Samsung Galaxy A5 Review

When I first heard of the Samsung Galaxy A5, I was expecting a fairly mediocre mid-range handset from the Korean giant, sort of inline with a lot of their previous efforts in this space, but instead what I actually received was a premium feeling mid-range device with fairly decent hardware inside. To be honest, it was quite a surprise for me. Let us get straight to the review

The first thing to note about the Samsung Galaxy A5 is its excellent built quality it’s fairly similar to the Galaxy Alpha, it is also a fairly slim device with 6.7mm thin. It is slightly larger because it upgrades from a 4.7 to a 5 inch display. Even though this is mid-range device as opposed to a premium flagship like the Galaxy Alpha was, the metal built quality of the A5 is superior to the Galaxy Alpha. I like this phone a little more than I like the Alpha mostly because of the seamless transition between the metal around the edges and the plastic on the back. This is because Samsung has decide not to make a removable back cover for the Galaxy A5 and instead just go with a fixed of shiny plastic on the back which feels quite nice. On the front we also got some smooth and tough Gorilla Glass to protect the 5 inch 720p display.

As the Galaxy A5 is just 6.7 mm thin and under a 130g light, it’s a very portable device despite its 5 inch display size. It’s not the most ergonomic design I have ever seen although including things like the power button on the right hand edge in the perfect position for general use does improve the usability of the device overall. It’s another huge fan of the physical home button that is included below the display with on screen buttons now being the major feature of android, I tend to think that is a better implementation this days, but it’s not too bad on the Galaxy A5 because it’s not a massive device. On the left hand you will find the volume key and on the top, just a microphone. On the bottom edge you will also find a micro USB port and 3.5mm audio jack.

As I mentioned earlier, the back cover of the device is not removable so there are no sim cards slots in under the back panel or a removable battery. Instead on the right hand edge just below the power button you will find two sim card slots or at least two on the Duos model of the Galaxy A5. One of the sim card slots is just a sim card slot that is used for your primary sim, but the other slot is used also for Micro SD card slot. So you have the opportunity to choose between using this as a dual seem device with either two sim cards in each of the slots or a single sim device with expanded storage to that Micro SD card. The device does come with 16 GB of storage out of the box which is not too bad if you decide to use it as a dual sim handset.

As well as fantastic built quality on the device, we also get an excellent AMOLED display. It is 5 inches in size and come with a 720p resolution which is fairly typical for this type of mid-range class device. It is built using the same AMOLED technology as the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Alpha which makes it look simply fantastic. It offers a fantastic contrast ration and better outdoor visibility than we typically see from AMOLED panels. LCDs are still slightly ahead in this respect but the brightness you get and the viewing angles from this AMOLED panel are quite good and it makes the Galaxy A5’s display one of the best in this class.

Looking on the performance of the Samsung Galaxy A5, it is one of the first devices I have seen to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SOC which exceeds the Snapdragon 400. It is a 64bit capable of Quad Core cortex A53 CPU clocked at 1.2 GHz as well as the Adreno 306 GPU. We are getting around 20% more CPU usage even in simple 32bit applications however there hasn’t been too much improvement on the GPU side. Generally the performance and the operating system is fantastic, we should see that improved once this device is upgraded to Android 5.0. It is actually one of the downsides of the Galaxy A5; they were not running Android 5.0 out of the box, it’s still Android 4.4 with very similar software addition to the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Alpha.

It also has a quite good battery life although it’s not excellent because the device only comes with a 2300mAh battery to help it become so slim and you cannot remove the back covers for easy battery replacements.

The device has a fantastic camera. Inside the Galaxy A5 is the 13 Megapixel SONY EXMOR R sensor, the very same sensor that we have seen in flagship device like the LG G3, G2, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and also the Galaxy S4. So what we have been set up for is a fantastic sensor coming down to the price port of a mid-range device. Generally speaking, the camera produces excellent results especially in strong lighting and also when you are using HDR mode. It’s not as good in indoor conditions and low light because we are missing things like optical image stabilization but definitely superior to other devices that I have seen in this price range and in its category. It’s actually an excellent thing to see that Samsung has managed to bring a high quality camera down to price range of something like the Galaxy A5. On the front we also get a 5 megapixel selfie camera which is actually good for a selfie since most mid-range devices have something like 2-3 megapixels

Samsung Galaxy A5 Specifications

Screen	5-inch AMOLED display
	720pixels resolution, 294 pixels per inch
Size	139.3mm x 69.7mm x 6.7 mm
Weight	123 grams
Camera	13 MP primary camera
	5 MP secondary camera
Memory	2 GB RAM
Storage	16 GB storage, expandable up to 64 GB
Processor	1.2 GHz quad core
	64bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410
GPU	Adreno 306
Sensors	Compass, Proximity, Accelerometer, GPS
Network	3G & 4G LTE
Wireless	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual band, hotspot
	Bluetooth 4.0
Ports	micro-USB 2.0
Battery	2,300 mAh
Talk time	15 Hours
Music play	68 Hours
OS	Android 4.4 KitKat