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Gaze upon the desirable Son of Alpha: Samsung Galaxy A5

Mid-ranger with tip-top build quality and a touch of style

Taking - and talking - control

The controls mirror those on the Alpha and indeed most other Samsung devices. Power is on the right, volume on the left. Both the micro USB and 3.5mm audio jack are at the bottom but are far enough apart not to interfere with each other. Curiously, the USB port does not support hosting.

Samsung Galaxy A5

Micro USB and 3.5mm audio both at bottom, but with room to spare

The A5’s impressively lustrous Super AMOLED display has a resolution of 720 x 1280-pixels, the same as the 4.7-inch Alpha and the 5-inch Moto G. That gives the A5 a pixel density of 295dpi. That’s more than sufficient in my book. In terms of sharpness it gives little away to the 1080 x 1920 5.1-inch Galaxy S5, my day-to-day phone.

The display uses a pentile matrix but unless you look at it through a magnifying glass you’d never notice. Contrast levels are excellent, better than my Galaxy S5. Thanks to its low reflectivity the screen is one of the best I've used in direct sunlight. The Galaxy A5 packs 16GB of storage as standard and relies on a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset and 2GB of RAM to haul the coal. The 410 bundles a quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 processor with an Adreno 306 GPU.

Samsung Galaxy A5

AnTuTu benchmark inclusing S5 comparison. The score is adequate but that's about it

It's not hugely more powerful than the Snapdragon 400 chipset in the Moto G but the 64-bit architecture should prove handy down the line. The extra 1GB RAM keeps things ticking over smoothly even with Sammy’s TouchWiz interface putting extra strain on proceedings.

Unlike the Snapdragon 400, the 410 supports 1080p video so you can shoot full HD video through either camera.

Samsung Galaxy A5

Sample shot: click for a larger image

Talking of cameras the A5 boasts a 13MP main camera and a 5MP webcam. That means it ties with the new Galaxy S6 as the best selfie taker in the Samsung line-up. The A5’s webcam also rocks some new features borrowed from the S6 like multi-setting facial enhancement and a panorama wide option.

Effects trickery aside both cameras take a pretty decent picture. The main camera focuses and snaps quickly and the end results are vibrant and sharp. There’s no physical shutter key but, Sony Xperia handsets and the HTC Desire Eye aside, that’s something of a rare feature these days.

Samsung Galaxy A5

One of the TouchWiz themes and a long press of the back button opens the multi-window app menu

Out of the box the A5 runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat. A Lollipop update is due in the not too distant future. With luck it will take the A5 direct to 5.1. The 5.0 Lollipop update for my Galaxy S5 has been less than perfect with numerous little annoyances raising their heads that were not present in KitKat.

Of course, this being Samsung you get Android garnished with TouchWiz but these days that’s no bad thing. The option to run and see apps simultaneously in separate windows is reason alone to like Sammy’s take on Android.

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