Samsung A5- Review

1. Network   :GSM / H SPA / LTE
2. Display    :5.0 inches,Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 720*1280p resolution
3. Memory   :2GB Ram,16GB Internal,Micro SD up to 64GB
4. Processor :Quad-Core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53
5. Camera    :Primary 13 MP,Secondary 5 MP
6. OS           :Android OS, v4.4.4 (Kit-Kat), upgradable to v5.0.2 (Lollipop)
7. Battery    :2300 mAh battery Non-removable Li-Ion 

Samsung went down the chambered metal edges look this time. They call it a uni-body design but the back is still plastic. There's Gorilla Glass 4 on the display and something quite well-balanced and symmetrical about the A5. The metal chiseled sides glint as they catch the light and talking of light, the phone weighs a mere 123 grams despite all the metal.  

My review version was a pearly white and the glint extends to the rim, around the pill shaped Home button and on the back around the raised camera lens. There are four other colours available with equally fancy names but in lay terms they are: dark blue, white, pale gold and silver.There is an expandable storage slot on one end- it takes a micro-SD slot upping the memory by 64GB over the slightly puny 16GB that the phone comes with. Next to it, there is a SIM card slot- a nanoSIM, Samsung have quietly made the switch over to the tinier version.

 

                                                                                The 5-inch screen is an HD one with a 1280 x 720 resolution. It may not be a 4K screen, but it gets the high definition sticker next to its name. It has a 294 pixel per inch density and Samsung's usual Super AMOLED sharp and bright screen is here for all to enjoy.A 13-MP super snapper does the job for the Galaxy A5. And it comes with enough add-ons to keep even the most dedicated camera phone photographers happy. There is a burst mode that can convert your images into animated gifs, it even gives you an opportunity to download a series of paid and free modes for your phone. During my time reviewing the phone, there were two available: Sports shot and another one called the Sound & shot, boh with 4/5 star reviews.

 

I know it is a mid-range phone and I shouldn't really crib, but the phone still runs last generation of Android. It is Android 4.4.2 that helps you through with your daily tasks here and to add insult to injury, Samsung's much derided and older version of Touch-wiz, its user interface is overlaid onto it.

Samsung are planning on rolling out the new Android update onto this phone soon, but until that happens, we are stuck in the past.The A5 packs a 2300 mAH battery which, to put it mildly just about a day long. The bit that works in favour of this phone is te fact that it has a lower resolution than flagships and so the 2300 mAH which might seem meagre in comparison with the 3000 mAH of the Honor 6 Plus, but it made through an entire day's worth of internetting for us.A quad-core processor makes up the brains bit of the phone. With a 1.2GHz processor, the A5 isn't the most powerful mid-range phone in the market, in fact, far from it. We recently reviewed the Honor 6 Plus which packs an octa-core processor for a very similar price range as the A5. And sadly in terms of processing power, the A5 doesn't really match up.