While the Samsung Galaxy S8 is still a few months away, Samsung has a new phone for the premium segment, the Galaxy C9 Pro. Launched at Rs. 36,900. The C9 Pro is a large phablet-sized device, which looks and feels quite premium. While we have started reviewing the phone, here is a quick look at what it can achieve.
The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro is the first phone in India to feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 SoC, but the price surpasses the OnePlus 3T, which is its nearest and most powerful competitor. Here are the full specifications of the C9 Pro
Display: 6-inch, 1080p
SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 653
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 64GB
Camera: 16MP, 16MP
Battery: 4000mAh
OS: Android 6.0.1
It is a dual SIM phone with a dedicated slot for microSD card.
The USP here is the 6-inch AMOLED display, with 1920 x 1080p resolution. The panel looks sharp and bright with very slim bezels. The touch response is quite good and colours are pleasantly oversaturated.
The phone also has the always on display, which besides showing the time, shows you notification bubbles from apps. While this is really handy indoors and during the night time, it doesn't achieve much since you can't interact with the notifications.
The display is complemented by the slim design as well as the slim bezels. It is covered in a 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass, adding to the premium feel.
The build quality is also quite premium suiting a phone that costs 36K. The looks and build do matter at this price. The Galaxy C9 Pro feels very sturdy and premium in hand. The three band antenna lines look very similar to the Oppo R9s we saw in China a while back.
We have been using the phone as a daily driver and it feels quite smooth for the most part. However, we did find the device lagging at times. We are still in process of testing the phone and there is a lot to test before we give you our final verdict. In the meantime, check out how the Galaxy C9 Pro performed in initial synthetic benchmark testing.
The Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro scored 80315 points on the AnTuTu benchmark and here is how it fares against the OnePlus 3T and the Moto Z.
This is the Geekbench benchmark and the C9 Pro scored 1436 points on the single-core benchmark. On the multi-core benchmark, the device managed 3885 points, which is not bad.
A large phone also means a large battery and the C9 Pro has a 4000mAh unit. It supports fast charging and is charged via a USB Type-C Port. As for the battery life, we are still in the process of testing it.
There are a set of 16MP cameras on the phone. One at the rear and one on the front. Initial impressions suggest that it's a weaker camera than Samsung's flagships, but we're yet to finish testing.