Review Samsung Galaxy A5

KEY FEATURES

Full metal unibody design

1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor

13-megapixel main camera

5MP front-facing camera

16GB internal memory 2GB RAM

4G connectivity

Manufacturer: Samsung

Review Price: £349.00

WHAT IS THE SAMSUNG GALAXY A5?

The Samsung Galaxy A5 is Samsung’s latest stylish mid-range phone and a follow-up to last year’s Samsung Galaxy Alpha. It’s around half the price of the upcoming Galaxy S6, but its metal-framed design makes it look and feel like a pricier phone.

It still offers speedy 4G connectivity for fast internet usage, decent cameras and a 5-inch HD (720 x 1280) display, but it has a mid-range processor. That means it faces tough competition from phones such as the Moto G (4G), Huawei Ascend G7, Sony Xperia Z3 Compact and even the LG G3. It’s a good option if you want a phone that looks and feels high end, though the fact it ships with Android 4.4 KitKat and not 5.0 Lollipop is a little disappointing.

SAMSUNG GALAXY A5 – DESIGN

We already know what some of you are going to say: “But it looks just like an iPhone!” If by that you mean it looks crafted, rather than simply made, or that it looks high-end and radiates quality, then yes, it’s just like an iPhone.

The Galaxy A5 is further proof of Samsung’s renewed focus on quality design. It started with the Galaxy Alpha towards the end of last year, and continued through the Note 4 and Note 4 Edge, and the Galaxy A5 is the most desirable Samsung phones we’ve seen.

Comparisons to the iPhone 5S are inevitable, but the A5’s larger screen and slimmer, 6.7mm thick body make it more attractive – we also prefer the smooth plastic on the rear of the A5, with its subtle pearlescent finish.

The cover can’t be removed, unfortunately, which is a sacrifice we have to accept for the sleek sealed unibody design. However, you can increase the phone’s built-in 16GB storage by adding an external microSD card up to 64GB.

Of the phones we’ve come across recently, the Galaxy A5 is one of the most immediately attractive devices to hold. It strikes a near perfect balance between being comfortable to use one-handed, while including a large, engaging screen. It’s an added bonus that it slips in and out of pockets easily.

We can see some people being hung up on the slight protrusion of the A5's camera as it sticks out about 1.5mm, like the camera on the S6. But just as it isn’t an issue for us with the S6, there’s no complaint here either. It has no negative impact on using the phone and doesn’t harm its looks either.

There are soft keys either side of the familiar ‘roundtangle’ Galaxy home button, while the power and volume keys remain on opposite sides of the phone – we find this button layout avoids unintentional presses of the power key when trying to adjust volume without looking, which is good.

Overall, the A5 is a design triumph. Moreover, it seems more like a mini Samsung Galaxy Note 4 than a big iPhone 5S, which is no bad thing at all.

SAMSUNG GALAXY A5 – SCREEN

The 5-inch HD (720 x 1280) screen of the Samsung Galaxy A5 sounds ordinary until you remember it uses the same Super AMOLED screen tech as Samsung’s top-end phones.

Super AMOLED screens have superior contrast compared to IPS LCDs commonly used in mid-to-low-end devices, as well as iPhones. It looks great when viewed in ambient and low light conditions, but in bright sunlight darker elements are difficult to see — even at full brightness.

As we’ve come to expect, the Super AMOLED screen on the A5 reproduces colours excellently, but the A5 is let down a little by its 720p resolution, leaving the screen with a slight softness that betrays the phone’s high end look and feel. This is the weakness of AMOLED screens, as the way they’re made means they look fuzzier than LCDs at the same resolution.

As a result, the pixel structure is visible when you look closely, especially on the edges of icons and in-game elements. The effect is less noticeable when watching videos, though. We’d describe the screen as smooth overall, with deep black tones and vibrant colours. But at times the colours are a touch over-saturated.

If you want to make adjustments to the screen’s colours you can do so in the settings, under Display and wallpaper > Screen mode. There are four options; Adaptive display, AMOLED cinema, AMOLED photo and Basic. Adaptive display adjusts the display depending on the application you’re using, switching to photo for example when using the Gallery app.

The effect of AMOLED photo reduces the colour saturation, while AMOLED cinema boosts saturation and contrast when watching video content. We left the Adaptive display mode on and found that the phone selected appropriate settings the majority of the time.

At 5 inches the A5’s screen is large and decent enough to enjoy browsing the internet, watching video content and playing games. It also has Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protecting it from scratches, where many other phones in this class only have Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

This phone has one of the best displays you’ll find in its class.

SAMSUNG GALAXY A5 – SOFTWARE AND PERFORMANCE

It’s odd that the Samsung Galaxy A5 ships with Android 4.4 KitKat when there are sub-£100 phones such as the Motorola Moto E (2015), that come with Android 5.0 Lollipop.

We can make some allowances as the phone was technically created pre-Lollipop, but we were disappointed nonetheless. The good news is that Samsung is currently rolling out an update for this phone so this minor issue should be solved over the coming weeks.

It’s good to see that there are fewer pre-installed apps on the A5 than previous Samsung phones, which is a positive move. This helps the A5 run relatively smoothly, although we did experience a couple of minor stability issues where we had to restart the phone.

The issues seemed to occur when accessing the gallery or playing media content whether stored on the phone’s internal storage or the external microSD. Turning it off and then on again solved the issue, though. Navigating around the A5 and taking advantage of its multi-window system we found it highly responsive.

There are some decent customisation options built into the UI such as font selection, with four free options and a host of paid-for downloadable fonts to choose from, costing £1. There are also some attractive theme options that can change icons, animations and backgrounds — we preferred classic.

The A5 is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB of RAM. A couple of the improvements we gain from the new 410 chipset 64-bit architecture include better energy efficiency over the previous Snapdragon and support for 4G connectivity.

Our benchmark testing using Geekbench 3 gave the Galaxy A5 a slight edge over the Huawei Ascend G7, which is almost identical in spec. But then again, the Huawei costs £200 and it’s well within touching distance of the A5 here.

Both phones were quite evenly matched when tested using 3DMark’s Ice Storm Extreme, which puts considerable stress on a phone’s CPU and GPU. The A5 managed a score of 2,625 (higher is better) and while you can clearly see a number of frames dropped during this test, its performance is about as good as it gets in the mid-range class.

If high performance is of particular importance to you then you may also want to consider buying one of the more affordable flagship phones currently available, such as the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact or the LG G3. They may be a good few months old now, but both phones are in a different league when it comes to raw performance and can be purchased for less than £400.

SAMSUNG GALAXY A5 – CAMERA

The Samsung Galaxy A5’s main camera uses the popular 13-megapixel Sony Exmor RS IMX135 sensor, the same sensor used in our mobile phone of 2014, the LG G3, as well as an increasing number of mid-range handsets. So while it may be a little dated heading into 2015, it’s no slouch. In fact, there aren’t many mid-range phones that perform better.

It takes less than two seconds to start the camera, whether from the home screen or from the shortcut provided on the lock screen. It’s simple enough for even a child to use, but those who want more control can control ISO (up to ISO 800), white balance, metering and exposure settings.

Large crop of above image, showing how much detail the A5 can capture

Results from the main camera show that the A5 can capture a decent level of detail and dynamic range, suitable for most everyday scenarios. In low light, the phone focuses well and produces pictures that suffer from a little noise, but again, you couldn’t ask for much better at this price.

As well as 13-megapixel stills, the A5 can also record full HD (1920 x 1080) video at 30fps. The video quality is crisp, although underexposed in high contrast conditions. It’s also worth mentioning that you can touch autofocus during recording by pointing anywhere on the screen, which is a good feature.

The front-facing camera is a 5-megapixel unit, adequate resolution for selfies. But what makes the front-facing camera even better is the camera application support around it. The camera app makes selfies easier and fun, with things like gesture control that allows you to trigger a three second shutter by raising your hand. It has intelligent face recognition with tracking and great features such as Wide Selfie and Animated GIF Creator.

If good photos and video are high on your must-haves list, the A5 won’t disappoint.