Samsung Galaxy A3 and Samsung Galaxy A5, which is expected to help the Korean company take on Xiaomi Mi4, are now available in India for sale on the the company’s website.
The phones, released last week, have been priced Rs 20,500 for A3 and Rs 25,500 for the A5 on www.samsungindiaestore.com.
Of course, the Galaxy A5 is the pick of the two. For an extra Rs 5,000, the more expensive phone offers a 5-inch super AMOLED 720p HD display and Category 4 LTE with 150 Mbps download support.
In addition, both phones are designed in an iPhonesque way, with metallic rims and lots of straight lines.
ALSO READ- Samsung to launch Galaxy A7, with full HD 5.5-inch display, for Rs 35,000 next month.
Samsung is aiming to target the mid range with the phones, though we are not quite convinced that the A5, though a worthwhile competitor, would do much to dent sales of Xiaomi Mi4, which is expected to be priced at just Rs 16,000 for the LTE version. The Mi4 is expected to be released before the end of this month.
It will also compete with Micromax Yu Yureka, which has almost the same specifications as this phone. The Yureka was launched at a price of just Rs 8,999 in India, and is expected to be available for sale in the coming week.
The Samsung A5 was released overseas in early November.
The Alpha series, including the A7, will help Samsung compete better for two reasons: a) unlike the flagship S series, the A series are cheaper, and b) the Alpha series are more iPhoneseque in their design.
Another phone that will be launched in the second half of January is the first in Samsung’s J series phones, and possibly new E series phones that are cheaper than A series, but costlier than J series.
The first J series phone from Samsung will be a 4.5-inch model with LTE that will be priced at Rs 8,000. The display resolution of the phone will be 800 x 480 with a pixel density of 207 PPI.
It will have a 64-bit Quad-Core Marvell PXA1908 CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM and storage of 4 GB. The J series will come with Android Kitkat, while the E series is likely to come with Android Lolipop. The J series phone will also have a 5 MP rear and 2 MP front camera.
Now back to the Alpha series, whose design language, in many ways, will be similar to that of the Xiaomi Mi4, which will also be launched in India in January. Of course, the Mi4 faces legal uncertainties till Jan 8, and a final call on when to launch the phone is likely to be taken only after that day. The LTE version of the Mi4 is likely to be priced around Rs 16,000, while the 3G only version will come at around Rs 14,000.
The Samsung Galaxy A3 has a rather humble quarter-HD display, though this too is based on Super Amoled technology, which should make the colors more vivid.
As you might have guessed, the specifications are not outstanding. For example, quarter HD displays are almost out of the Indian market right now, and are found only in phones costing less than Rs 7,500 or so.
The first Alpha that the Korean company launched a couple of months ago was priced at Rs 41,000. The Rs 41,000-model also has a 720p display, though it has an octa-core processor.
In contrast, both the A3 and the A5 have relatively modest 1.2 GHz quad-core processors, which betrays their placement as lower-price devices.
“The Galaxy A5 and A3 offer a beautifully crafted full metal unibody, slim design, superior hardware and the best possible social media experience,” said JK Shin, CEO and Head of IT & Mobile Communication at Samsung Electronics. “These devices make our advanced Galaxy experience even more accessible to young and trend conscious consumers.”
The Galaxy A5 comes with 2 GB of RAM, while the A3 has 1 GB of RAM. Internal memory in both cases is 16 GB, and both models come with Android KitKat out of the box.
The A3 has a 1.9 Ah battery while the A5 has a 2.3 Ah battery. Similarly, the smaller phone comes with an 8 MP camera at the back and the A5 with a 13 MP camera. Front cameras in both cases are 5 MP.
“The Galaxy A5 and A3 are Samsung’s slimmest smartphones to date, featuring refined full metal unibody designs that are 6.7mm and 6.9mm thin, respectively,” Samsung added.
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