Samsung Galaxy A8, the successor of the very successful Galaxy A7, has been launched in India at a price of Rs 32,500 – largely as expected. The actual market operating price will be around 30,000-31,000 once the A8 becomes available online.
UPDATE: Sony has launched the 6-inch C5 Ultra, which will compete with the A8, and is expected to be about Rs 2,000 cheaper.
The A8 is very similar to the A7 (Rs 25,000) in terms of positioning, except for the following details:
a) Better rear camera: The A8 comes with a 16 MP shooter at the back, while the A7 has a 13 MP one.
b) Better looks: The A8 definitely looks more stylish. While the A7 looked more squarish, the A8 looks more longish, and the silver gril around the sides are less pronounced. The edges are more curvy, which is the reason why it looks less squarish compared to the A7. In many ways, the new model reminds one of the Galaxy S6.
c) Bigger display: The display of the Galaxy A8 is 7.4% bigger in area than that of the earlier model and has a diagonal length of 5.7 inches vs 5.5 inch on the earlier model. That said, resolution remains the same at full-HD, and technology is also the same – Super AMOLED.
d) Android 5 Lolipop: A much needed upgrade. With this, the new phone will finally bring the Lolipop update to the A series.
e) Slight bigger, 3050 mAh battery compared to 2.6 Ah battery on the earlier model.
f) More built-in memory (32 GB vs 16 GB), not easily expandable. The Samsung Galaxy A8 is one of the thinnest phones in India at just 5.9 mm. As a result, there is no dedicated MicroSD-card slot, and you’ll have to use on of the two SIM slots if you want to add to the 16 GB of built-in memory.
g) A fingerprint sensor for easier unlocking and added security.
Surprisingly, the Korean company has gone for a quad-core Exynos 5430 processor to the power the A8 instead of the octa-core Snapdragon 615 found in the A7.
This has two implications – the overall processing power of the device is down by about 40% due to the lower number of cores.
However, if the A8 is not running a large number of applications at a time, it will feel quicker compared to the A7 because each core in the Exynos 5430 is more powerful than those in the SD 615, according to benchmark scores. Of course, not wildly powerful, but about 22% more powerful.
If you’re wondering which is better in terms of experience, we frankly don’t know. We will have to await hands-on reviews for that.
All other features, including the display resolution of 1080p, are similar to those of the A7.
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