Review: Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Samsung's latest Galaxy A5 is affordable, not flammable

Samsung dominates the market for Android smartphones, with a device to suit pretty much every pocket. While the company didn't exactly finish 2016 on a high note, thanks to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, it would appear to be off to a good start in 2017 with the Galaxy A5.

This year's edition of the mid-range phone is well-priced, well-built and well-specced. So, if you like Samsung phones but don't want to wait for the upcoming S8, or you'd rather not spend top-end money, might the mid-range Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) be a worthy alternative?

Design

The A5 very much looks like a member of the Galaxy family. That means smooth curves, the familiar rounded back panel with Samsung logo and a physical home key beneath the display. At a glance, the A5 could easily be mistaken for the S7.

The 2017 Galaxy A5 comes in a choice of four colours: Black Sky, Gold Sand, Blue Mist and Peach Cloud. Our review handset is black, and sadly it doesn't have the gorgeous petrol blue sheen of Samsung handsets past - plus it shows up fingerprints like you wouldn't believe. But for the price it looks great.

There are some unusual choices in the placement of features on the handset. On the left edge, you'll find two separate volume buttons (not a rocker) above the SIM slot, with the microSD tray on the top edge of the phone.

The power key is on the right and, unlike some previous Samsungs, the home key is flush with the front of the handset. It still presses properly inwards, though, and has a super-quick built-in fingerprint sensor. By default, you can double-tap this key to quick-launch the camera and, as ever with Samsung, it's ready to shoot within a fraction of a second.

The bottom edge houses the central USB C charging port and the 3.5mm headphone jack, but the speaker is all the way over on the top right edge, which is really unusual. It sits behind five drilled holes and offers decent sound output, if a little thin and directional.

Another odd choice you'll notice if you're coming from a different phone brand: Samsung likes to swap the Apps and Back buttons so that Back is on the right and Apps is to the left of the home key.

They're both capacitive keys that only light up when used and you do quickly get used to it, but it's jarring at first and Samsung - unlike other manufacturers - doesn't offer a way to swap them back. You can get third-party button remapping apps but, really, this should either be standardised or easy to fix out of the box.

Hardware, storage and performance

This is a mid-ranger, so it's not going to be topping any benchmarks. It does have good specs, though: an octa-core Samsung Exynos 7880 CPU (1.9 GHz) with 3GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage and a microSD slot to increase that by up to 256GB. That means it's reasonably well future-proofed, as 3GB will be enough for a good while yet, and if you run out of storage you can just whack some more in.

Geekbench 4's multi-core CPU test gave a solid score of 4,135. By comparison, the pricier Galaxy S7 got 5213 and the only-slightly-more-expensive OnePlus 3T got 4,321. The S6 Edge sits at 3,948, the S6 at 3,846 and the S5 at 2,362.

On the PCMark Work 2.0 performance test, the device came out with an okay result of 4,047, which puts the A5 (2017) at around the same ranking as the BlackBerry Priv (4,007), LG V10 (4,046) and Motorola Moto X Pure Edition (4,077). By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S7 averages at 4,536, the S6 at 4,380 and the S5 at 3,507.

Overall, then, it's not going to set the world on fire (no Galaxy Note 7 pun intended) but the Galaxy A5 (2017) is more than capable of meeting most people's day-to-day smartphone performance needs.

The handset includes NFC for Android Pay, and is water and dustproof to IP68 specification, meaning you can immerse it in up to 1.5m of water for up to half an hour. If you must.

Page two: Software and battery

Review: Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Samsung's latest Galaxy A5 is affordable, not flammable

Software

If I had a pound for every time I've heard "Samsung software is awful!" I'd have enough to buy this phone three times over.

Yes, back in the day, Samsung phones had over-engineered overlays that besieged you with bloatware and besmirched the beautiful face of Android. I will never forget the horror of all the leather textures on the Note 2.

But that was a long time ago, and the last couple of generations of Samsungs have been a lot more civilised. Sadly, the reputation remains and now people think their hardware explodes, too. This, and the next few devices from Samsung, will need to change perceptions.

On the 2017 Galaxy A5, the software is recognisably Android with some tweaks and improvements that mostly make for a better experience. The menus have a little more colour, there are extra gestures like palm-swiping to take a screenshot (I wish stock Android had that), and, yes, a few annoyances.

The software is the previous version of Android, 6.0.1 Marshmallow but you'd be forgiven for missing that since Samsung have added some Nougat-esque extras like little pop-up context menus when you long-press an app icon.

They're not as feature-filled as the official ones - mostly useful for quickly uninstalling or disabling an app - but there's also a useful feature called Put To Sleep that just stops the app from using battery in the background until you open it again.

While the app drawer is blessedly still there (Huawei, take note), it scrolls horizontally instead of vertically for no reason at all.

It's also arranged in a completely unintuitive order by default, so you have to change it to alphabetical. Like the Back button placement, it's not a dealbreaker, but it does make it harder for other Android users to find their way around a new Samsung - and that's not a good thing.

There's still some bloatware, too.

You'll find the Galaxy Apps package, My Galaxy, a folder of Microsoft apps, and a whole bunch of Samsung stuff like S Voice, S Health and Samsung Notes. And it can't be removed, only disabled. Yep, that sucks, but like releasing it with Marshmallow instead of Nougat, it's also one of the reasons the A5 costs £369.

Battery

Samsung phones aren't renowned for their battery stamina and, sadly, the A5 (2017) is no exception. The 3,000 mAh power pack isn't bad by any stretch, but if you're a heavy user it's not going to get you through the day.

That battery has to power a 5.2-inch full HD screen, so it's not surprising that it doesn't last as long as it might on other phones. Plus, of course, it has to cope without the efficiency improvements that come with Android Nougat.

That said, the A5 is very quick to power up again and, while this particular Galaxy doesn't come with the wireless charging of higher-end models, it does include an adaptive fast charger, which uses the newer USB C standard.

Since the Galaxy A5 has an AMOLED screen, Samsung has also included the option of an always-on display: by lighting individual pixels rather than the whole screen, this feature lets you see things like your clock or calendar at all times without draining the battery.

Page three: Display, cameras, price and verdict

Review: Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Samsung's latest Galaxy A5 is affordable, not flammable

Display

Samsung manufactures many of the screens on competitors' phones (including, rumour has it, the upcoming Apple iPhone 8), so it's not surprising that the displays on their own handsets are some of the best.

The 5.2-inch Super AMOLED on the Galaxy A5 2017 has a resolution of 1920 x 1080, giving a total of 424 pixels per inch. That means it's a pixel-dense full-HD panel, but sadly not good enough for Samsung's own Gear VR headset.

Virtual reality aside, it's an incredibly bright and typically beautiful screen. It may not have the curved sides of the Edge line, and it may not match a Quad HD panel, but this is a sub-£400 mid-range phone and, with this display, it definitely doesn't look like one.

Cameras

The 2017 Galaxy A5 is aimed at the younger end of the market, so the selfie camera has been deemed as important as the main, with 16MP f/1.9 snappers on either side. The primary camera offers an LED flash, while the secondary uses the screen for extra light.

Taken on the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

What else do many smartphone users look for in a device camera? Filters! So there are lots of Instagram-style ones, plus Food Mode for making your lunchtime Tesco sandwich look more appealing.

Pro, Panorama, Hyperlapse, HDR and Night modes are in there too, as well as a skin tone slider for the main camera. Selfies, on the other hand, have even more options: a skin smoothing slider, yes, but also the infamous face-thinning and eye-bugging options that can easily turn you from ordinary human to something last seen in Roswell.

Taken on the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Since not everyone has big enough hands to easily snap photos on a 5.2-inch phone, you can activate a ‘floating' shutter button that can be dragged around the screen in Selfie or Auto.

Taken on the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

As for picture quality, Samsung phones are usually strong in this area and the A5 doesn't disappoint - both cameras take fast, focused shots with accurate colours, even in less-than-ideal light conditions. They're not the best cameras out there, but considering the cost, Samsung could have cheaped out here and they didn't. However, aspiring filmmakers should note that the A5 (2017) can only shoot video up to 1080p (30fps) - it can't do 4K.

UK price and availability

The Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) is available now for £369 direct from Samsung. It's also available from all the big networks - our review handset came from Vodafone, for instance - and Carphone Warehouse.

Verdict

It's good to see Samsung return to form with a classy, well-rounded handset that'll appeal to younger consumers in particular. The mid-range can be a hard territory to nail, with the budget manufacturers owning the lower end and the big brands converging on the higher end, but this is a strong offering from Samsung.

The Galaxy A5 is that rare not-a-flagship phone that doesn't feel like a compromise, with many of the design touches of its more expensive brethren and a satisfying feature set.

The display, cameras and hardware tick the right boxes and, while there are some weaker points, such as battery life, software niggles and the inevitable shadow of the Note 7, extras like fast charging and waterproofing make this feel like a smart choice in its price range.

The A5's main rival is the OnePlus 3T, which at £399 is only a little more expensive and offers a fair bit more on the hardware side. However, some questions have been raised over OnePlus benchmarks and it is still a relative unknown in the UK. The Galaxy A5, however, is carried by all the big networks.