Cubot Note 9 Review

Overview and specifications

The Cubot Note 9 is an entry-level 4G smartphone with a big battery, which is its main advantage in addition to the low price tag. Here are the complete Cubot Note 9 specifications in a compact list form. In the meanwhile, we will also include them in this review. Let's begin with the device unboxing.

What's in the box

The Cubot Note 9 arrives in an all-white and flat box. A photo of the product with the model name are printed on the lid and the brand name is printed on the sides. Cubot has included a number of accessories accompanying the Note 9:

• Basic in-ear headphones with a USB-C plug
• 5V/1.5A charger (EU plug)
• USB Type-C cable
• Silicone protector for the back
• Quick start guide and other documents

Design, build and controls

Cubot did not overlook the design of the Note 9. On the contrary. The device looks really well and fits comfortably in the hand. The body is mainly plastic - chassis, frame, and rear shell. Still, it does feel quite solid. The rear shell, actually, encompasses the chassis on all four sides and has a rubbery-like surface treatment. The finish resembles leather, so on one hand it is quite aesthetic, and on the other - it ensures a comfortable grip. Moreover, it does not attract fingerprints. The big circular camera module on the back is accentuated by a wide vertically aligned strip of glossy plastic that stretches to the bottom end and is a nice design accent that distinguishes the Note 9 from the Max 3, for example. The device does arrive with a silicone protector for the back. The Cubot Note 9 is 77 mm wide which is average for a smartphone with a 5.99-inch display and a 5000-6000 mAh battery. Moreover, among those devices, the Note 9 is the shortest with a height of 153 mm. The thickness of 11 mm and the weight of 240 grams are also average. The model is available in black and green colors. We are reviewing a green one. The front is covered with a 2.5D curved glass of unknown make. Obviously, the display is from an older generation, typical for smartphones from 2017 and 2018 - with a wide top bezel and non-curved corners. The top and bottom bezels are 8 mm thick. The top one houses the light and proximity sensor, the front camera, the earpiece, and the LED notification light. The bottom bezel has no integrated elements. The side bezels are 3 mm thick. There's an on-screen navigation bar but we'd recommend switching to gesture navigation in order to get more screen real estate. The rear shell is removable. This gives you access to the two Nano-SIM card slots and the microSD card slot. You can also remove and replace the battery. The right frame houses the Volume and Power buttons. The bottom one has a microphone hole, speaker grille, and a USB Type-C port. The Cubot Note 9 does not have a fingerprint sensor.

Display

The Cubot Note 9 has a 5.99-inch IPS display with a resolution of 480 x 960 pixels. From the Display Settings, you can switch on/off the Dark Theme, manage the Eye Comfort settings, adjust manually the Colors and Contrast settings, switch on/off the Adaptive Brightness toggle, choose a wallpaper, screen timeout, font size, display size, screen saver, manage the LED notification light and lock screen options. We measured a maximum brightness of 431.193 cd/m² and an average temperature of the white point of 8900 K.

OS, UI and software

The Cubot Note 9 runs on almost stock Android 11. The version available on this model retains the angular design of the icons, floating screens, notification cards, and quick settings shade. However, the System Settings lists the various menus with big, square icons in different colors. The model supports app shortcuts, Google Discover, At a Glance, notification dots, conversations, bubbles, and history, screen time management, gesture settings, etc. The pre-installed apps include the usual Google and Android applications. No bloatware at all. The Settings features customized icons for the various menus which are not grouped thematically and the layout is more compact.

Mobile, wireless, and wired connectivity

The Cubot Note 9 does not have a SIM tray. The rear shell is removable and this gives you access to separate slots for the Nano-SIM cards and the microSD card. Both SIM cards support 4G, the supported network bands are 2G GSM (2/3/5/8), 3G WCDMA (1/8), 4G FDD-LTE (1/3/5/7/8/19/20), and 4G TDD-LTE (B40). The EU SAR values of the model are very low - 0.25 W/kg for the head and 0.86 W/kg for the body. The wireless connectivity options of this smartphone include Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Display. The smartphone also supports NFC and works with GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou. The device is equipped with a USB Type-C 2.0 port. The connectivity options also include Android Auto and Nearby Share.

Performance

The Cubot Note 9 is equipped with the entry-level Unisoc SC9863A system-on-chip, which was launched three years ago. Manufactured on TSMC's 28nm production node, this chipset features an octa-core CPU. There are four Cortex-A55 clocked at 1.6GHz and another quartet of those but clocked to 1.2GHz. A PowerVR GE8322 / IMG8322 GPU handles the graphics department. The SoC is paired with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 32GB of built-in storage. The latter can be expanded via a microSD card. The AnTuTu 8 score is 92,670 points and the AnTuTu 9 score is 92,867 points with 0 points for the GPU part of the test. Still these results are by 10,000 points higher than those of smartphones based on the MediaTek Helio A25 chipset. The Geekbench 5, PCMark Work 3.0, and 3DMark Sling Shote results are typical for smartphones based on the same system-on-chip and on the Helio A25 one.

Rear cameras

The Cubot Note 9 has a 16MP main camera with an f/1.8 aperture. It shoots FHD videos at 30 fps without EIS. There's a single LED flash as well as two other lenses which remain undetected by various hardware reporting apps and the info about them is scarce. One is a 0.3MP depth sensor and the other one is placed just for aesthetic purposes and is not a real camera. There's a Portrait mode with options for face recognition and beautification plus adjustment of background blur. A Pro mode is also available with options for adjusting the shutter speed, exposure, focus metering, white balance, ISO, saturation, and contrast. The default shooting mode is called Capture and supports up to 4x digital zoom, HDR, and face beautification.

Selfie camera

The front-facing camera of the Cubot Note 9 uses a 5MP sensor paired with an f/2.2 lens. The camera records 720p videos at 30 fps.

Battery Tests

The Cubot Note 9 has a 5900 mAh Li-Ion battery that is removable and arrives with a slow charger - 7.5W (5V/1.5A). All battery tests we run on the devices we review are developed by us and performed with the screen of the device being calibrated to 200 cd/m². Battery-saving features are disabled. Just like with older-generation models, the smartphone's system does not provide data about the battery temperature, hence, such information is not detected. The battery of our review unit charged in full for 6 hours and 26 minutes with the provided USB cable and charger. The charging process is slow for the first 10 minutes but gains speed afterward and maintains it until the battery reaches 70% of its charge. That is around 2 hours and 45 minutes from the start. After that, charging slows down again and it takes 1 hour and 15 minutes for the battery to reach 90% of its charge. At that point, charging slows down even more and it takes 2 hours and 26 minutes for the last 10% to be charged. During our intensive browsing test, the battery of our review unit lasted for 12 hours and 48 minutes. The discharging process is slow during the first 40 minutes of the process. After that, it gains speed and maintains a steady pace almost until the end. It is when the battery charge drops to 2% that the process slows down again - that's almost half an hour before complete depletion.