Samsung’s first smartphone to offer a 6 GB RAM seems exciting and what’s big is it has got a 6-inch full HD AMOLED display. Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro is a 6-inch smartphone that appears to be an upgraded Galaxy A9 Pro, but with new design and features. As a 6-inch device, it comes in phablet category like their Galaxy Note series. We got the device and here’s all you need to know about the smartphone in our Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro review.
What’s in the box
- Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro with built-in battery (4000 mAH)
- Type-C USB Cable
- Fast Charger (9V, 1.67A | 5V, 2A)
- Micro USB to Type-C Convertor
- SIM Tray Ejector Pin
- Quick Start Guide, Warranty Card, SAR Certification
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Specifications
- Model: SM-C900F/DS
- Display: 6.0-inch Full HD Super AMOLED Display (1920 x 1080 pixels resolution) covered with 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass
- Fingerprint Scanner: Yes, on Home button
- Software: Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with TouchWiz UI
- CPU: Up to 1.95 GHz octa-core processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 (MSM8976 Pro), 28nm HPm
- GPU: Adreno 510
- Memory: 6 GB LPDDR3 RAM (933 MHz), 14.9 GB/s bandwidth
- Storage: 64 GB internal storage, MicroSD up to 256 GB
- Main Camera: 16 MP f/1.9, PDAF, dual LED flash, 1080p video @30fps
- Front Camera: 16 MP f/1.9, 1080p video @30fps
- Connectivity: USB Type-C, 3.5 mm stereo jack, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
- Cellular: 4G LTE, Dual nano SIM (GSM + GSM), VoLTE-enabled
- Battery: 4,000 mAh (non-removable)
- Dimensions: 162.9 mm x 80.7 mm x 6.9 mm
- Weight: 189 grams
- Colors: Gold, Black
- Price: ₹36,900
Design and Build
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro has a new design, comes in a metallic chassis with thin bezels around the screen, shows off a 6.9 mm slim unibody despite having a large 4000 mAH battery, a 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass on the front, so there’s nothing much to complain about the design. I believe it is inspired from the OnePlus 3 due to similar design aesthetics.
This is the Samsung’s first smartphone to feature a 6 GB RAM and a new Type-C USB port. The 6 GB RAM isn’t new to us, OnePlus 3 has already taken the lead last year, but for me, it is a good comeback from Samsung. At least, it gives me an idea that any future Samsung smartphones will have a decent hardware.
In terms of comfort, it may not suit for people with small hands and one-handed operations won’t be easy I guess. After all, it is a 6-inch phablet.
There’s the 16 MP camera duo on the rear and the front. The main 16 MP f/1.9 camera has a dual-tone LED flash while the front camera has no flash. The Galaxy C9 Pro includes a huge 4,000 mAh battery that ensuring long battery runtimes. The fingerprint scanner is embedded in the home button. The rest two capacitive navigation buttons are backlit.
You can find the power button on the right and volume buttons on the left. The buttons are made well giving you a good feedback. The SIM tray holds two nano SIM cards both GSM. It supports 4G network with VoLTE-enabled.
What is good is the Micro SD slot is standalone, so you can still use two SIM cards while keeping a Micro SD card which has a capacity of holding up to 256 GB storage, unlike others which usually gives you the option to opt either one slot (SIM2 as a MicroSD) in its hybrid SIM tray.
I wonder Samsung would be keeping the USB Type-C port reserve for its flagship Galaxy S8, but whatever, Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro was an early adopter. It comes with a Type-C cable and a converter that converts any Micro USB cable to Type-C. You will find a standard 3.5 mm audio jack, and a loudspeaker. It has two noise cancellation microphones, one on top and second on the bottom.
Display
With a 6-inch full HD Super AMOLED display, it ensures that you will enjoy a better viewing experience. The front Gorilla Glass has a curved 2.5D design. A 6-inch screen is relatively larger for smartphones, so it won’t be easy to carry around.
The display has nice beautiful thin bezels and it is surprisingly bright in the daylight, viewing angles are absolutely great. Thanks to its AMOLED display, it stands out among any other smartphones in its price category.
Samsung TouchWiz offers display enhancements and blue light filter. It also uses one of its feature called ‘Always On Display’ found on their flagship devices like Samsung Galaxy S7.
Software and User Interface
On the software side, Samsung still uses Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow operating system while others are moving on to the Android 7 Nougat. I checked the updates and it’s the latest one at the time of testing. Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro may get the Nougat update in near future if Samsung plans to.
The TouchWiz user interface is customized with a few Samsung apps as you can see. It has an app drawer, you can directly put the app to sleep from the homescreen. The overall UI looks dated but updated in a few areas and looks clean.
Multitasking is great on Galaxy C9 Pro, it supports split screen view so it is capable of running two apps simultaneously. You can still run more than two apps at a time by minimizing the app in the background and access it with their floating window. We have seen such multitasking on the Samsung Galaxy S7 that runs more than two apps at a time.
The fingerprint scanner on the home button was fast, but, at times, I didn’t find it quite well. It was inaccurate, sometimes it takes a time to unlock, wet fingers don’t work. I have seen better fingerprint scanners on Vivo flagships and HUAWEI smartphones.
Hardware, Performance, and Gaming
It has got an octa-core processor combined with a 6 GB RAM, yes it has a 6 GB RAM, surprising? The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro uses a 1.95 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 CPU coupled with a massive 6 GB RAM and a huge 64 GB internal storage.
The app performance on the device is seamlessly smooth, we didn’t find it tedious. The CPU is powerful enough to run many tasks. Since it has a 6 GB RAM, the multitasking is handled with ease. Somehow, I find the user interface a bit sluggish, the rest came to be well and good.
Coming to the benchmarks, the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro scored really well according to me, thanks to its great hardware. While a number of smartphones under this price range may have higher numbers. The score is still considered as decent. We got 82,690 points score on AnTuTu, 1,475 points (single CPU) and 3,911 points (multi CPU) on Geekbench 4. Its Adreno 510 GPU shows very good 3,113 points on Geekbench 4.
AnTuTu Benchmark
- 82,690 points
Geekbench 4
- 1,475 points (single-core CPU)
- 3,911 points (multi-core CPU)
- 3,113 points (GPU)
If we want to compare it with the flagship OnePlus 3, these specifications look much identical, but believe me, OnePlus 3 has the raw power. It may sound like the hardware is very competitive (no doubt, it is still great), but compared to a powerhouse like Snapdragon 820, OnePlus 3 takes the lead. Why? because it has a 6 GB LPDDR4 RAM in contrast to the 6 GB LPDDR3 on C9 Pro. Moreover, the storage performance on OnePlus 3 is way better comparatively.
Gaming on a 6-inch smartphone may seem to be really exciting. With this hardware, it is expected to run most games. But gaming wasn’t too surprising, Angry Birds Friends received some frame drops. We played games such as Angry Birds Friends, Sonic Boom, MMX Hill Dash, and Sonic Dash. It runs games fluently that do not require heavy resources. Games like Asphalt 8 can run fine, however, I doubt Dead Trigger 2 also drop frame rates at certain areas.
Games Tested On Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
- Angry Birds Friends
- Sonic Boom
- MMX Hill Dash
- Sonic Dash
Gaming for longer hours slightly heats the device and reaches the temperatures above 40 degrees. On normal use, the temperatures are under control.
Storage and Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro comes with large 64 GB internal storage that can store all your files you need to have on your phone. Plus, its dedicated MicroSD slot comes handy extending up to 256 GB of storage.
About the storage benchmarks, the results are average. Its primary competitor OnePlus 3 scores extremely good in this area.
A1 SD Bench
- 229.82 MB/s (Read)
- 141.33 MB/s (Write)
AndroBench
- 255.35 MB/s (Sequential Read)
- 140.71 MB/s (Sequential Write)
- 22.66 MB/s (Random Read)
- 9.17 MB/s (Random Write)
Cameras
Jumping on to the cameras of the smartphone, there are two 16 MP f/1.9 cameras, one is on the front and another is the main one at the back with dual-tone LED flash. The camera interface has least options such as HDR, Pro, Panorama, Night, Food, however, you can download the supported modes for the camera.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Camera Specifications
- Camera: 16 MP, f/1.9, autofocus
- Optical Image Stabilization (OIS): N/A
- Rear Flash: Dual-tone LED Flash
- Features: Geo-tagging, Tap to Focus, HDR (Rich tone), Pro, Panorama, Night, Food, Continuous shot
- Video Recording: Up to 1080p @30 fps
- Front Camera: 16 MP, F/1.9
- Video Recording: Up to 1080p @30fps
- Front Flash: N/A
The camera doesn’t support Optical Image Stabilization and cannot record 4K videos, hence, the camera specifications are mainstream. While the chipset supports recording 4K, C9 Pro hasn’t utilized it as a camera trait, otherwise, it would have been at par to its flagship rivals. Unfortunately, it lacks slow motion capturing.
The images appear just fine in the daylight but captures average low light scenes. The photos turns out to be quite grainy at night. It is good that the camera interface and focusing on the object is fast, but it just can’t match to what its competitors offer. Given the price, the camera could have been better. Smartphones under this price range at least come out with a better camera. With all that said, the camera quality is just about average, it can be only good if you’ve less concern about the camera.
The front 16 MP camera can be decent but not like the ones we have seen in the smartphones at this price. Take OnePlus 3 and Honor 8 to name a few. At a similar price, the Samsung Galaxy S6 is still available with a better camera package.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Camera Samples
Call Quality and Audio
Talking about the call quality, the voice in the call, at times, wasn’t loud enough for the recipient and you need to speak loudly. Sometimes, it doesn’t work. I have tried with different SIM cards. The audio performance is decent, the loudspeakers have good volumes.
Battery Runtime
It has a huge backup power of 4,000 mAh under the hood, but is it enough to run a 6-inch screen and a 1.95 GHz CPU? We tested the battery performance and it was just average like the smartphones with a 3,000 mAh battery. A 14nm CPU is more battery friendly (referring a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 here) than a 28 nm Snapdragon 653 CPU on C9 Pro.
On medium usage, the phone left me 13% battery after running on a whole day and a few hours on a single charge. Below moderate usage gave me about two-day battery backup with 14% battery left. If you keep the brightness on low, the battery life may increase by a mark. The overall battery performance can be decent if used occasionally.
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Battery Test Results
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Pricing and Variants
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro is available for ₹36,900 in two color variants.
- Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Gold
- Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro Black
Verdict
Samsung has done a good job, the Galaxy C9 Pro is one of the best smartphones made by Samsung. It has a great display and boasts a slim unibody giving you a premium phablet experience just like their Galaxy Note lineup.
Now the bottom line is that is the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro a worth buy? If I would want to consider this smartphone, I would buy for its big AMOLED screen, large storage options, a decent hardware, and lastly its brand name. Though the ₹36,900 price seems a little expensive, Samsung fanatics would love this smartphone anyway.
If you are into gaming and photography, there are still better options to choose from. The less budget all-rounder OnePlus 3T (128 GB) can be a good alternative and value for money, but you will miss the 6-inch display.
Competitors
- OnePlus 3T (5.5-inch | 128 GB) – ₹34,999
- Xiaomi Mi Max (6.44-inch | 128 GB) – ₹19,999
Strength
- Beautiful Slim Unibody
- Large AMOLED Screen
- Plenty of RAM and Storage
- Decent App Performance
- USB Type-C Port
- Standalone MicroSD Slot
Weakness
- Average Battery Life
- Camera Can’t Capture 4K and Slow Motion Videos
- Seems Expensive
