Gadgetory

hey what is going on guys lon here from Android authority and the Samsung Galaxy alpha received quite a bit of attention when people first caught wind of it mostly because of that shiny metal band a material that people have always wanted Samsung to use but they never did until now but let's go ahead and take a closer look at the Samsung Galaxy alpha and see if it's beauty is more than skin deep or if it's just more of the same from Samsung so let's start with the design of the galaxy alpha because that's the reason why this phone was generating so much buzz in the tech community and if it wasn't for the shiny new metal band around the frame of the phone it probably wouldn't have received as much attention as it did when everyone first heard about it we now have proof though that Samsung is perfectly capable of making a premium feeling phone and this metal band with its beautiful chamfered edges on the front and back make a world of a difference in how it feels in the hand compared to the all plastic design that we've been so used to from Samsung for so long the Galaxy alpha feels very solid in the hand and because of its flat sides and compact form factor it's extremely easy to hold on to and operate with one hand which is a very refreshing feeling especially when you're so used to using larger Android phones that require a lot of shuffling in the hand just to reach every corner of the screen but with the Galaxy alpha you can thank it's compact form factor to a couple of things one it has relatively thin bezels all the way around and two is the 4.7 inch display on the front which is a lot smaller than most Android phones these days but I'll talk more about that in a sec now the Galaxy alpha isn't all metal the back of the phone is still a thin piece of plastic but you're not really going to notice it much except for when you actually take it off but I actually prefer the new back design of the Alpha in comparison of something like the s5 the design on the Galaxy alpha is a lot more subtle and it has a nice grippy texture to it so when you're holding in your hand it doesn't feel like it's going to slip out of your hand or anything like that interestingly enough even though you can still take the back off there's no microSD card expansion it's not a huge deal to me but if you're used to having that micro SD card slot that you would typically get on phone you're not going to get it here with the Alpha the rest of the hardware is pretty familiar Samsung with the power button on the right side volume rocker on the left although it is choked up a little high on the chassis than I would prefer but that's a pretty minor complaint the typical home button flanked by capacitive back and recent app keys are on the front and if you're wondering the fingerprint scanner that you may love or hate makes a return here as well on the top is a standard 3.5 millimeter headset jack and then along the bottom is your micro USB port and a single speaker I'm not the biggest fan of bottom mounted speakers I've probably said that before mostly because they're fairly easy to cover up especially in landscape when you're playing a game or watching a video but the speaker quality itself is fairly decent it produces a pretty clean sound without sounding tinny although I do find it to be a little on the quiet side and there definitely was a few times when I press the bottom rocker thinking maybe it had a few more clicks and for max volume so I do wish that it was a tad bit louder like I mentioned earlier on the front of the galaxy alpha is a 4.7 inch display and it comes in at 720p resolution but the PPI is still pretty respectable so you're not going to notice pixels all that easily unless you look hard for them it is a Super AMOLED display so the colors are very vibrant and punchy with lots of contrast great viewing angles and brightness Samsung has always been pretty good with their displays and the Galaxy alpha is no exception so if you're a fan of AMOLED displays like I am you'll certainly have no problems with this one the internal specs will vary depending on where you get it but the 18 t model that I have here is packing some pretty high in specs for a 2014 smartphone it's being powered by a Snapdragon 801 chip Adreno 330 and two gigs of ram if you're looking at the International model it comes with Samsung's own octa-core processor and a Mallee t6 28 GPU instead with high-end specs you can expect some very smooth and snappy performance and the Galaxy alpha definitely delivers it handled everything I threw at it with ease from multitasking opening and closing apps web browsing and playing games the Galaxy alpha performs just as smoothly as I expected to I'm not saying there isn't the occasional stutter or drop frame but they're all very minor and it's only going to bother you if you're extremely sensitive to it on the back of the galaxy alpha is a 12 megapixel camera with an LED flash of course so not the highest-end sensor that Samsung has ever used at least when it comes to the megapixel count but 12 megapixels is still a pretty respectable number as far as the camera software goes it's the usual interface that you've come to know from Samsung so there's obviously a ton of features here from the typical stuff like exposure and white balance to dual shot Beauty phase and all the other different shooting modes probably more features than you will ever use but that is usually Samsung style when it comes to software since it is 12 megapixels 4k video recording is possible along with 1080p at 60 frames per second and slow motion video capture at 720p the picture quality however is actually not bad at all photos look very colourful sharp and vibrant and it does a great job with handling exposure dynamic range isn't the greatest but HDR certainly helps bringing out a lot more detail it can be a little over-aggressive and photos might look a little unnatural but I actually didn't mind the slightly unnatural oversaturated look in low-light photos lose a lot of quality they look very grainy and noisy and there's just not a whole lot of detail but for the most part this is a very solid smartphone camera the battery life could potentially leave a lot to be desired depending on your usage it's a pretty small eighteen hundred and sixty milliamp hour battery so if you plan on hammering on your phone a lot playing a lot of games watching videos and whatnot you definitely won't be able to get through a full day with lighter more regular usage like texting checking social networks browsing the web you definitely can get a full day out of it but like I said it's a pretty small battery so don't expect a whole lot out of it and it's kind of surprising that Samsung would use a battery that was less than 2,000 milliamp hours considering the Galaxy alpha is packin some pretty beefy specs and finally onto the software the Samsung Galaxy alpha comes with the latest version of KitKat Android 4.4.4 with Samsung's TouchWiz interface on top and pretty much everything that you can find on the galaxy s5 has made its way over to the Galaxy alpha samsung didn't exclude any features on the Alpha at all they are all here from smart stay smart pause air gestures and multi window for some true multitasking there is also toolbox that creates a floating bubble for quick access to some of your favorite apps and many many other features my magazine is still one swipe away from your main home screen and the animation is still just as slow as ever but honestly I'm not a fan of it anyway so I don't really use it and of course the settings menu is still just as convoluted and difficult to navigate as it has ever been Samsung's s health app also makes a return for logging all of your daily activities including measuring your heart rate with the built-in heart rate monitor right next to the camera so at least in terms of the overall features is exactly like the Galaxy S five like I mentioned earlier this is the eighteen T model so you can expect to find a ton of ATT pre-installed bloatware that you unfortunately can only disable and not completely uninstall the Samsung Galaxy alpha is available now on 18t if you're inside the United States for one $99.99 on a two-year contract and it's roughly about $700 unlocked if you want to go the unlock route so the price is kind of expensive and it's a little bit polarizing because the $200 price point is usually reserved for high-end flagship smartphones and in some ways the galaxy alpha does exude a lot of flagship characteristics like the metal design the Snapdragon 801 processor two gigs of ram and 32 gigs of on-board storage but then there's other things about it that don't necessarily scream high-end like the 720p display and the really small battery and I actually really like this phone but I can already see the price dropping to maybe $99 on a contract and maybe just a month or two which would be just in time for the holiday season at the end of the day the Samsung Galaxy alpha might just be another phone in Samsung's product portfolio and it's certainly not going to win phone of the year or anything like that but it's not even really about the phone it's about what the phone stands for the Samsung Galaxy alpha offers us a glimpse of something new from Samsung something I think many people have wanted to see from Samsung for a long time now and it's finally coming and that alone I think is going to get a lot of people excited but that is it for this review hopefully you guys enjoyed it if you did please give a thumbs up down below we definitely appreciate that and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already we have a lot of great content coming and also check out the website you already know what it is and Jory calm because we are your source for all things Android