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Samsung Goes After Mid-Range Market

Late last month a new line of entry- to mid-range Galaxy smartphones appeared online, called the Galaxy A series. We wrote about them, but Samsung put out an official release just before we went to press, so we held the story back until this week so that we could cover the phones in more detail.

The Galaxy A smartphones are influenced by Samsung’s Galaxy Alpha (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 29), with a metal-body design – although unlike the Alpha, the entire chassis is metal. The Galaxy A3 and A5 are aimed at younger consumers and are said to be Samsung’s thinnest smartphones to date: 6.9mm and 6.7mm, respectively.

Both products use an AMOLED display, with features seen on Samsung’s flagship phones. These include Adapt Display, which adjusts the white point, colour gamut and colour saturation based on the on-screen content and ambient light; Ultra-Power-Saving mode, which turns the display monochrome to save power; Private Mode; and Multiscreen.

3G and 4G models are available. The phones are 5″ with ‘HD’ resolution (A5) or 4.5″ with 960 x 540 resolution (A3). They share 16GB of storage and quad-core 1.2GHz processors running Android 4.4; Ram is 2GB (A5) or 1GB (A3).

Sasung will release the Galaxy A phones in China in November, with availability in other markets to be announced later. Samsung UK told us that the phones will be coming to Europe.

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Pricing has not been announced yet, but earlier rumours said that the phones would cost between KRW300,000 ($285) and KRW500,000 ($475). However, this was based on the inclusion of another model, the Galaxy A7, which was not mentioned in Samsung’s press material. (TA)