and a few heavy apps. Samsung lowering the amount of space used by the system in future handsets will be much appreciated nonetheless.
Camera
The Galaxy C9 Pro's camera gets a mixed reaction from us. The smartphone rocks a 16MP autofocus rear camera with, f/1.9 aperture, dual-tone LED flash and a bunch of shooting modes including HDR, Manual, Food Continuous Shot, Night, Panorama and more. Firing up the camera app by double-pressing the home button is also possible. It is always easier than unlocking the handset, searching the camera app and tapping on it.
Swapping between different shooting modes and filters is easy. All you need to do is to swipe towards right to access the aforementioned modes and swipe in the opposite direction to access the filters. You also get the option to download new modes. Adjusting Settings is one tap away. The gear icon on the top left takes you through the options such as video size, image size of both front-facing camera and rear camera, way to capture images, gridlines, timer, location tags and more.
The rear camera is near perfect in capturing images during daylight. Since it has a f/1.7 aperture, capturing shots quickly is possible. The colour reproduction is accurate and the viewing experience is quite impressive given the super AMOLED display. However, things are not so favourable while capturing shots in low light. The Galaxy C9 Pro camera tends to over soften the images in low light in order to reduce the grains produced during firing up a dim section. The night mode is of some help as it sharpens the image slightly more.
The front-facing 16MP camera of the smartphone gets a thumbs up as it manages to capture shots in bright lights with accurate colours and sharpness. It also has certain dedicated modes, of which our favourite was the wide selfie shot. Here the smartphone captures a regular selfie image and asks user to pan around to get a wider picture.
The video section has been a letdown in terms of recording capabilities. Being a Rs 39,900 smartphone, it is baffling to know how the device misses out on 4K recording. The Galaxy C9 Pro can only record up to full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) at 30 frames per second, which majority of the budget smartphones come with these days. On the bright side, the video stabilisation was impressive. The resulting videos are sharp as well. The functionality is just one tap away inside the camera app.
Swapping between different shooting modes and filters is easy. All you need to do is to swipe towards right to access the aforementioned modes and swipe in the opposite direction to access the filters. You also get the option to download new modes. Adjusting Settings is one tap away. The gear icon on the top left takes you through the options such as video size, image size of both front-facing camera and rear camera, way to capture images, gridlines, timer, location tags and more.
The rear camera is near perfect in capturing images during daylight. Since it has a f/1.7 aperture, capturing shots quickly is possible. The colour reproduction is accurate and the viewing experience is quite impressive given the super AMOLED display. However, things are not so favourable while capturing shots in low light. The Galaxy C9 Pro camera tends to over soften the images in low light in order to reduce the grains produced during firing up a dim section. The night mode is of some help as it sharpens the image slightly more.
The front-facing 16MP camera of the smartphone gets a thumbs up as it manages to capture shots in bright lights with accurate colours and sharpness. It also has certain dedicated modes, of which our favourite was the wide selfie shot. Here the smartphone captures a regular selfie image and asks user to pan around to get a wider picture.
The video section has been a letdown in terms of recording capabilities. Being a Rs 39,900 smartphone, it is baffling to know how the device misses out on 4K recording. The Galaxy C9 Pro can only record up to full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) at 30 frames per second, which majority of the budget smartphones come with these days. On the bright side, the video stabilisation was impressive. The resulting videos are sharp as well. The functionality is just one tap away inside the camera app.
Battery
Battery, besides 6GB RAM, is another highlight of the smartphone. The Galaxy C9 Pro’s 4000mAh battery does add to its overall weight but makes the device run for 12 hours on average/heavy use. In our day-to-day usage, the smartphone consistently ran for 12 hours (and sometimes a little more) on a single charge. Including a comparatively new and efficient processor and clubbing it with a full-HD screen, which pushes lesser amount of pixels, add to the battery life of the device.In our tests, the smartphone gave around 4.5-5 hours of on-screen time, which is impressive if nothing more. If you are a battery saving freak, Samsung has also put the battery saving modes. Accessing the ‘Battery’ section under the ‘Device Maintenance’ tab and you’ll be greeted with Mid and Max levels of power-saving modes.
There is also an App Power Monitor where you can stop certain apps from running in the background. Granular controls are also available such as setting the number of days before an unused app is put to sleep or enabling or disabling Fast Charging technology.
Verdict
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro misses out on certain features but won’t really disappoint you in any way. Based on the performance, it can be pitched against the formidable competitors in the market such as the OnePlus 3T or Moto Z. Fortunately, the smartphone has more hits than misses when it comes to features. Although full-HD display, mid-range processor and the inability to record videos in 4K resolution may come as a deal-breaker for many, its powerful battery, SuperAMOLED display quality, sleek build and a decent camera are enough to add up to something compelling.
Comments
Post a Comment