Metal Unibody Samsung Galaxy A5 Becomes Available For Purchase In China

Metal Unibody Samsung Galaxy A5 Becomes Available For Purchase In China

With the Galaxy Alpha smartphone, Samsung finally put an end to its long legacy of making phones with plastic bodies and boring designs. The Galaxy Alpha was the first Samsung Android smartphone to use metal for its construction. Shortly after the release of the Galaxy Alpha, rumors about new additions to the A series lineup started cropping up. The two devices become official earlier this month and the higher end Galaxy A5 has finally gone on sale in China. The Samsung Galaxy A5 is now available to order for buyers in China at a price of CNY 2,599 (roughly $420).

Unlike the Galaxy Alpha that only has an aluminum metal frame and a polycarbonate back, the Galaxy A5 has a metal unibody. That actually makes it the first Galaxy smartphone completely made out of metal. Its cheaper sibling the Galaxy A3 is also expected to debut soon. That also has a metal unibody design but would be cheaper and come with less impressive specs than the A5.

Specs-wise the Galaxy A5 comes with a 5-inch 720pHD Super AMOLED display, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core 64-bit capable processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage with a microSD card for further expansion, 13MP rear camera with 1080p video recording, 5MP front-facing camera, 2300mAh battery, 4G LTE connectivity, dual-SIM support and comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat out of the box with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI on top. The device has overall dimensions of 139.3 x 69.7 x 6.7mm. That makes the A5 as thin as the Galaxy Alpha, both devices being the thinnest Galaxy smartphones Samsung has made yet.

Both the Galaxy A3 and the Galaxy A5 were expected to be announced earlier and sold in various markets across the world, but low yield of the metal cases forced Samsung to delay the announcement of the devices and according to reports from SamMobile the two smartphones will only be available in a few markets initially due to the production issues.

Samsung had been ignoring the criticism about the build quality on its smartphones all these years but this year it finally decided that continuing to offer phones with plastic build would only worsen its current market situation. Samsung was the undisputed market leader among Android OEMs few years back but its market share has constantly been declining since the past 2 years. The smartphone business is critical to Samsung as the majority of its profits come from this business.

What do you think of the Galaxy A5? Do you think it has been overpriced by Samsung?