Samsung Galaxy A3 and A5
As Samsung have always had the fantastic screens and hardware specifications, construct quality was not certainly one of it’s strong points. With its flagship phones Galaxy Note and S series clad in fragile plastics, Samsung din’t stand up to Apples contributions, and more recently to likes of Oppo, Gionee, and OnePlus. The Alpha and Galaxy Note 4 changed all that, & now Samsung is copying ahead into mid range of smartphone division with 2 quality contributions A3 and A5. Here is the first impressions of 2 stylish smartphones.
Thin, light & very good feel
The Samsung DNA on A3 & A5 is unmistakable, be it more squarish than curved edges or rounded home button on bottom – centre. When hold it in the hand, everything changes. It is destroy material. From the beautifully diamond cut edges with slight powdery finish, to satin white front face. The back panel displays a slight curve, indisputably metal. Though the screen size of A5 is 5 inches while A3 is 4.5 inches, both sport the same metal unibody design.
Another thing would notice is how thin these phones are, measuring less than 7.0 mm, which is still nowhere close to Gionee Elifes 5.1 mm, but it does find that middle ground. For phones that are embattled at stylish consumers, the A3 and A5 seem to check all boxes. The A series speaks softly about its upmarket good looks, a superb understated design, and a rich, strong and dependable feel. The black has tuxedo good looks, while the white has sheen that would beautify well with the wardrobe of a style conscious woman.
Exceptional display & spritely UI performance
The HD AMOLED display on both A5 & A3 looks dazzling. But it is disappointing to see that even A5 has only 720p resolution. Though, A5s display looks as good as 1080p screen. With thickly packed pixels, users would not notice the difference. The same is true for A3 too as it has to make do with 540 x 960 display. However, as in A5 s case, the display looks brittle, with the same strongly packed ppi. As result of lower resolution, the UI flies on Snapdragon 410 processor. As smooth as butter.
Decent camera quality and fantastic selfie panorama
The 13 mega pixel rear shooter of A5 is fairly good, and so is A3s 8 mega pixel camera. What would blow away is front facing 5mega pixel selfie camera. During the little time we spent with phones, it did fantastic job of confining the scene in wide angle. Samsungs selfie panorama worked like charm, and captured at least 5 people in frame with room for one more.
64 bit chip inside
Finally, the 64 bit Android era is coming, though it is dribble. Both A5 and A3 sport the new 64 bit quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processors with Adreno 306 for graphics. Both phones are at same 1.2GHz clock speed. Moving around Android was draught, as there was not hint of slowdown. The color reproduction was fantastic as was the absence of lag in anything. We din’t test betting though.
Battery concerns
Everything about the A series had stellar so far. One concern is about battery specifications. Phones like Sony Xperia Z3 can press full 2 days out of 3000mAh battery. The A5 has 2300mAh battery, whereas A3 has 1,900mAh battery. Let hope Samsung has be on both sides of fine line between adding weight to device and giving just about enough juice to phone. Only our tests would tell the picture clearly. So watch out for review in the coming days.
