Gone are the metal rims and shiny accents around the home button and earpiece that have defined Samsung’s phones for years now. Gone too is the usual glass rear panel. The black review unit we received looked almost stealthy, with a matte-finished metal shell and slick glass front. The metal wraps around the sides of the device, and the glass has subtly rounded edges - this is a look we’ve seen on many phones before, but Samsung manages to make it seem like its own.
The most surprising new touch is that Samsung has gone with striped antenna lines on the top and bottom of the phone. We get a distinct HTC vibe, especially because of the vertical cut going down from the upper band to the camera lens. While these lines look like grooves, they’re thankfully flush with the rear. The camera lens does protrude a tiny bit, but it’s nearly unnoticeable. It’s worth noting that this phone doesn’t have a water and dust protection rating.
There’s still a physical Home button with an integrated fingerprint sensor below the screen, with capacitive buttons on either side of it. There are volume buttons on the left and a power button on the right. Also on the right edge are two separate trays; one for dual Nano-SIMs, and one for a microSD card. On the bottom, you’ll find a USB Type-C port with a standard 3.5mm audio socket to one side and a tiny speaker cutout on the other.
The Galaxy C9 Pro is quite hefty at 190g, and you’ll definitely feel its weight in a pocket and in your hand. The 6-inch screen necessitates a tall, wide body, but it’s only a few millimetres bigger than an iPhone 7 Plus in both dimensions, and is in fact quite a bit thinner at 6.9mm. The matte texture does a lot to make this phone easy enough to hold - one-handed use isn’t impossible at all, but we would not attempt it when walking or being jostled around in a bus.
Surprisingly, this phone is available only in black and gold. We liked the look of our black unit, but from what we’ve seen, the gold version with its white front face isn’t quite as slick. We also noticed lots of smudges and smears on the metal after a few days of use. There definitely is a market for phones with really big screens, and this is one of the most manageable 6-inch smartphones we’ve seen.