Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Review: New Galaxy A-line with metal housing – NU.nl

Samsung uses since late last year a new design philosophy. That was already evident at the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Alpha 4 with a metal frame and other finishes.

The Alpha was officially the first unit of the new Galaxy A-line. With the A3 and A5 gets the new series really form in the Netherlands. In addition, these devices for the first time a full metal body.

The smartphones have a suggested retail price of 309 and 409 euros respectively. The A3 and A5 have the same design but slightly different specifications

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Galaxy A5

The A5 is largely similar to the Galaxy S4 which came on the market in the spring of 2013. Both devices have a 5 inch screen, 2 GB of RAM and the same 13-megapixel camera. However, the resolution of the A5 is somewhat lower while the casing has just been given a hefty upgrade

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The Galaxy A3 and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 (pictured) and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 (pictured) are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 (pictured) are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 (pictured) and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

The Galaxy A3 and A5 are two devices in the new line of Samsung. The smartphones have a full metal body that is well finished, but have few special specifications. © Samsung

Thus, A5 equipped with a metal frame with polished edges. This gives the unit a more luxurious look and feel firmer. Also, the back is made of metal. Therefore, the device is quite smooth and the back can not be removed. Itself replaced a battery is not in. The microSD card and SIM card are now incorporated in the side.

The top and bottom edges of the screen to the A5 quite sharply so that the phone itself is slightly larger than the S4. The device is squarer than what we are used to from Samsung. Other design elements such as the speaker and home button selfiecamera have substantially the same appearance as previous Samsung phones. The camera lens extends slightly beyond the thin body of just 6.7 millimeters.



Screen

The 5-inch screen of the A5 has a HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels while full hd also increasingly common in this price range. The difference in sharpness with a full HD screen in this format in addition to see, especially for text

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It is as usual with a Samsung AMOLED screen. These displays usually have bright and vibrant colors, but realistically they are not real. That is the A5 true. Samsung Selects standard ‘Adaptable display’ which creates supersaturation. The ‘Basic’ mode gives color natural world. The screen brightness is moderate and white in all positions is what bluish.



Performance and software

Samsung used the Snapdragon 410 processor from Qualcomm in the Galaxy A5. That chip is already used in inexpensive devices, for example, Huawei and HTC. In benchmark tests the processor is not very impressive. Especially the graphics performance disappointing.

In practice, the A5 sufficient for most operations. Graphic heavy games also play fairly smoothly, but charge more slowly. The processor seems especially ‘effort’ to do with the rather heavy software Samsung making the phone sometimes just what reacts too slowly or it just takes a little longer to start an app than you may be used

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The A5 is equipped with Android 4.4.4 and the software layer Touchwiz Samsung itself. That means lots of Samsung apps like S Voice, Samsung Go and S Planner and heaps of options in the settings menu. Whether and when the A5 get an update to Android 5.0 is not clear.



Camera and battery life

Among the metal casing is in the A5 processed a Sony IMX135 camera sensor. This sensor we arrived earlier at the Galaxy S4, Note 3, Xperia S, LG G2 and Moto X. The camera can take photos up to 13 megapixels.

The resolution is sufficient and in daylight makes A5 great photos. When zooming or worse light go much detail is lost and the camera has quite prone to noise. In dark situations, the color reproduction is also called moderate at best. For shooting snapshots base A5 is suitable, but more than that can not offer the camera.

The battery life is not impressive, but again adequate. The A5 is a battery charge lasts about a day, although this is very dependent on personal use and which apps are installed. At the end of the evening, the A5 was always on the charger

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In our battery test with a hd movie at a fixed brightness is playing keeps the A5 a little longer than the Alpha, but much shorter than the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4.

Conclusion

The Galaxy A5 a great phone in a nice jacket. The device excels except the design of nowhere. For an affordable phone that would not be a problem as the competition in recent years in this price range was not sharpened. For less than 400 euros you can also Alpha Galaxy, LG G3 Xperia Z2 buy.

In a few months the price of the A5 is probably at around 300 euros, the A5 can this competition better to

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  • Solid housing
  • Luxurious look and feel
  • Relatively high price
  • nowhere Excels in from

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Galaxy A3

The Galaxy A3 is a smaller device that is finished in the same way as its big brother. The phone is only 6.9 millimeters thicker. Also, the edges on the side of the screen a little bigger so the A3 has a less sophisticated.

Thanks to the metal casing and polished edges feel the Galaxy A3 or high end, and that in this best price special.

Screen

The screen is 4.5 inches and has a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. That provides 245 pixels per inch, a lot less than the A5. That difference is noticeable as well. Texts and icons are slightly less sharp

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In addition, the quality of the screen corresponds to that of the A5. The clarity is poor, but the color rendering and color temperature are fine if the settings are adjusted. By default, the screen is oversaturated with unnatural, but bright colors.



Performance and software

The A3 has the same Snapdragon 410 processor as its big brother and the performance is therefore virtually identical. The system runs fine in principle, but not as fast as on more expensive devices. Very occasionally falters there somewhere an app, but no structural problems

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Also, the graphics are equal Adreno by the 306-chip. That means that graphic heavy games are possible, but sometimes a bit slow turn. Finally, the A3 software with the same features and design as the A5 and previous Samsung devices.



Camera and battery

The A3 has an 8-megapixel camera instead of 13 megapixel model in the A5. The photos are noticeably less beautiful color and suffer a little too cool white display which quickly turns blue and warm colors which paler. Also is determined by the lower resolution less detail.

In general, the camera responds fast and the end result is sufficient for photos on social media and is not inferior to other cheap smartphones.

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of the A3 Battery life is approximately equal to that of the A5. With fairly heavy use keeps the device from around into the evening, but he also is really empty. Despite the low resolution. In our battery test where a movie is playing at a fixed brightness makes the A3 a little better than the A5.



Conclusion

If you buy a Galaxy A3 you get for less than 300 euros a well designed and sturdy device that is also very thin. However, the screen resolution is poor, but the performance, do battery life and camera hardly among the more expensive Galaxy A5.

The A3 is the only tricky as the competition to have to deal with similar priced devices such as the Huawei Ascend P7 and Honor 6 (with full HD screen and better cameras). If the A3 as drops in price as most Samsung phones, the phone in a few months, however, can be a good purchase

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  • Beautiful and sturdy housing
  • Prima camera
  • Almost as good as more expensive A5
  • For low resolution
  • For high-priced

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By: NU.nl/Colin Corner

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