Samsung stole the show yesterday with its VR-laden, Mark Zuckerberg-wielding, flashy lights-bombarded MWC press conference, announcing the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones. But those handsets are hardly the sort of thing the everyday person on the street is going to be buying. No, it's the A-series of mid-range phones that will surely be a slightly more accessible entry point into the world of Samsung Android phones.
The Galaxy A5 represents a middle child in A-series, with the A3 and A7 a step below and above respectively. We reviewed the 2015 A5 last year, but there have been some fairly major changes in the intervening 12 months while the expected UK price is increasing by around £40.
The first major change is to its physical design, with a small increase in screen size from 5in to 5.2in. This has increased the weight by a fair chunk, up from 123g last year to 155g in 2016. Finally, it's 0.6mm thicker at 7.3mm. That's a fairly major shift and it's certainly a more chunky phone, but it's by no means uncomfortable. Styling remains similar, although the shiny, machined chamfered corners have been replaced by the same brushed metal used around the edges. Colours include black, white, brown (tested here) and pink. Its shiny back is slightly slippery but thanks to the comfortable chassis design it didn't feel vulnerable to slips and drops.
Inside, the quad-core QualComm Snapdragon 410 chip from last year has been replaced by an octa-core Samsung Exynos 7580 chip, with four cores running at 1.5GHz and the other four running at 1.2GHz. Performance was our biggest issue with last year's phone, so this is a welcome change. Performance is extremely sprightly, with Android 5.1.1 (no word on Marshmallow for now) running like a dream for the most part. It stumbled when I opened and immediately closed an app, but this is nothing unusual for a mid-range phone with 2GB of RAM.
With the screen size upgrade comes a resolution bump, with the 1,280x720 pixel screen from last year replaced by a Full HD Super AMOLED panel. Super AMOLED screens have tremendous black performance thanks to each pixel's ability to light and dim itself. It also means colours have a huge amount of punch. It doesn't get the same always-on-display tech from the S7, however.
16GB of storage is standard, but you can also install a microSD card with a capacity of up to 128GB for extra bulk storage.
Samsung has retained the 13MP camera resolution from last year, which is no bad thing as we were big fans of its performance. On the show floor, pictures looked bright and full of detail, but a more in-depth analysis will be required to evaluate its low-light quality.
Battery life last year was excellent, and battery capacity this year has been bumped from 2,300mAh to 2,900mAh so as long as the new processor sips power at a reasonable rate, it should be excellent.
The Galaxy A5 found itself lost in the shuffle last year because its price was awkwardly positioned between better-value lower-end phones and faster mid-range phones. This year, with its price bump, it should be able to shake that off, but that of course depends on its competition.
