If I want to rank the importance of Samsung's mobile phones in 2014, I will put Alpha first. As Samsung's first mobile phone with a metal frame, this ingenious small machine has brought new design language, and also let Samsung get rid of the stigma of "Ten Thousand Years of Plastic". Alpha, as the beginning of change, is a very important turning point for Samsung.
Specifications:
The machine we used for evaluation is the Korean version of Galaxy Alpha. The specific model is SM-G850S. The specifications of the Bank of China version are different from those of the Korean version.
4.7 inch 720p AMOLED screen, Pentile arrangement;
12 megapixel rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera;
Exynos 5430 processor (4 × [email protected] +4× [email protected] ）， Mali-T628MP6 GPU，2GB RAM，32GB ROM；
Support Unicom LTE network;
The model of Bank of China is SM-G8508S, using Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, and the ROM is 16GB.
1860mAh replaceable battery;
Built in fingerprint identifier, heart rate detector and nanoSIM card;
The three dimensions are 132.4x65.5x6.7mm, and the weight is 116g.
Appearance and design:
When you first get Alpha, you will feel a little surprised. The fine and solid aluminum alloy frame is cut and polished with diamonds from top to bottom to create a bright surface, which is very beautiful under the reflection of light. The exquisite touch of the metal frame surface and the very small and thin body make the word "exquisite" can be used to describe a Samsung Galaxy series mobile phone for the first time.
Samsung launched its new design language this year through Alpha. The aluminum alloy frame is slightly thick at the top and bottom of the body, and very narrow at both sides. Samsung's design should be to better protect the internal structure of the metal frame when Alpha falls, while the narrowing of the two sides is to allow users to operate the phone better with one hand.
Speaking of falling... when taking photos, he unfortunately fell Alpha to the ground, and the consequences were very serious, because the hardness of aluminum alloy itself was not high, and after falling to the hard ground, it would be a pit, which I believe many HTC ONE users also have a deep understanding, and after such a fall, Alpha would inevitably be broken, The scar on the aluminum alloy frame is not good, and it is still heart filling.
Many mobile phones with metal frames have to face signal problems, so Samsung has cut the aluminum alloy frame of ALPHA and inlaid it on the plastic internal skeleton to ensure signal quality, which may be the reason why baseband and Korean version support frequency bands (Korean version Alpha uses Samsung's Exynos Modem 303 baseband). This Alpha has weak signal reception capability, and it is on the subway in Shenzhen, Sony Z3 with metal frame can receive LTE signals from Unicom, while Alpha only has intermittent 3G signals.
Alpha Apart from the frame design, other body designs are similar to most Samsung mobile phones, such as the silver earpiece on the front, sensors and front camera placed randomly, the silver hemmed HOME button on the bottom of the front, the power button on the right side of the body, the volume button on the left side of the body, the camera protruding from the back of the body and the thin plastic back cover, Everything is Samsung.
At least Samsung has done a good job in joining the metal frame and the plastic back cover (this is also true in Note 4). The gap is very small, but the plastic back cover is not difficult to remove. The back cover can be easily removed by sticking your nails into the notch on the side.
In terms of workmanship, if you give Alpha a full score of 100, you can get 85 points. The main points to be deducted are the uneven gap between the front panel and the metal frame. For example, for the one in our hand, the front panel is obviously tilted to the upper right when fitting, there are obvious gaps on the left and bottom, there are also obvious gaps between the receiver and the glass panel, and the HOME button is still crooked, If you want to pick a bone in the egg, the power button and volume button are obviously loose. It seems that Samsung failed to achieve perfection in its first attempt at the metal frame. Maybe the Alpha we have is a special case, but it also shows that if you really want to buy this phone, you must choose more, Otherwise, if you pay the money and find that there are defects you cannot tolerate, you will have to warn yourself that "it is not useless".
So, to summarize the appearance, the back of Alpha (if you don't like the protruding camera, Alpha The projection of the camera is also a disadvantage) and the middle are both very good, which can be said to be "excellent workmanship". The plastic back cover and the metal frame fit perfectly (of course, it will loosen after many times of removal, but that's the last word). The metal frame feels fine, and there is no defect in the joint part with the plastic material, The opening of the honeycomb speaker is also exquisitely perforated (of course, people with fear of denseness may not like it), and the problem is all in the front. For a manufacturer who has made plastic body for a long time, Samsung deserves our applause. After all, a student who studies hard but whose performance is not top, We should not be scolded by everyone.
By the way, the speaker volume of Alpha is very high. Although it is a single speaker, it can be placed on the frame to ensure that it is not easily blocked when it is installed in the pants pocket, so you don't need to worry about missed calls.
I suddenly remembered the manufacturing problem of Samsung Note 4. The uneven gap in the front seems to exist in a wide range. It seems that Rome was not built overnight. Samsung needs to continue to study and practice hard if it wants to make metal as superb as plastic. In this respect, not to mention HTC and Apple, the two international brands, Even Vivo and Meizu, which started early in China, are doing better than Samsung. It seems that some aspects really have nothing to do with the size of the enterprise.
Screen performance:
The parameter of the 4.7 inch 720P screen looks pretty good, but the key is that Alpha uses the AMOLED screen in the Pentile array, which Samsung is accustomed to. Compared with the standard RGB array screen, the Pentile array screen with the same size and resolution is much less exquisite.
For the 1080p or even 2K Pentile arranged AMOLED screens, the difference between the fineness and the standard RGB arrangement is not big. After all, as long as the PPI is not too disgusting, the fineness will be better. Even if there is no fineness, the problem will disappear if the PPI is too high for users to see.
But
There is always a "but" in the world, right? Alpha's screen resolution is only 720P, while Pentile's relatively "low" resolution of 720P is obvious. Even if you don't need to enter the APP or open the webpage, you can directly Eyes are about 20cm away from the screen (i.e. normal reading distance) When you look at the font of those icons on the main interface, you can find obvious graininess. There is a very obvious "pinhole" feeling between the icons and fonts. Users who have just changed from ordinary LCD screens will certainly have a clear sense of maladjustment.
In addition, the brightness is also the weakness of AMOLED screen. The maximum brightness of our Alpha screen is 336 nits (it also needs to use adaptive display under strong light, turn off the power saving mode and turn on the automatic brightness to reach the maximum brightness, which is only about 260 nits manually), while the screen brightness of Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, Alpha's most direct competitor, easily reached 593 nits, Buyers who are very concerned about the maximum brightness of the screen need to pay attention.
However, in terms of the minimum brightness, Alpha has achieved a very excellent 1 nit, which means that even in a completely black environment, there will be no dazzling feeling when using the phone.
The purity of white has made great progress over the previous AMOLED screens.
As for black, Alpha has really started.
In terms of color, Alpha performs very well. In the standard mode, the screen color of Alpha reverts to real and natural color. The white color is slightly green, but the degree of deviation is very small. Compared with the Galaxy S3 color, it is much more comfortable.
Viewing angle is the traditional strength of AMOLED. When changing viewing angle, the screen performance of Alpha is still good. At the extreme angle (the line of sight is almost parallel to the screen), there will be a greenish phenomenon. Other times, there is no problem with the performance.
Alpha also provides four display modes to choose from. The adaptive display is the most colorful and the basic mode is the lightest. However, it does not provide detailed color adjustment options. All the screen effect pictures above are taken in the basic mode, because in this mode, color restoration is the most accurate.
photograph:
The Korean Alpha uses Samsung's own ISOCELL sensor. As for whether the sensor used in the Snapdragon 801 processor version (national or international version) will be different, we don't know for the time being (after all, the machine on hand is only Korean version). However, according to Samsung's consistent tradition, The model with Exynos processor is better than that with Qualcomm processor in photographing. The specific reason is unnecessary to explore here.
The photo taking interface of Alpha is the same as that of Galaxy S5. On the left are various function options. The zip code is the main control button. Compared with the previous Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S4, the photo taking interface of Alpha is simpler and the operation response is faster.
One of the most important upgrades of Alpha in terms of photography is the hardware HDR. Before S4 and Note 3 used the HDR function, it took about 2 seconds for each photo to be taken, and a photo could be successfully recorded. On Alpha, it was pressed, and the imaging effect could be directly seen on the screen.
In addition to the hardware HDR, Alpha has also added the same phase focusing technology as Galaxy S5. The addition of this technology enables Alpha to focus very, very quickly when there is sufficient sunlight in the daytime. If you manually select the focus with your fingers, you can completely point where you want to go. Unfortunately, Alpha still does not put the metering and focusing together, So the experience of taking photos is not as good as that of iPhone or Meizu.
The total number of sensor pixels of Alpha is 12 million, and it is worth mentioning that like S5 and Note 4, the photo with the largest pixel is 16:9 (Note 3, which has more pixels, can only use 9.6 million pixels when taking 16:9 photos). Therefore, it is very comfortable to use Alpha as a mobile wallpaper, whether for shooting or after taking photos.
As for video recording, Alpha can record 4K video at a maximum frame rate of 30fps, 1080p video at a maximum frame rate of 60fps, and 720p slow motion video at a maximum frame rate of 120fps, all of which are good.
In terms of comparison of photographic samples, I used Sony's lens digital camera DSC-QX10 and Alpha for comparison. QX10 uses the advanced full-automatic mode, while Alpha manually turns on the HDR function in case of large contrast. The top of each group of samples is Alpha (16:9 scale), and the bottom is QX10 (4:3 scale).
during the day time, Alpha The photography continues Samsung's high standard, the white balance is very accurate at 99%, the exposure is also very appropriate at 99%, the picture details are excellent (of course, this is for the number of 12 million pixels), the noise control is excellent, but Alpha also continues Samsung's sharpening style, and there will be obvious sharpening halo marks on the boundary of the scene, The photos are not natural after being magnified, and Samsung has always insisted on not using a wide-angle lens, resulting in a narrow view of Alpha, which is inconvenient when it needs to shoot big scenes. In addition, Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, Alpha's main competitor, uses a wide-angle lens. When they take photos under the same conditions, The latter with wide-angle lens has more advantages in shooting.
In terms of panoramic photos, Alpha can take panoramic photos with a maximum resolution of more than 360 °. The maximum resolution of panoramic photos is 19568 × 3104, and the total number of pixels is 60 million. The photos taken are very rich in details. The color restoration and exposure are very accurate, and there is no obvious stitching trace (of course, this is inevitable for mobile objects), However, during the whole process, the user's hand will be required to be relatively stable, and the movement speed cannot be too fast. (Due to the size limit of the image uploaded on our website, this panorama is compressed. The original image stamp → , password aqdb, original image size 17.3MB, traffic should be entered with caution.)
In terms of night view, Alpha's performance is not as cool as that in the daytime. In the case of insufficient light, the image has obvious noise, and the smearing and sharpening marks are very serious. The detail performance is worrying, but the overall color performance and white balance are very accurate. Appropriate exposure and contrast make the overall level of the image feel good. If the image score of alpha in the daytime can get 100 points, The score of night scene can only get 45 points, which is also very consistent with the style of "a dragon in the day and a worm in the night" taken by Samsung mobile phones. (QX10 was out of power that night, so the last sample was Alpha, and there was no QX10 for comparison.)
In terms of photography, it is not difficult to see Samsung's super strength in software optimization. The quality of the sensor itself is only at the upper middle level. Under the condition of sufficient daytime light, Alpha's imaging ability is amazing. Whether it's white balance or color performance, with the flexible use of HDR functions, it can fully challenge digital cameras. However, the huge gap between night and day photography capabilities is also disappointing. But to be honest, Ren Samsung's photography processing can hardly make up for the lack of hardware quality.
Performance and system:
The built-in processor of Korean Alpha is Samsung's Exynos 5430 (Snapdragon 801 for the national and international versions), The CPU part is composed of four core Cortex-A7+four core Cortex-A15. The maximum main frequency of the former is 1.3GHz, and the maximum main frequency of the latter is 1.8GHz. The eight core can be fully opened. The GPU used is Mali-T628MP6, and the maximum main frequency is 600MHz. This GPU has appeared on the Exynos 5420 and 5422 before, and this GPU was overclocked to 800MHz on my own Note 3 (laugh).
As for the overall performance of the 5430 processor, one thing you need to know is that it is stronger than the Snapdragon 801, and mobile phones with 1080p screens can be found everywhere, so there is no need to worry about the performance and fluency when playing games or other aspects. Meizu even used the blood version of this processor on its own MX4 PRO, You should know that the MX4 PRO is a mobile phone with 2K level screen.
In terms of system, it is still Samsung's TouchWiz UI, This UI was updated once when Samsung launched the Galaxy S5 before. Some icons were changed and the menu buttons Samsung has used for many years were replaced with Android multi task buttons (for industry cancer level applications, Alpha A long press of the multitask button is a menu function. For apps that follow Android Design, there are software menu buttons inside the interface, so there is no problem with what to do).
The advantages and disadvantages of TouchWiz are obvious. The advantage is that it has perfect functions and can fully meet the needs of ordinary users. However, since our evaluation model is a Korean version, it is naturally not as good as the firmware of the Bank of China version in terms of localization. Let's simply pick some things with Samsung characteristics.
1. Festival effect
As the name suggests, Samsung's festival effect function is that when the mobile phone arrives at Western festivals such as New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Christmas, and Chinese traditional festivals such as Mid Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, or the birthday of the contact person or the owner of the phone, it will automatically change to a preset dynamic lock screen wallpaper and pop up a message in the notification bar to notify the user.
Of course, in terms of birthday effect, the contact's birthday will pop up a notification message. If it is the preset owner's birthday, the candle pattern will appear when the notification bar is pulled down or the screen is lit, which is quite funny.
However, in terms of festivals, due to the Korean version of the machine, all kinds of festivals use Korean names (hehe)
2. Points Screen multitasking
Yes, even small screens need split screen multitasking. This function is exactly the same as that on S5. When enabled in the drop-down menu, long press the return key to pop up the application drawer at the edge of the screen, and then enable split screen up and down. Horizontal split screen is left and right.
3. Private mode
This function is similar to the function of a safe. Users can use fingerprints or passwords to open it. In the private mode, they can move the contents of the phone (such as the self photo without PS) to a hidden location. After exiting the private mode, they cannot check it. To view it, they must verify the fingerprints or passwords or unlock the pattern to enter the private mode.
4. Toolbox
In fact, I don't think this thing can be called a toolbox. It is a floating shortcut panel that hovers over all the displayed contents. Users can freely add and delete shortcuts in it. It is very useful for quickly switching programs. However, when the programs in the toolbox are running in the background of minimization, there will be no prompts in the toolbox.
5. Fingerprint recognition and heart rate sensor
These two functions first appeared on S5, and Alpha is basically the same as S5 in these two aspects. The fingerprint recognition of friction can be used, but it is not easy to use.
Alpha can store up to 5 fingerprint data and can be edited at will.
As for the heart rate sensor, that's it. It's useless. It's not completely useless. It's useful. It's really not useful. That's it.
As for the shortcomings of TouchWiz, it can be summed up in two words: ugly and big.
TouchWiz is famous for its bloated size. Alpha's RAM usage is even more impressive. Once it is powered on and stabilized, there is only about 900M of 2GB RAM left. It is better to open several apps and jump to the red line directly. Fortunately, the suicide of the app in the background is not very serious. At least if QQ is hung up all day, the battery will kneel down first, and then RAM.
However, for the comrades who buy Korean Alpha, the merchants will generally brush a Chinese ROM and make some simplification before sending Alpha to you. So, it's actually OK.
Oh, another annoying thing about the system is the alpha brightness sensing. It is not ineffective, but the adjustment of the phone screen brightness is very slow. It often takes ten or twenty seconds from dark to bright before the screen brightness changes automatically, and vice versa. This S4 It is very obvious on Note 3 and S5. It is also Samsung's old problem. It is a sigh that it has not been changed for so long.
Endurance:
Alpha's endurance performance can be described in one word: poor.
And this is not just bad. It's very, very, very bad, The endurance level of Alpha reminds me of the Sony LT29i I used before. I took Alpha to Xiamen for a trip. The screen brightness was automatic. I took photos, went online, tweeted, and talked about WeChat QQ. At 10am, I went out with full power, and the whole LTE network (heavy use) was automatically shut down around 4pm, while the other one also worked under the LTE network with similar intensity, Sony Z3, which is responsible for controlling QX10 with Wi Fi, stuck to about six o'clock. It is very power consuming to use Wi Fi to control QX10.
The reason is naturally the battery capacity of Alpha, Alpha On the one hand, Samsung pursues an ultra-thin body, and on the other hand, it also needs to retain the ability to replace batteries. Samsung has done both. The ultra-thin body indeed increases Alpha's sense of class, but it sacrifices the battery capacity (only 1860 mAh). In addition, the Exynos processor is not a fuel efficient lamp, and in daylight, it must also use higher screen brightness, Therefore, the virtue of endurance is reasonable, but fortunately Alpha can replace the battery, and the charging speed of Alpha is fast (after all, the battery is small). The charging time of 0~100 with Samsung 2A charger is just over an hour and a half, which is OK.
I fully charged Alpha, set the screen brightness to the highest, and began to play a one hour 720p video. After the video, I listened to music for half an hour with headphones, and then played games for half an hour. During this time, I turned on flight mode, and set the screen brightness to the highest, but did not turn on the screen when playing music.
At first glance, the remaining 76% of the power seems to be OK, but the specific quantitative tests are ideal. After joining the LTE network or 3G network for standby, it will have a significant impact on the battery life. In addition, when the screen is turned off frequently and then turned on and unlocked, it will consume more power than a phone with the same brightness and the same duration. So when you are used to a phone with excellent battery life, If you suddenly switch to Alpha, the gap will be very obvious.
Summary:
Again, Alpha is the most important machine of Samsung this year. The design language of Note 4 after Alpha is derived from Alpha, and Samsung's new Galaxy A series mobile phones use an all metal integrated body for the first time. Samsung is not afraid to mess with its flagship mobile phones, and low-end mobile phones are Samsung's experimental fields.
As an experimental field with metal frames, I think Alpha is a success. It has opened the door to Samsung's reform, and can also serve as a test for Samsung to enter the small screen high-performance mobile phone. To be honest, I also hope that Alpha's successors can make up for Alpha's regret and show the temperament and inner qualities that Android leading brands should have in all aspects.
Is it worth buying? At present, the price of the Korean version of Taobao is about 2880 yuan, and the price of the Bank of China is close to 3400 yuan. The price of the Korean version is relatively reasonable and can be considered. As for the Bank of China, it is too bad. The 801 processor plus 16GB of non expandable memory, and there is no choice of larger capacity, so it is highly recommended not to buy it.
Compared with its direct competitor Sony Z3 Compact, Alpha has lost the screen, lost the endurance and lost the night photography, but its advantages lie in its lighter and thinner body, more perfect system, more stable and easier to use daytime photography and better effect. With the same price, Alpha can choose according to personal needs.
Compared with the iPhone 6, Alpha has better daytime photography effect, easier keyboard input, cheaper price, better battery life and battery replacement. The iPhone 6 has better screen and workmanship, higher application quality, stronger performance, and slightly better night photography and imaging. However, there is a big difference in price between the two - one 64G iPhone 6 is enough for two Alphas.
advantage:
Exquisite, ultra-thin body that can be easily controlled by one hand;
Super strong performance;
Excellent daytime photography effect, and support 4K video shooting;
Perfect system functions;
It has fingerprint scanner and heart rate sensor.
Disadvantages:
The effect of taking pictures at night differs greatly from that of taking pictures at daytime;
The metal frame is too precious and easy to leave scratches;
The battery's endurance is worrying and must be charged every day;
The screen brightness is average, and the fineness is not as good as that of competitors.
MicroSD card expansion memory is not supported.
