Samsung's 2016 A-series is truly something. Retaining the slightly less-rounded rectangular shape of the 2015 A-series (compared to the flagship S-series), the new handsets have adopted a more gracious, sophisticated glass design. What's more, Samsung has added some additional size variations to choose from, the biggest of which being the Galaxy A9 – a 6" behemoth that impresses with both size and posture.
At a price ranging from $450 to $500, the Galaxy A9 is easier to acquire than Samsung's top-shelf Galaxy S7 edge, yet most consumers will probably have a difficult time finding the spots where the corner-cutting has been done. If you happen to love large... no, HUGE screens, this may be the phablet you've always wanted.
Design
Some say, with a somewhat negative connotation, that metal has become the new plastic when it comes to phone design. If you happen to second this view, then I'd assume you are going to like the Galaxy A9, with its elegant glass exterior. Yes, it'll be easier to crack; yes, it'll attract more fingerprints, but it sure as hell looks and feels fancy!
The design of the Samsung Galaxy A9 is among its main selling points: you can get it in three different colors: white, gold and 'pink gold', with the latter two having a black front. All three options are quite attractive. The metal side frame is colored appropriately for the three variations, and I'm pleased to say the company has excercised enough care so as to smooth out all the edges, making for a phone that feels genuinely good in the hand.
'Solid' and 'substantial' are two words I would definitely use to describe the Galaxy A9. The phone doesn't feel flimsy or plasticky like the Xiaomi Mi5, for example, but nice and solid – it makes you feel confident that it's not going to fall apart easily. And then, having in mind the imposing dimensions and scale-tipping weight of 7.05 oz (200 g), the A9 sure is substantial enough – so much so that it easily outweighs other big and heavy handsets like the iPhone 6s Plus (6.77 oz | 192 g) and the Galaxy Note 5 (6.03 oz | 171 g). However, considering there's a massive, 6" display mounted on the Galaxy A9, such figures are definitely to be expected.
Also worthy of note: as it's become the norm for recent higher-end Samsung handsets, the buttons (home, volume, power) are all clicky and easy to press, with a nicely defined tacticle feedback.
The Galaxy A9, being a higher-tier handset, comes with a fingerprint scanner built into its home button, just like the S7 or Note 5. The scanner also works in a similar fashion: it's mostly quick and responsive, though its accuracy tends to go south the more careless the user becomes with their finger positioning.
One feature the Galaxy A9 does lack, compared to Samsung's 2016 flagships, the S7 and S7 edge, is water-resistance. This is one area where we can say a corner has been cut in order to keep the price of the phone more accessible.
The 6" panel is another centerpiece of the A9. If you're interested in this phone, you're obviously interested in gigantic displays. Samsung has equipped the Galaxy A9 with a decent, though not particularly fancy AMOLED panel. The 1080 x 1920 px resolution delivers a pixel density of 367 ppi, which is more than sufficient.
There are the usual ultra-saturated screen modes like 'Adaptive' and 'AMOLED', but if it's reasonably balanced colors you're after, activating 'Basic' mode will engage a color profile that is more true-to-life. There is a slight tendency towards blue/green with this screen, and while this is mostly tolerable, colors happen to appear a bit subdued overall, especially at lower brightness levels. This is definitely not the liveliest display panel out there.
Still, it's not really that bad, especially when we consider its lovely brightness levels: going up, it can reach 560 nits, which is enough to allow for comfortable outdoor viewing, while when we turn the lights off and hit the sheets, its minimum brightness of 1 nit will make sure that our eyes aren't irritated in any way while viewing it.
The numbers below represent the amount of deviation in the respective property,observed when a display is viewed from a 45-degree angle as opposed to direct viewing.
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set(area)of colors that a display can reproduce,with the sRGB colorspace(the highlighted triangle)serving as reference.The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x:CIE31' and 'y:CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance(balance between red,green and blue)across different levels of grey(from dark to bright).The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones,the better.
For experienced Samsung users, the Galaxy A9 will be nothing new: it comes with the newest TouchWiz interface on top of Android 5.1. You heard that right – there is no Android 6 on the A9, which is a glaring omission. With the the A9 being such a high-profile phone, however, I'm hopeful Samsung will not take too long to update it.
Anyway, the Galaxy A9's user interface is colorful and lively. It moves quickly enough, though it tends to be somewhat jerky and not as fluid as the software experiences found on some rival products like those from HTC, Motorola, or Apple.
The Galaxy A9 is on the clunky side, so using it will require at least two hands and some extra attention, so that it won't accidentally slip from your hand.
So how's typing on a display this big? Unfortunately, typing with a single thumb is next to impossible – you'll need Shaq-level hands to pull it off. The upside is typing with two hands in portrait mode is more convenient than it is on smaller handsets. However, for me and my medium-sized hands, typing in landscape mode was quite bit of a stretch. Of course, since this is TouchWiz we're talking about, there's a ton of added functionality to the stock keyboard, like a relatively quick-to-access track pad, built-in T9 keyboard that makes single-thumb typing possible, large selection of emoticons, and easy access to attaching all sorts of items to your messages, including pictures, video, audio, calendar notes, map locations, etc. Truly hardcore stuff.
Processor and Memory
Ticking inside the Galaxy A9 is the intriguing Snapdragon 652 chipset, with its octa-core CPU and Adreno 510 GPU, both of which are actually quite capable. The A9 with its Snapdragon 652 can almost rival the performance output of top smartphones from last year, such as the Galaxy S6 and Note 5. Which means it's quite powerful.
Indeed, as I played around with the phone and tried to put it through its paces, the Galaxy A9 remained stable and speedy. I'm sure the generous 3 gigs of RAM inside also help here. If you happen to play games a lot on your smartphone, the Galaxy A9 shouldn't disappoint.
Storage is also taken care of: internal memory is 32 GB, which is sufficient in most cases, but just in case, there's also a microSD card slot for additional storage potential.
The Galaxy A9 features a 13-megapixel rear camera with optical stabilization (OIS) and wide, f/1.9 aperture that allows more light in than your average smartphone. Up front, there’s a sizable 8-megapixel selfie shooter.
The camera experience is one of the best you can have on a smartphone in this class. The phone supports quick launch for the camera: just double click the home button from any place (even when the phone is locked) and the camera app starts right away. The camera interface is very convenient: it has separate video and photo capture buttons, and allows you to pause and resume a video recording. It is all well laid-out, but of course, the massive 6" display means using the Galaxy A9's camera will always feel a bit clumsy.
It’s worth noting that by default, the phone captures images in 16:9 aspect ratio and 9.6-megapixel resolution. You can switch that to capture in 4:3 aspect ratio and 13 megapixels.
Image Quality
Image quality with the A9 is satisfactory, but not great. Photos doesn't seem to come out defined enough, often being somewhat unclear, with details suffering as a result. Color balance tends to be on the colder side, overall making for images that don't seem particularly lively.
Indoors, the phone does a good job at limiting noise and preserving the scene, with the dual LED flash proving to be strong enough, at least for close-range objects. Indoor photos are quite vivid and lifelike.
Despite the front camera's 8 MP resolution, selfies aren't much more than decent. They are mostly blurry, lacking clarity and color. There's also quite a bit of "beautifying" effect turned on by default, so watch out for that.
Video recording quality is good: detail is not too plentiful, but still pretty decent, while overally the scene tends to be reproduced naturally. Auto-focus is a bit trippy at times and you can notice how the optical stabilization system does its job: in the center of the frame, videos are usually rock solid, but you can notice a wiggle towards the edges of the frame. Sadly, the audio facet of video recordings is below par.
Multimedia
In an era of YouTube and Facebook videos, as well as Spotify and Apple Music, the default music and video players are getting less and less use. Many people still use them, of course, but there is really nothing new to be said about the dedicated music and video apps on the Samsung Galaxy A9: they get the job done with support for most major formats and no issues with playback.
The music app auto-categorizes your songs, and it also has a useful folder view. Tap on the More button and go to SoundAlive to make quick adjustments to the bass/treble as well as instrument/vocal balance, or tap on details for a full-on equalizer. You can take a look at the screenshots below for an illustration of what the experience is like.
The photo gallery is still something that practically everyone uses on a daily basis. With the Galaxy A9, it’s the typical Samsung affair: you can resize your image thumbnails by pinching in and out – make them small to easily go back in time, or large to have a better preview. Some quick editing options like cropping and basic effects are also available.
There's really nothing to write home about when it comes to the Galaxy A9's call handling capabilities. Voices sound generally OK through the earpiece, and the same is true for outgoing quality. Of course, all of this will depend on a number of variables, such as you network coverage, current state, position, the network of your caller, etc.
Battery life
The Samsung Galaxy A9 packs a rather beefy, 4000 mAh, which is, of course, needed to power the massive screen. Depending on how much you actually use your handset, battery life with the A9 will range from great to OK. In days when you're just casually checking the time or sending a quick message, it may easily last up to two days. But not using it much is not the point of having a phablet, right? Well, I'd say if you tinker with the A9 every now and then, it's more likely to last about day and a half, and if you are really putting it through its paces, you shouldn't expect more than a day of use, which is satisfying enough.
As far as our battery benchmark is concerned, the Galaxy A9 scored 10 hours and 10 minutes, which is quite formidable, yet, as I said in the previous paragraph, isn't perfectly indicative for all use scenarios. As is the norm now, you can't replace the A9's battery, but charging times are decent, at 122 minutes from zero to hero.
The Galaxy A9 is an enormous, yet elegant smartphone. Looking across the board, it has no glaring weaknesses – its performance actually reflecting its price point rather well. You're not getting the best of the best here, but rather a very nice smartphone that won't disappoint in any area – it's just very good, not great. I think it's a fair deal, considering you won't be paying top dollar.
Of course, that 6” screen there means this is for those who absolutely want as big a panel as possible. For a more mainstream offering, I'd recommend that you take a look at the Galaxy A7 (2016) or A8, which come with 5.5” and 5.7” screens respectively, and offer almost the same features. Alternatively, you can take a look at the Note 5 for a pricier, but more refined phablet.
But if nothing below 6 inches registers on your radar, the Galaxy A9 is a very good option with likable design and no serious issues, aside from shipping with Android 5.1, and not 6.
Rad Slavov is the Editor-in-Chief at PhoneArena. He joined the media in 2008, right on the cusp of the modern smartphone revolution. Through time and perseverance, he amassed a great deal of knowledge and industry know-how, allowing him to guide and organize the company's growing line-up of talented content creators and ever-expanding content portfolio.
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