Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) review: A-lister

Introduction

Prepare to meet the biggest premium phone Samsung has made. No, not the Note5, even that one is dwarfed by the Samsung Galaxy A9 and its 6" Super AMOLED screen.

The A9 is a new addition to the Galaxy A lineup (the original topped out with the 5.7" A8) and is undeniably the star of the Galaxy A series. It has a massive 6" Super AMOLED and it outruns the other As with a Snapdragon 652 chipset (an early taste of the latest Cortex-A72 processor).

There are little things too, like doubling the internal storage to 32GB, bumping the battery to 4,000mAh, upping the selfie camera to 8MP and even bringing faster LTE.

Key features

• Available with a hybrid dual-SIM/microSD slot
• Metal frame sandwiched between 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4
• 6" Super AMOLED of 1,080 x 1,920px resolution, ~367ppi
• Quad-core Cortex-A72 + quad A53 processor, 3GB of RAM, Adreno 510 GPU; Snapdragon 652 chipset (also available with an Exynos chipset)
• Android 5.1 Lollipop with TouchWiz, theme support
• 13MP camera with f/1.9 aperture and OIS; 1080p video recording; 8MP front-facing camera, 1080p video
• 32GB of built-in storage; 24GB user available; microSD slot (same as SIM2 slot on some models)
• LTE Cat. 4 150Mbps, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, GPS, GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.1, ANT+, NFC, FM Radio
• 4,000mAh battery

Main disadvantages

• No 4K video or 1080p@60fps
• No MHL (but USB OTG is supported)
• No notification light

The Snapdragon 652 is built on the old 28nm process, but unlike the S615 used in lower-order Galaxy As, half of its cores are the fast Cortex-A72 type (the successor to the A57). A more powerful Adreno 510 GPU and 4K video capture put the cherry on top.

Except that's not enabled on the Galaxy A7. Like its siblings it maxes out at 1080p @ 30fps, you don't even get even 60fps. You still get the same main camera, though - 13MP f/1.9 with optical image stabilization.

Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) official images

The A5 (2016) was a lower-cost alternative to the S6, the A7 (2016) didn't quite reach S6 edge+ levels, but it was a solid upgrade over the original A7.

So where does the Galaxy A9 (2016) fit in? It seems like Samsung found an unoccupied niche in its lineup - a premium mid-ranger built of metal and glass with a near-tablet sized screen. Let's take a peek inside its cave and see if the monster is awake.