Skip to main content

The Samsung Galaxy A9 is a very large alternative to the Galaxy S6

Samsung introduces the biggest addition yet to the Galaxy A series

Samsung may be well known for the Galaxy S, Edge, and Note flagship smartphone series, but it was the Galaxy A series that started Samsung’s new tradition of using premium materials such as metal.

The Galaxy A series isn’t as well known as the other phones, but the Korean giant has released a number of models, including the Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy A3, Galaxy A5, Galaxy A7, and Galaxy A8. Apparently, Samsung believes there is still a market for the A series, because the company officially unveiled the rumored Galaxy A9.

Recommended Videos

Updated on 12-23-2015 by Williams Pelegrin: Added official information from Samsung about the Galaxy A9. 

With a 6-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display, the Galaxy A9 is easily one of Samsung’s biggest smartphones currently available. Under the hood lies an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, which used to be the Snapdragon 620 before Qualcomm weirdly decided to rename it. Regardless, the chipset is paired with 3GB of RAM, the same amount of memory found in the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

Elsewhere, the Galaxy A9 packs a 13-megapixel camera on the back and an 8-megapixel camera on the front, which should make selfie lovers everywhere quite happy. In addition, the large 4,000mAh battery should keep the lights on all day long.

As previously mentioned, the Galaxy A series is Samsung’s line of smartphones that finally introduced premium materials like metal. The Galaxy A9 evolves on that achievement by featuring an all-aluminum build, a welcome departure from the front and rear glass panels found on Samsung’s latest flagship smartphones if you’re not fond of your phone being smothered by fingerprints.

Much like the Galaxy A5 and A7 before it, the Galaxy A9 packs support for Samsung Pay. As such, the handset also adds a fingerprint scanner that doubles as the home button, a security feature initially implemented in Samsung’s flagship smartphones.

Finally, and most disappointingly, the Galaxy A9 will ship with Android 5.1 Lollipop installed. It could be a matter of Samsung still tweaking TouchWiz to play nice with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but it’s still less than ideal to have an Android smartphone announced this late into 2015 and not come with Google’s latest version of its mobile operating system in tow.

Samsung did not reveal pricing or availability information, though we suspect that, much like the previously-announced Galaxy A smartphones, the Galaxy A9 will initially be available in China sometime in the near future.

Next page: All the previous rumors about the Samsung Galaxy A9

Mix of mid-range and high-end specs

Samsung traditionally includes mid-range specs on the A series phones, even though they feel as premium as any of the company’s flagship phones. However, the most recent Galaxy A8 model did get a decent mix of higher-end and mid-range specs to satisfy a wide range of consumers. The Galaxy A9 will most likely follow this same path.

What may be an official infographic from Samsung has supposedly leaked online, and it compares the recently announced Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 with the Galaxy A9. According to the infographic, The Galaxy A9 will feature a 6-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels). It will be powered by a 1.8GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 620 processor and sport 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

samsung-galaxy-a9-leaked-specs
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The rear camera will be 13 megapixels, while the front selfie camera will come in at 8 megapixels.

The battery will be a whopping 4,000mAh, and the rest of the specs include a fingerprint scanner, support for Samsung Pay, and Android 5.1.1

AnTuTu and Geekbench benchmarks in November 2016 revealed a different display size, and not as many details as the infographic.

Both benchmarks showed a phone with a model number of SM-A9000, which is an indication that it’s the Galaxy A9. They revealed a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels), which is smaller than the Galaxy A8’s 5.7-inch display. According to the benchmarks, the phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 620 chip, which is a 64-bit octa-core processor consisting of a quad-core Cortex-A72 and a quad-core Cortex-A53. It will also have an Adreno 510 GPU, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage.

The benchmarks didn’t reveal anything about the cameras on the Galaxy A9

Bear in mind that although these benchmarks give us a good indication of specs, the devices tested are usually early models, so things can change. For example, this test unit is running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, which is understandable for now, but the final phone could have Android 6.0 Marshmallow onboard.

Design

Nothing has been revealed yet in terms of the design, but we’re expecting the Galaxy A9 to continue the Galaxy A series tradition of using premium materials such as an aluminum frame. We also won’t be surprised if the Galaxy A9 is super thin, since the Galaxy A8 was only 5.9mm thick. It’s hard to believe that Samsung could go much thinner than that, but each Galaxy A phone has been thinner than its predecessor.

Availability and pricing

The Galaxy A8 was just announced in July, so we are probably a few months away from an official Galaxy A9 launch. In early October, the components of the Galaxy A9 were shipped to India for testing, according to a Zauba manifest. Since it was just the components, it’s clear Samsung isn’t quite ready to release the Galaxy A9 just yet. It will more than likely arrive early next year. Perhaps we will see it at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Either way, it’s unlikely that the Galaxy A9 will launch with a U.S. carrier.

As to pricing, it may to cost about the same as the Galaxy A8. Currently that phone is selling in India for Rs 32,500, which translates to about $500.

Previous updates:

Updated on 11-24-2015 by Kyle Wiggers: Added a recent Geekbench upload which corroborates earlier leaked benchmarks.

Updated on 12-14-2015 by Robert Nazarian: Added what could be official specs based on a leaked marketing materials.

Robert Nazarian
Robert Nazarian became a technology enthusiast when his parents bought him a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color. Now his biggest…
The Galaxy S25 doesn’t look like the success Samsung will have wanted
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Samsung leads Apple in smartphone shipment market share, according to data from Counterpoint Research, and while this may appear good news for the brand, a deeper examination into two very different strategies indicates Samsung may not be happy with the situation at all. For the first three months of 2025, Samsung controlled 20% of the global smartphone market by device shipments, followed by Apple with 19%. This is “sell in” data, meaning devices purchased from the manufacturer by distributors. It is a considerable change over the data from the last three months of 2024, where Apple led with 23% of the market followed by Samsung with 16%.

This is crucial to understanding why Samsung may be looking at the latest figures, which on the outside appear positive, with concern. At the end of 2024 Apple would have been riding high on the release of the iPhone 16 series, while Samsung would have been far removed from the Galaxy S24 series and the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6’s release. It makes sense for Apple to command a higher market share right after the release of its flagship devices for the year. 

Read more
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Everything you need to know
A side-view of a closed Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6.

Summer is fast approaching, and that means it won’t be long before we see Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 7 make its debut. While the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a top-notch foldable, it also felt like Samsung phoned it in last year. That new model offered mostly modest improvements over the Z Flip 5, with the most significant ones being hidden under the hood, like thermal improvements, or generally underwhelming, like a larger cover screen that didn’t improve in any other meaningful way.

We’re hoping that Samsung does better with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 this year. The good news is that plenty of leaks and rumors suggest the company is on the right track to hit it out of the park in its seventh inning. Let’s dig in and go over everything we’ve heard so far about what to expect from Samsung’s flagship flip phone this year.

Read more
Samsung’s One UI 7 update makes the Galaxy S24 Ultra feel like new
A person holding the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

I’d been refreshing the Software Update menu on my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for a few days, expectantly waiting for One UI 7 to arrive. Then, on the morning of April 10, it was suddenly available and I eagerly installed it. Samsung’s One UI 7 software over Android 15 on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a big success, but what would it be like on 2024’s flagship Galaxy phone?
Not a massive update?

To my surprise, the One UI 7 update on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is modestly sized, and took less than three minutes to download and install on my phone. It did so without any issue too, and aside from a few setup screens to navigate through — one for accessing Google Gemini, and another showing the new Galaxy AI features — my phone was operational again in moments.

Read more