NEW DELHI: Samsung’s Galaxy A-series targets users who want metal-clad phones with premium build quality but don’t want to spend a lot of money on flagships. The company’s latest offering in the range is Galaxy A8 which borrows a number of qualities from Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S6 phone and packs it in a slim form factor.
In fact, the phone is the slimmest Samsung smartphone available at this time. We got a chance to spend some time with the phone and here’s a brief look at the Galaxy A8…
The Galaxy A8 follows the same design language we’ve seen in the Galaxy S6, and comes with an all-metal unibody chasis and narrow bezel with aluminium frame. The A8 falls into phablet territory with its 5.7-inch display but doesn’t look oversized like the company’s Mega phablets. Having said that, it’s not easy to handle if you have small hands due to its sheer size and the thin edges.”
The edges are not flat and are slightly bevelled while meeting the back. The chamfers on the edges give the phone a premium look. The left edge features two metal keys for volume control and two slots for sim and microSD cards. The right edge has a power key, also made of metal. The keys offer good tactile feedback but could have been positioned better to support one hand use.
The micro-USB port and the 3.5mm headset jack are both placed at the bottom edge.
The front of the Galaxy A8 features a 5.7-inch Super-AMOLED full-HD (1080x1920p) IPS display. Just like other AMOLED displays colours was really vibrant bordering on looking a bit over saturated. The display looks bright and vivid and text and graphics looked crisp and sharp. Viewing angles were also good. You’ll see the standard Samsung Home button and two capacitive navigation keys below the display.
The back features a soft metal panel which is slightly rounded when it meets the edges and has a matte finish. The back features the camera lens, LED flash and a small speaker grille. The camera lens is surrounded by a ring that protrudes out slightly and will save the lens from getting scratched.
While the Samsung Galaxy A8 looks premium, the device is a bit unwieldy due to its thin edges and large dimensions despite the super narrow bezel.
The phone is powered by a 64-bit Samsung Exynos octa-core processor (1.8GHz Quad Core + 1.3GHz Quad Core) and 2GB RAM, and comes with 32GB storage but you can choose to use a microSD card if you want extra storage space. Should you choose to do so, you’ll lose the dual-sim functionality as the phone comes with a hybrid sim-card tray.
It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. The Galaxy A8 also sports a fingerprint scanner integrated with the phone’s Home button.
In our brief time with the phone we did not experience any stutter or lag while navigating through the phone’s interface or using the camera.
It features a 16MP rear camera with f1.9 aperture, LED flash and a 5MP front-facing camera with f1.9 aperture similar to the Galaxy S6. The phone has a 3050mAh battery and supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 and 4G LTE that works with both 2300MHz and 1800MHz Indian LTE bands.
The Galaxy A8 will compete with the likes of the OnePlus 2, Huawei Honor 6 Plus and Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe. The rivals offer better hardware specifications and are priced lower compared to the phone.
Look out for our full review for a detailed verdict on the camera and hardware performance of the phone.
