Samsung Galaxy A 2016 Series: First Impressions

Meet the new Samsung Galaxy A series — 2016 version. This new series was announced by Samsung in late December 2015, and was brought to the stores last month. We were glad to get a chance to try and experience the all three variants of the new series — Samsung Galaxy A3, Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7. Building up on the success of the Galaxy A series launched in 2014-2015, these new phones bring some great new improvements over the last year’s all-metal phones.

Samsung Galaxy A 2016 starts from about $340 and all these phones are available in multiple colour options i.e. black, white, gold, pink. We will be reviewing the Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 very soon, but for now we bring you our first impressions and what we think of these new phones by Samsung.

All three phones come in the standard Samsung packaging that we have seen in the past high-end Samsung devices. Inside the box, you find: the phone, user guide, warranty cards, fast charger (for Galaxy A5 and A7 — standard charger with the A3), a USB cable and earphones.

Samsung Galaxy A 2016: First Impressions

Our first reaction when we took the phone out of the box was: This thing is so beautiful. We love the metal/glass combination and that is exactly what Samsung has done with the 2016 version of Galaxy A series. We loved what Samsung did last year with the previous Galaxy A series — an all metal body, but this year these phones feel much more premium and ‘classy’. If the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Note 5 had a baby, Galaxy A is what you will get.

Impressive overall look and feel of the phone. Build quality is top notch. All this glass makes the phone very slippery, but the metal sides improve the grip when holding the phone. The glass on the front and back sides is Corning Gorilla Glass 4. This means, your phone is scratch-resistant but on the same side, it gets all smudgy with your fingerprints.

Since I’m a big fan of huge phones (like the Galaxy Note 5), I found the Samsung Galaxy A3 really small for my hands — small enough to even use the Samsung Keyboard properly. However, Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 are of perfect sizes. Slightly heavy, but the solid build quality makes up for that.

There is a fingerprint scanner included with the Samsung Galaxy A5 and A7 — sorry, Galaxy A3. In fact, if you compare the technical specifications of the three phones, you will find the A5 and A7 very similar with just the different of screen size and battery. Samsung Galaxy A3 is however a more trimmed down version. One thing we noticed was that the fingerprint scanner does not work like in the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5. It is really quick, but in order to use the scanner, you have to wake up the phone by pressing the power/sleep button first or the home key. You cannot directly wake up the phone by scanning your fingerprint. Not really a big thing, but we thought that needs a mention.

Samsung Galaxy A7 2016: Technical Specifications

Display: 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display (1080 x 1920 pixels), Gorilla Glass 4
Processor: Octa-core 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, Mali-T720MP2 GPU
Camera: Rear: 13 megapixels, OIS. Front: 5 megapixels
Video: 1080p HD video recording
Memory: 3GB RAM, 16GB internal storage + ROM, supports microSD card up to 128GB
Connectivity: Bluetooth v4.1, NFC, WiFi, microUSB
Other: Fingerprint scanner, 3.5 mm jack, Microsoft apps, 100GB free OneDrive cloud storage, FM Radio, dual-SIM support and much more.
Battery: 3300mAh Li-ion battery, non-removable
OS: Android 5.1.1 Lollipop – Samsung TouchWiz

This is what we think of the new Samsung Galaxy A series. We will have a lot more to tell in just a few days when we do our full detailed review of the phones. For any more comments, queries or anything about the phones, drop us a comment below.