Gadgetory

hey what is going on guys long hear from Andrew authority and for the longest time people have been begging Samsung to use something other than plastic on their phones and the desire for this among Samsung diehards became even more apparent when competing OEMs were stepping up their build quality a few months back Samsung finally gave us that with the somewhat mid-range Galaxy alpha and that eventually translated to the flagship we now know as the Galaxy Note 4 what their new a series Samsung is looking to step up their build quality once again and while these phones might not be coming stateside they're still very important to look at because it could be a preview of what's to come with future Samsung flagships let's go ahead and take a look at the Samsung Galaxy a3 for many years Samsung phones have been made entirely of plastic and although this didn't affect the phone's durability they certainly didn't feel like a high-end flagship should what the galaxy a3 or any of the a-series phones for that matter you're getting one of the first phones from Samsung to feature a full unibody metal construction a step up from what we saw on the Galaxy alpha or no.4 which were only metal on the sides aesthetically it still looks like a standard Samsung phone with the rounded corners and flat sides and the signature home button flanked by capacitive keys the way it feels in the hand however is a stark difference from something like the galaxy s5 which featured a plastic construction the a3 feels solid and is proof that Samsung is plenty capable of making a premium feeling phone the back is smooth to the touch but the phone isn't slippery like you might think the flat sides and chamfered edges provide plenty of grip and because the a3 is the smallest out of the a-series bunch it's extremely easy to hold and operate in one hand something you can't say about many smartphones nowadays a staple feature for many Samsung users has always been the removable battery but because the a3 is unibody you're not going to build swap batteries like you normally would on many other Samsung phones for some this might not be that big of a deal but it could be a drawback especially if it's something you've become so accustomed to with Samsung over the years the remainder of the hardware comes with either 8 or ten gigs of storage and LTE connectivity onboard although I was not able to get it to work on t-mobile's network in typical Samsung fashion the easy to reach power button is on the right side and like most phones designed for international markets two SIM card slots can be found below the power button one of which actually doubles as a micro SD card slot for up to an additional 64 gigs of storage the volume rocker can be found on the left side and the microUSB and 3.5 millimeter headphone jack are located on the bottom leaving the top completely blank with the exception of a microphone the single speaker can be found on the back side of the phone next to the camera and flash which is very reminiscent of the rear layout on the galaxy s3 it produces a clean sound without any sort of distortion but the actual speaker volume was pretty low compared to a lot of other phones that I've used with a single speaker the good thing about the speaker placement is that your hand is not naturally covered up when holding the phone in portrait but otherwise it's a fairly standard rear firing speaker the screen on the a3 is a super amoled display measuring in at 4.5 inches with 960 by 540 resolution also known as lowercase q HD with the M LED screen you're going to get those really deep blacks high contrast ratios saturated colors and wide viewing angles at 4.5 inches the screen is great for one-handed use but in today's day and age where 5 to 5.5 inches is the norm many might find it to be too small the resolution is also quite low but in general everyday use like web browsing and reading social media I didn't find it to be too much of a problem when it comes to gaming and watching YouTube however this is where I really missed having an HD display not only do games look pixelated but you can't watch anything on YouTube beyond 360 P so from a media consumption standpoint the display leaves a lot to be desired moving on to the performance the a3 has performed quite well in most situations inside is a Snapdragon 410 Adreno 306 and 1 gigabyte of RAM this is Qualcomm's updated 64-bit mid-tier processor and while it's a pretty modest package it provides more than enough power to handle most tasks on the a3 including graphic intensive gaming with very few hiccups the only real issue that the a3 suffers from is that it likes to redraw the home screen after playing a high-end game or spending a lot of time in the camera this is most likely due to only having one gigabyte of RAM as it only happens with apps that eat up a lot of memory but outside of that it performs about as well as you would want it to taking a look at the camera on the back of the a3 you'll find an 8 megapixel sensor and diving right into the camera interface you'll notice that it hasn't changed much aesthetically from previous Samsung devices among many others standard settings like exposure ISO and white balance can all be found in the bottom left and the shooting modes can be accessed by a3 menu on the right shooting modes have been slimmed down to only include beauty face rear cam selfie continuous shot and animated Jeff along with the essentials like panorama night mode and HDR the picture quality is serviceable but for the serious smartphone photographer the cam is going to be a disappointment even in good lighting there is a noticeable amount of noise and in general photos are soft and muddy with very little detail this becomes more apparent in low-light and nighttime photography and with a maximum ISO of only 800 low-light shots will suffer but the built-in night mode and even HDR can help improve the situation without resorting to flash but all in all the camera isn't overly impressive what I did find to be impressive is the battery life the a3 is a small and compact phone so naturally the battery inside is also going to be small coming in at only 1,900 milliamp hours but battery life has been surprisingly good some of this has to do with the battery saving properties of the AMOLED display and the low resolution which means the processor doesn't have to work as hard to push all those pixels around thus conserving battery life even with a fair amount of gaming and watching YouTube I was still able to get between 12 to 15 hours off the charger and four to four and a half hours of screen on time which is more than enough to get through a full day and that's all you can really ask of this phone considering the battery capacity fortunately if you are in desperate need for extended battery life Samsung's ultra power saving mode makes a return here this switches your phone to a grayscale color palette and limits functionality so using it all the time isn't practical but it can really come in handy when you're low on battery and need to prolong the battery life for as long as possible and finally in software the a3 is running on Android 4.4 KitKat with none other than Samsung's TouchWiz but this is not the same touch with experience that you might be used to in fact the only thing that TouchWiz on the a3 shares in common with high-end flagship like the s5 and Note 4 is the aesthetic appearance other than that this is a very slimmed down version of TouchWiz there's no multi window no air gestures no smart stay or smart pause and the usual slew of pre-installed Samsung bloat like chat on and s-health are not present here surprisingly s voice Samsung's personal assistant is also gone the experience reminds me a lot of what was on the Galaxy S 2 before touchwiz became so cluttered and convoluted and it really feels like Samsung is taking a lot of steps backwards and removing a lot of the redundancies that they put on top of Android it is possible that this could be a preview of what we're going to see on the Galaxy s6 and if it is I think it's a TouchWiz experience that many users will be very happy with and this is the first time in a long time where I actually didn't mind using TouchWiz so hopefully it's here to stay pricing and availability will vary based on region with no plans on a u.s. release but it can be had for less than 320 dollars through sites like Amazon and expanses for a mid-range phone the price can seem rather expensive especially when you consider other budget offerings like the Moto G which will give you a very comparable experience but without the same level of build quality then there's phones like the oneplus one which offers a much higher end experience for around the same price and if you can get an invite it's obviously the superior choice when looking at the overall package but there you have it for the samsung galaxy a3 samsung is stepping up their build quality once again with the a-series lineup and while the a3 is not necessarily a flagship it is an overall very solid and affordable smartphone with a build quality that can rival some of the most top-tier devices out there this isn't going to satisfy users who want a higher end experience but if history is any indication we're going to be seeing this design or at least something very similar to it in a Samsung flagship pretty soon as always guys thanks so much for watching this review if you did enjoy it please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already so you don't miss out on any future videos and don't forget to check out the website for more in-depth coverage you already know what it is Android authority comm because we are your source for all things Android