Inside Samsung’s New Galaxy A5 and A3 Smartphones

by Todd R. Weiss

There’s no shortage of nice features in the larger A5 handset, including a 5-inch Super AMOLED display, 2GB of RAM and a nonremovable 2,300-mAh battery.

Like its stable mate, the larger Galaxy A5 includes an all-metal case and has a sizable, bright screen that provides a great platform for high-volume texting and social networking.

A feature-rich 13-megapixel rear camera is included, while a 5MP front-facing camera includes several modes for creative selfies desired by younger users, such as Wide Selfie, Palm Selfie, Animated GIF, Beauty Face Features and Rear-cam Selfie.

Both the Galaxy A5 (seen here) and the A3 phones run quad-core 1.2GHz processors to provide good performance for users. Here the white A5 is pictured.

The Galaxy A3 (shown here) is slightly smaller than the A5, featuring a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED display. The A3 also features half the RAM of its big brother at 1GB of RAM, as well as a smaller nonremovable 1,900-mAh battery.

The smaller A3 (pictured) and the A5 both will be available in a wide range of colors, including Pearl White, Midnight Black, Platinum Silver, Soft Pink, Light Blue and Champagne Gold. Here, the gold model is shown.

Both smartphone models include storage provided by 16GB of internal memory and a micro SD slot that holds a card with up to 64GB of capacity. Both the A5 and A3 (shown in pink) also include WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities.

To make the Galaxy A5 and A3 (shown here in blue) phones popular with younger users, Samsung made them as thin as possible, with 6.7mm and 6.9mm thin profiles, respectively. Both models run on Android 4.4 KitKat and will operate on 3G or 4G networks.

The A3, shown here in silver, gets a less powerful 8MP rear camera and shares the same 5MP front camera as its A5 partner. Both models also include a full range of preloaded Google services, including Gmail, Google+, Hangouts, Maps, Play Games, Play Music and YouTube.