Samsung may have been determined to get rid of the title of "ten thousand year old plastic". After introducing metal frames on high-end computers such as Galaxy Alpha and Note4, it launched a new series A at the end of 2014, releasing three A3/A5/A7 machines at one go, which are in charge of low, medium and high markets.
Their most obvious feature is the unified use of all metal fuselage. Note that this time, even the rear cover has been replaced with metal. The thickness of the Galaxy A3/A5 is 6.7mm, while that of the A7 is 6.3mm. The Galaxy A5 sandwiched in the middle is evaluated this time.
parameter
Model: SM-A5009 (telecom customized version)
3D: 139.3x69.7x6.7mm
Weight: 123g
Screen: 5-inch 1280x720 resolution (294PPI) Super AMOLED screen
CPU： Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916), quad core [email protected]
GPU： Adreno306
Memory/flash memory: 2GB RAM+16GB ROM, up to 64GB TF card expansion
Battery capacity: 2300mAh
Camera: 5 megapixel front+13 megapixel rear
System: dual card dual standby single pass (that is, when one card talks/accesses the Internet, the other card cannot answer/make calls), dual Nano SIM card, supporting TD-LTE/LTE FDD/CDMA 2000/CDMA 1X/GSM system
Others: available in black, white, pink and gold, supporting NFC and Bluetooth 4.0
Price: 2599 yuan
Appearance and workmanship
The Galaxy A5 is packed in a light blue paper box, with a large A5 on the front, product selling points and company information on the back, and a one-time seal on both sides.
Accessories include manual warranty, charger, data cable, card pin, and now rare earphone.
The random earphones are equipped with wire control and copper plated connectors, and three sets of silicone sleeves of different sizes are also provided.
The specification of charger is rare, 5V/1.55A.
The biggest feature of the appearance of the Galaxy A5 is its all metal shell, which is a bit like the metal version of the Galaxy S2. All the places you can see are glass and metal (including the power volume and HOME key).
Under the front glass panel, there is Samsung's classic mesh pattern. On the right side of the metal earpiece grid is the distance sensor, light sensor and front camera.
The metal HOME key feels hard and needs to be pressed hard. I don't know whether it is an example.
There are low-key white coatings on the main body and front side of the frame, while the side is the cut edge of the primary metal color.
The back of the fuselage is also made of metal, with a large area of white coating on the surface. The gold powder in the coating can make the fuselage appear light gold under the side light.
The central part of the top of the back is the camera. The lenses are decorated with concentric circular lines inside and silver edges outside. The right side of the lens is the metal mesh cover of the speaker, and the left LED flash is completely symmetrical with the speaker in size and shape.
However, it is worth noting that you can vaguely see from the upper and lower sides of the aircraft back that there are large signal strips under the back coating (this is the real role of the back coating?), which Virgo may not accept.
At the bottom is the logo and product information of Telecom Tianyi 4G.
The metal volume key on the left side is also coated, and the touch of the key is tight without any vacancy, slightly hard.
On the right is the metal power button and the dual nano sim card slot. The card slot is slightly concave and will not cut hands.
The small card slot below is 1 card, and the large card slot is 2 cards and TF card tray, but only sim cards or TF cards can be placed separately.
There are noise reducing microphones on the top of the fuselage, and two antenna isolation layers are faintly visible. The metal frame is wide in the front and narrow in the back, and tends to shrink towards the back cover.
There are also two symmetrical antenna isolation layers at the bottom. The micro USB interface of the main microphone and the 3.5mm headphone interface are in a straight line.
The size of the Galaxy A5 is similar to that of the Xiaomi 4 with the same 5-inch screen, but the 6.7mm body thickness has obvious advantages. The size of the machine body is well controlled, plus the fillet treatment and 123g weight, the machine feels good to hold.
screen
Galaxy A5 uses a 5-inch 1280x720 resolution Super AMOLED screen, but sadly, it uses Pentile array, with a PPI of 294. If you look closely, you can still see some "fruit grains".
The maximum brightness of A5 is about 272 nits, which is not high.
However, the Super AMOLED screen has an ancestral dynamic brightness allocation mode, and the unified power supply of the screen is almost constant, so the fewer pixels lit, the higher their local brightness (loosely: the smaller the diameter of the water pipe, the greater the water pressure).
When the proportion of white decreases, the local brightness of the screen increases significantly. When the proportion of white decreases to 1/4-1/3, the brightness reaches 349 nits. Daily use will not feel that the brightness limit is too low (users of Galaxy S1 and S2 laughed and didn't speak).
This time, Xiaomi 4 is used for comparison. The A5 uses the adaptive display mode, and Xiaomi uses the natural+bright mode. The uniform 100% brightness displays gray, which can easily see the color temperature deviation of the screen. The Xiaomi 4 screen is cold (on the left), while the A5 screen is warm (on the right).
When the new generation AMOLED displays image content, its hair color tends to change from blue-green to red, even warmer than the IPS screen.
Samsung AMOLED still maintains its crushing advantage under the pure black screen. There is a slight light leak at the bottom of M4 on the left side, while A5 on the right side is almost invisible (with the naked eye, you can still see a slight color on the screen).
The color saturation of the right A5 AMOLED screen is much higher than that of the left M4. In addition, its brightness is nearly 100 nits lower than Xiaomi 4, so the hair color is more colorful.
In the lower picture: Xiaomi 4 on the top left, A5 on the top right, and the original picture on the bottom
When displaying color pictures, the color tendency of the two computers is similar to that when displaying solid colors. A5 on the left is slightly red and warm (especially the sample of seashells, dandelions and sunsets), while Mi4 is blue and green. The A5 screen performance is closer to the original image, and it looks more comfortable.
However, it is worth noting that the color gamut and color accuracy are directly related to the screen brightness. In fact, the test is unfair (overexposed) to machines with higher brightness, but it can basically reflect the tendency of hair color.
Both units perform well in the visual angle, but the A5 on the right side has a basic brightness of nearly 100 nits lower than M4, so it looks a little darker. In addition, A5 has a slightly white phenomenon on the death diagonal.
The A5 screen performs unexpectedly well. In addition to the low brightness of AMOLED and the Pentile arrangement of Kendal, the screen performs well in color performance, visual angle and other aspects, which is close to the flagship S5 and note4, which is a matter of conscience.
photograph
The A5 camera is 5 million pixels in the front and 13 million pixels in the rear, and detailed relevant data has not been published on the official website. But from the sample, the maximum aperture of the rear camera of the machine should be f/2.0.
The photo taking interface is even simpler than iOS, which is a real type of "take it when you pick it up". All functions are in the photo mode, HDR、 The night view, panorama and other functions can be switched here, which is quite simple to use. But Samsung, do you dare to make the mode button smaller? Key points: HDR needs to slide to the right once more, which is really a fly in the ointment.
The camera is much faster than the traditional mid-range camera, and the focusing speed can even catch up with the modern models that use Sony IMX214 sensor, and the experience is unexpectedly good.
The sample of front camera is as follows:
The front camera with 5 megapixel aperture is 2.4, but the actual performance is not good. In the indoor light, ISO 150， The shutter can be maintained at more than 1/30s, but the whole film has slight noise, the details are not rich, and the sense of smearing is heavy (may be good for self timer?). In addition, the focusing distance is far, the wide-angle is not large, and the overall performance is moderate.
The sample of rear camera is as follows:
The white balance and film style of A5 are slightly warmer, and the light measurement is more accurate, but the photo tolerance is not very high. In some scenes with large light differences, it is difficult to ensure the details of dark/bright parts.
Original drawing
Enlarge 100% screenshot
In the daytime, the discrimination of the proof sheet is quite strong. When the proof sheet is magnified to 100%, the grille on the roof of the building is still very clear.
Original left, HDR right
Samsung's HDR effect is second only to that of Apple. The A5 HDR proof effectively highlights the dark details, which is very obvious, but there is almost no processing trace. It also has a very obvious effect on the flattening of overexposed positions, which can just make up for the lack of tolerance of the camera itself.
Due to the processor performance, the HDR processing time is about 2-3 seconds, and the image resolution will be reduced to 8 million pixels. However, from the perspective of details and color optimization effects, the HDR mode is still very useful.
Telefocus
Near focus, focusing on the left blade
The nearest macro distance is about 5-10cm, and the background blurring effect brought by f/2.0 aperture is obvious.
In terms of indoor weak light and night scene performance, A5's strategy is to "lower ISO and lengthen the exposure time". The night picture brightness is still high, but there is no optical anti shake, so it seems a little powerless in the face of ultra weak light.
However, after turning on the night view mode, the picture brightness and details of the samples have been greatly improved.
Automatic mode
Night Mode
Automatic mode
Night Mode
The night view mode directly improves the brightness of the picture by nearly 2 levels, and it also enriches the details. Even like the HDR mode, the sample size will be reduced to 8 million, but the picture details are far more than 13 million pixels in the automatic mode, and the night scene mode can even be often turned on when taking pictures at night.
The 13 million pixel camera of A5 performs well in the daytime, with accurate white balance and light measurement, and moderate compatibility and night performance. However, thanks to the furious algorithm optimization, its performance can also be hung on the machine of Sony IMX214 used by domestic manufacturers after HDR and night view modes are turned on.
System UI
The Galaxy A5 is equipped with TouchWiz based on Android 4.4.4. The application icon is in the same flat profile style as Samsung flagship brands such as S5/note4. On the left side of the desktop is a news bulletin fed by filpbroad. Its folding and page turning animations are very exquisite.
The desktop retains the secondary menu, which can change the sorting, hide applications, and support the internal generation of folders.
The setting menu is extremely detailed. It supports viewing lists and tabs.
Because the setting key is replaced by the multitask key, the setting is changed to long press the multitask key to trigger.
The multitasking interface is an Android 5.0 style task card. You can kill tasks by sliding left and right or clicking the close button in the upper right corner. One click cleaning and active program manager are provided.
The two rows of shortcut keys reside at the top of the notification bar. Click the button in the upper right corner to display them all. You can customize sorting and manage application notifications.
The shortcut for quick search and sharing is permanently located below the key. Long press the button to jump to the relevant detailed settings.
The system applications are mainly dark blue, with bright colors. Many of them have sidebars, and the interface style is relatively uniform. Applications such as photo albums, players, file managers, and built-in browsers are displayed in full screen by default, and their functions are simple and easy to use.
S Voice has many more functions than the regular voice assistant. It supports voice wake-up, has agenda briefing, and can connect to microblog.
In addition to its own filpbroadand Samsung's own Samsung magazine, localization is well done. In addition, because it is a customized telecom machine, the machine is pre installed with more than half of the operator's app. However, conscience is that these can be deleted.
performance
In terms of performance, the Galaxy A5 uses a 64 bit A53 architecture Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad core processor, with a main frequency of 1.2 GHz, a 2G Ram and a 16G Rom. The GPU is Adreno 306, with a maximum main frequency of 400MHz.
Other models that use the same processor include Hongmi Mobile 2, Coolpad F1 Plus, ZTE V5S and Glory Play 4.
In terms of CPU performance, Anthare (left) scored 21198 points; Geekbench single core 482 minutes, multi-core 1433 minutes, pi 60.546 seconds.
In terms of GPU performance, the Manhattan scene of GFXbench 3 is 1.8 frames off screen, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex scene is 5.3 frames off screen; The 3D Mark's test1/2 and physics test are 12.5, 7.7 and 27.4 frames respectively.
The remaining daily spiders are 1304.5ms. A1 SD Bench reads 95.16m/s and writes 74.47m/s; The RAR is 844KB/s, and all test results basically conform to the normal performance of Snapdragon 410.
Put it in our game Running points library On the other hand, the performance of Snapdragon 410 is not very good, but it basically meets the performance requirements of medium and low-end computers - enough food and clothing to ensure normal flow.
The performance of the A53 architecture is similar to that of the A9, and the Snapdragon 410 can ensure food and clothing for daily use. The sliding screen of the desktop and settings is quite smooth, and the GPU presentation curve is also very beautiful. It rarely breaks the green line, and there is no pressure to feed the 720P screen.
Among the cancer like third-party applications, microblog and post bar have good fluency. Its performance is similar to the system application.
A5 has no problem running small and medium-sized games such as Temple Escape, Metro Parkour, and even Top Speed Car 17 can run, but the frame number is low and the smoothness is poor; While the real car runs smoothly, although the special effects are not fully opened and the jagged images are obvious.
The A5's Snapdragon 410 processor performs well, but the quad core A53 core has a good experience in daily use. The main gap between the A5 and the flagship is in the application loading and switching speed. It is not a problem to cope with daily entertainment and medium-sized games.
Endurance&Heating&Volume
Although the power consumption of Snapdragon 410 is well controlled, the 5-inch screen is equipped with 2300mAh battery, and the expectation of endurance cannot be too high. On the left side, the 4G video has been on for nearly 2.5 hours, and the power is only about 45%;
On the right is the 7-hour flight mode standby at night. Since nearly 40 applications are installed, including Taobao, Baidu Cloud, 360 Cloud Disk, Peapod and other "never sleep" applications, and there is no green guard, the performance is relatively ugly, with 7% power down.
In the detailed test, the power consumption of flight mode standby is about 0.58% per hour, which is equivalent to 172 hours (7 days) of multi endurance.
The power consumption for online standby hours is 1.35%/h, which is equivalent to 74 hours (3 days) of standby.
4G online video, download and other operations, the power consumption per hour hovers between 12% - 25%, and the endurance hovers between 4-8 hours (no game ever played in it...).
To sum up, it is not a big problem to use 6 or 7 hours for ordinary reading online, but it needs to be charged once a day for daily moderate use. The original 1.55A charger takes about 2.5 hours to charge.
The room temperature is 26 degrees. After running the GFXBench and Anthare running software for 20 minutes, the highest temperature is 36.9 degrees on the front and 36.2 degrees on the back. The heat is concentrated near the power key on the right.
Because it is an all metal body, even though the heat control of the machine is fairly good, the temperature will rise quickly and it will be "warm".
The decibel meter is 10cm away from the microphone, and the maximum volume is 81.3 decibels. The volume is not too high, which belongs to the normal level of the midrange computer, and can ensure that the phone will not miss calls in the downtown.
The sound quality of the external player is up to standard and basically meets the expectations. The sound is hard and cold hip-hop , rock and roll, etc.
summary
Because the Samsung Galaxy A5 is positioned as a mid-range device, its performance is moderate, but the Snapdragon 410 can still keep food and clothing for daily use. In addition, on the all metal A-series, there are many more details unique to the flagship: all metal appearance and high screen proportion, 6.7mm body thickness, screen color and visual angle performance close to the flagship, and quite good photo performance.
Of course, the details of these flagship machines are all bought back by silver. The telecom version of Galaxy A5 in this evaluation, which costs 2599 yuan, is definitely the most expensive one among the machines using Snapdragon 410, but it must also be the only one in the mid tier that uses an all metal body, so it's a mixed bag.
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