Samsung Galaxy A5
£319 inc VAT • samsung.com/uk
Last year, Samsung put a lot of effort into upgrading its top-end S-series with the thenflagship Samsung Galaxy S6. In 2016, amid criticism that there’s not a lot new in the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, we can now see that it’s focused that same care and attention on its mid-range A-series. The new Samsung Galaxy A3, A5 (reviewed here) and A7 are now well worth a second look.
Design
The Galaxy A5 is in many ways similar in design to the S6, with the new mirror-finish glass front and rear and fingerprint scanner built into the home button. There are some subtle differences in the overall shape and size (the A5 has a slightly larger 5.2in screen, for example), but it’s a gorgeous and premium-looking smartphone.
With no removable back panel the A5 feels tough, and not at all fragile thanks to its Gorilla Glass 4 protective armour. Unfortunately, we see the same problems here as we did with the S6: fingerprints.
You’ll barely notice the increase in thickness over the A5’s predecessor, but this has allowed Samsung to pack in a 2900mAh battery that offers very good runtime. It’s still slim at 7.9mm, but feels sufficiently weighty in the hand at 155g. The rear camera juts out a little at the rear, but not enough to make the A5 2016 rock on a desk.
A standout feature is the full-HD SuperAMOLED panel, which measures 5.2in on the diagonal and is large enough for all your multimedia needs. We’re huge fans of SuperAMOLED and its vibrant, slightly oversaturated colours and deep, rich blacks. It’s not just better-looking (in our opinion) than more common IPS, but more energy-efficient since it doesn’t require a backlight. Even so, the screen is plenty bright, while viewing angles are strong and detail is sharp – the Galaxy A5 has a pixel density of 424ppi, which is higher than even the iPhone 6s.
Performance
Inside are some of the most notable changes in terms of usability, and the Galaxy A5 has gone
from what looks and feels like a budget phone to something much more deserving of its mid-range price tag. The new A5 feels more responsive, and overall performance is greatly improved – something that was mirrored in our benchmarks.
With a new Samsung Exynos 7580 chip and 2GB of RAM, the 2016 A5 is no longer in Moto G territory and now a true rival to the likes of the HTC One A9, Google Nexus 5X and Moto X Play.
For general processing performance measurements we run AnTuTu, in which the Galaxy A5 2016 scored 37,906 points, and Geekbench 3, in which it recorded 694 points single-core and 3688
multi-core. This is a lot faster than the A5 2015’s 1476 points, yet a fair bit lower than the now only slightly more expensive Galaxy S6, which scored 4438.
Perhaps more importantly, the A5 2016 floored the similarly priced- and specified Nexus 5X (3528 points), HTC One A9 (3094 points) and Moto X Play (2570 points).
We also use Geekbench to test battery life, and the Galaxy A5 2016 with its higher-capacity 2900mAh battery and less-demanding hardware did an excellent job – better than the Galaxy S6 with 4709 points against its 4136, and a time of 11 hours 46 minutes against six hours 53 minutes. In real-world use you can easily expect a full working day and potentially two, depending on your usage. Wireless charging is not supported but, like the Galaxy S6, the A5 2016 has Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Charging.
In our GFXBench graphics tests the A5 fell down against the Galaxy S6 and Nexus 5X, which respectively scored 30- and 38fps in T-Rex and 14and 16fps in Manhattan to its 5- and 14fps. However, its scores are only slightly lower than the Moto X Play (6/15fps) and HTC One A9 (7/16fps).
We also ran the JetStream JavaScript test, where the Galaxy A5 2016 recorded 23.146.
One area where the Galaxy A5 2016 shows its mid-range roots is in storage, with just 16GB supplied internally. The Galaxy S6 doubles this to 32GB, but it has no removable storage – the Galaxy A5 2016 supports up to 128GB via microSD (up from 64GB in the 2015 model).
Connectivity- and extra options are also standard at this price point: while the S6 has the fastest 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, a heart-rate scanner and an infrared sensor, the Galaxy A5 2016 maxes out at dual-band 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0, and has
no pulse checker or IR blaster. Both have a touchinput fingerprint scanner, GPS and GLONASS, NFC, OTG and support for 4G LTE.
Camera
Samsung has made the same update to the Galaxy A5’s camera as it did to the S6 over the S5: it’s added optical image stabilisation. Otherwise, the phone remains fitted with a 13Mp, f/1.9 rear camera with LED flash, and 5Mp (also f/1.9) at the front. Both cameras are capable of 1080p video at 30fps.
By default, the main camera shoots in 16:9 at 9.6Mp; if you want the full 13Mp it’s available in 4:3 mode, which means you’ll lose the top and bottom sections of photos.
The camera isn’t as good as the 16Mp model found in the S6, but it does capture a fair amount of detail, with accurate exposure and the lens is sharp right to the corners.
The camera app is unchanged, with various shooting modes including Pro, Panorama, Continuous Shot, HDR and Night, with an option to download more. There are also real-time effects and, in selfie mode, a Wide Selfie option. You can check out a couple of our test shots of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel opposite, with Auto settings and in HDR mode.
Software
While the Galaxy S7 comes with Android Marshmallow preinstalled, and an upgrade is available for the S6, the A5 2016 comes with 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box. This might be a previousgeneration Android operating system, but just
4.6 percent of all Android phones are running Marshmallow today. Plus we think Lollipop is pretty good. Samsung overlays its TouchWiz UI, and while you get the Easy mode, Smart alert, Easy mute, Palm swipe to capture and quick access to the camera with a double-tap of the Home button, as seen in the Galaxy S6, there’s no Smart Stay, Pop-up view or Multi-View Window.
As usual, you get a load of Samsung’s own apps for browsing the web, playing back music and video, email, calendar and so on, with access to the Galaxy Apps store as well as Google’s Play store. Google apps are also preinstalled, as are Microsoft apps – Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype – and you get 100GB of free OneDrive storage. All in all that’s quite a lot gobbling away at the device’s 16GB of storage, and you’ll see just 9GB available.
Verdict
The Galaxy A5 2016 is an enormous improvement over the A5 2015, and now resembles last year’s flagship Galaxy S6. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as fast or feature-packed as that phone, making its now-£50 price difference seem insane. If you can afford the Galaxy S6 we’d recommend it over the A5, but if not you won’t be disappointed with this excellent mid-range Android phone. Marie Brewis
Specifications
• 5.2in full-HD (1920x1080, 424ppi) SuperAMOLED display Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with TouchWiz 1.6GHz Exynos 7580 octa-core processor
• Mali-T720 MP2 GPU • 2GB RAM • 16GB storage • Up to 128GB via microSD • 4G LTE (single-SIM) • Dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.1 • GPS, GLONASS • NFC • Micro-USB • Fingerprint scanner • 13Mp, f/1.9 rear camera with OIS and LED flash, records 1080 video at 30fps
• 5Mp, f/1.9 front camera, records 1080 video • 2900mAh non-removable lithium-polymer battery • Adaptive fast charging • 144.8x71x7.3mm • 155g