Samsung Galaxy A3

What’s the story?

e Galaxy A3 is a bit more pricey than the other phones here, even though it’s a tiny little thing. It has a dinky 4.7in screen, making this a dream for those figure-hugging trousers that’ll scream at the sight of a giant Sony Xperia L1.

e classy design is not that far off Samsung’s top phones: the front and back are curved glass, the sides aluminium. e days of plasticky Samsungs are long gone. It’s even able to handle a full-on dunk in water, and there’s a finger scanner.

ink ‘tiny Galaxy S7’ and you’re there, pretty much.

Is it any good?

e screen is only 720p, so not a pixel-packed masterpiece… but it’s a reminder that you don’t need five million pixels with a screen this size. It’s fairly sharp and uses one of Samsung’s top-quality OLED panels rather than an LCD. at money doesn’t just go into the Samsung name, y’know.

Lower screen resolution also means the octa-core processor coasts through games that might cause it trouble if it did have a 1080p display.

Like so many budget phones the Samsung Galaxy A3 has a 13MP camera. But this one has

a wider-aperture lens than most, and that classic Samsung combo of fast shooting and good HDR chops makes it a fun snapper to use.

Samsung rarely offers standard-setting value, and that’s the case again here. But if you’re after a small phone, this is hard to beat.

TECH SPECS

● 4.7in 1280x720 Super AMOLED

● Android 6.0.1

● Octa-core Exynos 7870 Octa

● 2GB RAM

● 13MP rear, 8MP front

● 2350mah

● 16GB, microsd

● 135x66x7.9mm, 138g

THE FULL SKINNY Just 66mm wide and 7.9mm thick, the A3 is 90% as wide and only 83% as thick as the Moto G5. Phones don’t get much more pocket-friendly. SMOOTH SAILING See ‘curved glass’ in a budget phone and it normally means it’s just smoothed off at...