Gadgetory

the galaxy s6 was released just about a year ago and ever since then Samsung has been creating many different versions of it to appeal to very specific groups of people and now they just released the galaxy a nine is pretty much just a big galaxy s6 actually no a really big one but due to its size you get a massive battery and access to a micro SD card slot so let's take a look and see if the a9 is exactly the phone that Samsung fans have been waiting for right off the bat this phone looks exactly like the note 5 but when you look a little closer you'll notice the lack of the s-pen and even the lack of the curved edges on the back so then you begin to think wow this thing is pretty much a big galaxy s6 no actually this thing looks like a huge galaxy s6 now when I say huge I'm not kidding this is a much bigger phone that even the note 5 do to this gigantic 6 inch screen so yeah this phone can be quite cumbersome to hold but thanks to its slim top and bottom bezels it's not too much taller than other phones that have smaller screens the main thing here is this extra width that brings the phone to 80 point 9 millimeters which can really make the phone hard to use one-handed just like the standard galaxy s6 we have a very premium design that features Gorilla Glass 4 we have the gold version right here which also keeps the front black which is nice you can also pick up the a9 in other unique colours like silver and pink on the back and with this extra thickness as seven point four millimeters which is point two millimeters thinner than the note 5 we have a camera sensor that perches a little less probably one of the most noticeable differences between the galaxy a9 and this more popular s6 and note 5 companions is this weight this phone is heavy at 200 grams it's the first thing to stuck out to me as I picked up the phone for the first time but this really isn't a huge issue although with this large dimensions it can feel a little unbalanced when maneuvering it around your hand now there is a reason for this extra weight and that's due to the a9 s gigantic four thousand milliamp hour battery and with the way this battery performs as we'll find out later on it definitely makes up for this huge and heavy design Samsung has always been known for beautiful displays under smartphones and in most areas the Galaxy a9 is no exception like I said the 89 offers a very large 6-inch display which makes this phone the ultimate media consumer watching videos is a joy thanks to all this extra room and browsing the web makes for a very pleasant experience Samsung of course still stuck to their Super AMOLED technology here along with their punched up colors to create very vibrant images however as we look at the display specs here you'll notice one area where the ae9 Falls a bit short and that's its resolution a 1080 by 1920 Full HD resolution still makes sure a great resolution on most smartphones today but with a 6 inch display like the one here on the a9 it makes for a rather low pixel density at 367 PPI so text will appear fuzzy even when holding the phone at a normal using distance and you'll definitely notice images are not too sharp but all this being said I can confidently say this display is gorgeous as I really do love great AMOLED displays and saturated colors sure the resolution doesn't make for the clearest viewing experience but with less pixels to push well this is why I'm so excited to get to the battery section like most of Samsung's lineups these days we have the beloved fingerprint scanner which is located on the physical home button which is located between the capacitive buttons it's a decent place for it because you can access it at any time although it can be a little awkward compared to a rear-facing sensor you still have to push the home button for the fingerprint scanner to begin reading but it's still super fast and very accurate only feeling to read my print maybe once in every 20 attempts and yes in addition to this fingerprint scanner we have Samsung pay which will work perfectly with the a9 this speaker is still located on the bottom right which is a pretty bad place for it giving the sound is directed away from you and can easily be covered up when holding the phone and landscape for videos or games the quality is decent just as good as a standard s6 it gets loud and is pretty clear with a small amount of compression to it finally a very welcomed addition is a micro SD card slot allowing up to 128 gigs of storage you can access the slot here which pulls out a rather large tray thanks to the phone's dual SIM card capabilities this SD card slot had been missing on the galaxy s6 and note 5 which caused a great amount of controversy in the tech world so it's very promising to see Samsung include this while still maintaining a premium design and perhaps this is a little foreshadowing for the future as well as we run through the specs you'll notice a very different look as here we have Snapdragon processors and Adreno GPUs instead of Exynos processors and malley GPUs we have the newly renamed octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 - processor with an adrenal 510 and three gigs of ram and actually this setup really gets close to the performance similar to the note 5 and crushes a standard @ 6 as performance I ran the Galaxy a9 through Geekbench and 2 to several times to get a good understanding of how it holds up against the competition and it received very similar rankings to the note 5 the 89 handles gaming with ease with barely any drop frames it's very smooth the recent apps screen runs very well although refreshes apps a little more than usual but you can jump in and out of apps very fast without any hesitation really the only thing two lags up the phone is this briefing screen that you can access on the left of the home screen this isn't new though and the same can be said for other Samsung phones it's a very smooth experience overall anyway we've made it to the battery section and if you're thinking to a 9 spec Street hints towards great battery life you'd be more than correct first off the battery on the Galaxy a 9 is a four thousand milliamp hour battery which is one of the largest on the market right now also with a nine only sporting a full HD resolution instead of quad HD which has kind of become the standard for flagships it has a lot less pixels to push which means less power all of this translates to phenomenal battery life the galaxy a 9 could easily last me two full days with very decent standby time you won't be able to kill this thing in a day especially if you're not a heavy gamer I could easily manage up to 8 hours of screen on time which is pretty remarkable especially for someone like me who is constantly taking pictures if you take advantage of Samsung's battery saving options when you begin to get low this number will drastically increase by up to another hour there was really never a need for me to charge the a9 overnight and if the phone did begin to get low and battery towards the end of the second day I could easily charge it up enough to last me the rest of the day and fast too with this quick charge 3.0 capabilities the camera has been downgraded from the standard galaxy s6 but still is able to take pictures we have a smaller sensor size of 13 megapixels however an aperture of 1.9 is still present and fortunately optical image stabilization is here as well to take advantage of the full 13 megapixels you'll have to resort to shooting in a 43 aspect ratio and with enough light the camera performs very well there's some post-processing sharpening going on that really helps create sharp looking pictures and colors look very vibrant but it can struggle with dynamic range and lots of detail can get lost within the shadows overexposure is very common for this camera especially on these overcast days but HDR does a great job of fixing this and remaining realistic looking indoor shots that have less light will start to create very dull images with not much color and lots of noise and artifacts the front-facing camera actually sports a larger megapixel count in a standard counterpart at 8 megapixels instead of 5 the difference in detail is actually noticeable while the Essex is selfie cam like lots of detail the a9 produces a great amount of detail with everything being very sharp which is nice the lens is wide angled as well like we're used to which we love as it helps get a lot of information in the shot so it's a little bit of an unusual case with the rear-facing camera being downgraded while the front-facing camera seems to be the same or slightly better either way the a9s camera quality is very good but the galaxy s6 still has a beat probably the biggest shock when it comes to the a9 is that although with this phone being released in January of this year it was not released with Android marshmallow but instead android 5.1.1 lollipop perhaps am song is still testing their marshmallow version of TouchWiz or maybe wants to save it for the galaxy s7 announcement but for now we have the version of TouchWiz that we've been familiar with for about a year now a pretty simple skin of Android with a couple of cool features thrown in the notification pull down is nicely designed if you don't mind the color choice settings allows for quick settings to be assigned to easy access there dual window support which is great and runs very well although you'll be limited to certain apps sure there are some areas that may need work like the small stutters that have to do with the home screen animations but hopefully those can be fixed when Samsung releases their marshmallow version for the a nine with the galaxy a nine sharing 99% of its design DNA with a galaxy s6 it'll definitely raise a question should I go with the a9 or s6 size is going to be the biggest difference between the two the Galaxy a9 is one of the largest phones on the market right now with this huge 6-inch screen and although it's an awesome size for viewing videos the low resolution may steer some users away however if you can get past this lower pixel density you'll really love the amount of power it saves to produce amazing battery life obviously that's something you couldn't say about the s6 the camera definitely is a noticeable downgrade but if you're not comparing side-by-side that a 9s photos will do just fine for a $600 phone with great overall performance battery life and finally access to a microSD card slot the galaxy a nine looks like I could begin to put Samsung back on top when it comes to creating phones for the power user and that is it for the samsung galaxy a 9 review make sure you guys let me know what you think of this phone in the comments below and also head on over to our website Android authority comm for the full in-depth written review where you can check out cool things like camera samples and other stuff like that and last but not least make sure you're subscribed to our 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