UPDATE: The Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) is officially priced at RM1,999 in Malaysia.
If you thought three cameras was one too many to have on a smartphone, well, you’re going to love Samsung‘s brand new mid-range Galaxy A9 because it’s got four different cameras arranged in a vertical line across the back of the handset. I guess, the more the merrier right? But if people also say three’s a crowd, what happens when you have four?
Here’s your answer.
The brand new Galaxy A9 is a smartphone that’s designed to slide right into the top spot of Samsung’s Galaxy A lineup, and it has the chops to do so too. Up front it’s got a massive 6.3-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display that pushes a resolution of 2220×1080 pixels.
Inside, the device is powered by an octa-core processor (likely a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chip) that’s mated to 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage (expandable via a dedicated microSD slot). Keeping this smartphone powered is a large 3,800 mAh battery with support for fast-charging via USB Type-C.
All of those components are then wrapped up in a glass-and-metal body that helps the phone retain its Galaxy A looks, but amps it up a notch with a new pretty new back design. The handset comes in three different colours. Two of which — Bubblegum Pink and Lemonade Blue — feature a fun colour gradient, while the third — Caviar Black — is a dead serious solid black.
But, the most eye-catching thing about this smartphone has to be its ridiculously long camera module which houses all four sensors, each with its own purpose.
The main camera is a 24-megapixel one with an f/1.7 aperture lens. Directly below that is a secondary 5MP sensor that is only there to capture depth information for better portrait images. Above the main sensor sits a 10-megapixel telephoto camera that can give you 2X optical zoom, but has a smaller f/2.4 aperture lens. Finally, sitting right at the top of the stack is an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera that gives you a 120-degree field of view, but also only features an f/2.4 aperture lens.
Of course, in theory you can’t go wrong with this setup because you have a camera for every situation imaginable. However, the potential for disaster lies in each sensor. Even on LG’s flagship V40, they couldn’t maintain the quality across all three lenses so I’m a little hesitant to celebrate when I look at the setup Samsung has employed on the Galaxy A9.
Besides that, the Galaxy A9’s camera also feature the company’s Scene Optimiser scene-recognition software that can recognise up to 19 different scenes, and Flaw Detection, where the phone will actually inform you if you’ve taken a bad shot. At the end of the day, the most important aspects of smartphone photography are the shooting experience and image quality, so we’re pretty stoked to see if four is better than one (or two). Oh and of course there’s also a 20MP selfie shooter up front with an f/2.0 aperture lens.
Other features include a fingerprint scanner on the back, face unlocking in front, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC for Samsung Pay (doesn’t work with MST). Galaxy A9 will also run on Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box with Samsung’s own Android skin on top.
So far, there are no details on when this smartphone will go on sale in Malaysia just yet, nor is there any information on how much this phone will cost. However, these juicy deets will be revealed soon so stay tuned for the updates.
