Unlike other rivals, Samsung doesn’t typically release a few important smartphones, then takes the rest of the year off. Currently, the South Korean company is the most prolific mobile phone manufacturer and its products are targeting all categories of buyers: those who are willing to spend a lot of money on a flagship such as the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge/S6 Edge Plus/Note 5, those who can afford to buy only mid-range models and those who don’t care much about the specifications of a device, because they need it only to call their friends. The Galaxy A trio consists of a phablet, a mid-tier phone and a smaller model with much weaker specs. We’re talking about both the 2015 and 2016 versions, and in their article we’ll tell you what changes have been made to the upcoming devices.
The new Galaxy A7, A5 and A3 are expected to be released in two weeks in India, but in the UK, they will appear in April. They will come with a new design, ditching the plastic back in favor of one that is made of Corning Gorilla Glass 4 – just like the new Galaxy flagships, and the available colors will be Pearl White, Midnight Black and Champagne Gold. Also, their sides will have metallic frames, which are more durable than the cheap looking silver plastic frames, which looked awful after the paint started to peel off. Also, the bezels surrounding their screens will be narrower, giving the impression that the displays are much larger than in reality.
The Galaxy A7 2016 is rumored to cost around $500, the A5 will be $100 cheaper and the A3 will be priced somewhere around $330. Below, we’ll compare each new smartphone with its predecessor, so you’ll get an idea of what has changed.
Galaxy A7 2016
The original A7 model had a thickness of 6.3mm, it weighted 141 grams and the screen was pretty large, measuring 5.5-inch and supporting an acceptable resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels at 401 ppi. It was released in February 2015 and it came loaded with Android v4.4.4 (KitKat), but in the meantime it was upgraded to v5.0.2 (Lollipop). It was available in two variants of processors: Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 octa core clocked at 1.5GHz, which was coupled with an Adreno 405, and the other model used Samsung’s proprietary Exynos 5 Octa 5430 octa core clocked at 1.8GHz, which was coupled with a Mali-T628 MP6 GPU, but both devices supported 2GB of RAM and an internal memory of 16GB, which was expandable up to 64GB. The main camera supported 13MP and it had basic features such as autofocus, LED flash and Full HD video capture, while the front camera was 5MP. The battery provided 17 hours of talk time on 3G, and its capacity was 2600mAh.
The new A7 will be 1mm thicker and will weight 172 grams. The screen will be unchanged, but the processor will be replaced with Samsung’s Exynos 7 Octa with eight cores clocked at 1.6GHz, which will be backed by 3GB of RAM. The phablet will run on Android v5.1.1 (Lollipop) and its internal memory of 16GB will support expansion up to 128GB. The cameras will keep their resolutions, but the system will included F1.9 lens, which will allow the users to take excellent pictures in low light conditions, while the OIS feature will prevent image blurring. Also, the capacity of the battery will be increased up to 3300mAh, so it will last an entire day with the specified hardware configuration.
Galaxy A5 2016
The device was released in December 2014 and its body weighted 123 grams, while it had a thickness of 6.7mm. The screen had a diagonal of 5-inch, which offered a lower resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels at 294ppi, while its processor was the Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 with four cores clocked at 1.2GHz, which was backed by an Adreno 306 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The cameras and battery were similar to that of the A7.
The new A5 has the cameras of the A7 2016, but the screen will be slightly larger than the one that was used for the predecessor, measuring 5.2-inch and its resolution will be upgraded to Full HD, resulting in a pixel density of 424ppi. The device will weight 155 grams and will be thicker at 7.3mm, but inside, it will have an octa-core 1.6 GHz processor which will be paired with 2GB of RAM, while the battery will be much larger at 2900mAh.
Galaxy A3 2016
The previous model had a thickness of 6.9mm, a weight of 110.3grams and its screen measured 4.5-inch, supporting an acceptable resolution of 540 x 960 pixels at 245 ppi. The processor was a Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 with four cores running at 1.2GHz, but the A3 was weaker than the A5 because it housed only 1GB/1.5GB of RAM. While the front camera had a resolution of 5MP, the other camera took photos with a resolution of 8MP, but the images looked as bright and clear as the ones taken with its other “A” bigger brothers. The battery was very small, supporting a resolution of only 1900mAh, and it lasted 12 hours.
The successor will be bigger, featuring a 4.7-inch screen which will support 720 x 1280 pixels at 312 ppi and the body has gained 0.4mm in depth, resulting in a greater weight of 132grams. Apparently, the processor will be the same and the RAM capacity will be 1.5GB, while the battery will receive 400mAh of extra juice, to handle the bigger screen.
