Blackview has made quite a few budget phones over the year and the A9 Pro is one of their latest models. It has decent specs for the price of just about $90. Is it any good? Learn more in the full Blackview A9 Pro review.
VIDEO REVIEW
UNBOXING
Blackview A9 Pro ships with all the usual stuff and some extras include a screen protector, a pair of earphones and a soft TPU case.
DESIGN and DISPLAY
As far as design goes, I love that the phone is compact since it has only 5” 720p display, which may not be the sharpest out there but it is not bad for a cheap phone.
We have a quality metal trim that goes all around the device, tactile metal buttons and in general, the phone is well-built.
We have a notification LED light, which sits next to the 2MP selfie shooter.
The fingerprint scanner may not be the fastest out there but it gets the job done and it unlocks the phone straight from the standby mode. Also, the sensor has a touch panel. If you tap it, it takes you back, if you tap and hold it, you will go home. You can also switch to traditional on-screen navigation keys.
One of the key selling points of this phone is the dual-camera setup that consists of one 8MP shooter and another 0.3MP sensor.
The loudspeaker quality does not really impress like on most of the budget phones.
HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The phone sports okay specs for the price. The device ships with a quad-core MTK6737 chip (1.3GHz), 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
The gaming performance is pretty good if you play the 3D games like Asphalt 8 on medium graphics. Still, you may see a few skipped frames but nothing major. The phone gets warm pretty quickly but it does not overheat.
USER INTERFACE
The Blackview A9 Pro comes with the Android 7.0 out of the box with the proprietary skin on top of it. The skin removes the app tray and redesigns the icons whether you like it or not. The are quite a few gesture and motion controls that work quite well but some of them are quite slow to respond. You can also use a one-hand operation mode that works quite well, use a floating dock and so on. Most importantly, the user interface performance has been smooth and fluid, no complaints here.
BENCHMARKS
IMAGE QUALITY
The Blackview A9 Pro can take decent daylight images considering this is a cheap phone. Sure, the level of detail could be higher, the dynamic range adjustment could be more accurate but in general, you can take some decent-looking daylight images.
The dual-camera setup allows you to take some good-looking pictures with bokeh effect. Sure, this is not the flagship-grade quality but the results are quite impressive for such a cheap device.
The low-light camera performance does not impress like on most of the cheap phones.
Selfie pictures will definitely do the trick for social media needs but there could slightly more detail.
The 1080p video quality is above average. Selfie video quality is again, kind of mediocre but it is possible to use the camera for video chats or other stuff.
Download full resolution camera samples
CONNECTIVITY
When it comes to connectivity, the call quality is above average, the Wifi works fine and GPS is usable for navigation although it is not the most accurate out there.
BATTERY LIFE
The 3000mAh battery performs quite well. I was able to get almost 5 hours of screen-on time, which is a good result considering the fact that I used the phone quite intensively.
CONCLUSIONS
The Blackview A9 Pro is yet another cheap phone from China that aims to deliver a lot of value for the price and it succeeds in quite a few ways.
The phone is plain-looking but it is well-built and it uses a quality metal frame, the display is great for everyday use, the user interface performance is decent and the battery life is good.
Obviously, you should consider some caveats like a poor low-light camera performance, mediocre loudspeaker and the MTK6737 chip is not designed for hardcore gamers.
At the end of the day, the Blackview A9 Pro is still a decent offering for the price but as always, make sure to consider a few shortcomings like on any other budget phone.
