Samsung Galaxy A5 review (2017)

After the Note 7-related horrors of 2016 behind Samsung, the South Korean firm released a new handset: the 2017 refresh of its award-winning Samsung Galaxy A5 phone.

The Galaxy A5 has more in common with Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S7 than its budget J-series lineup, and despite costing significantly less than £450, the Galaxy A5’s clean metal frame and all-glass front almost puts some of its pricier siblings to shame. It fits snug in your palm, with its tapered back and it’s nice to see that the rear camera is flush to the body of the phone.

Having initially reviewed the A5 at £369, the phone can now be found for under £300, making it a more tempting choice for budget-minded consumers. 

With the Samsung Galaxy A5 you get four paint jobs to choose from: Black Sky, Gold Sand, Blue Mist or Peach Cloud, and while Blue Mist isn’t to my taste, all other colours look pretty snazzy.

It’s a lovely phone to hold and behold, then, but then last year’s Galaxy A5 was pretty nice, too. The key differences lie beneath the phone’s glossy exterior, with a new CPU, more RAM, storage and a higher resolution camera.

Samsung Galaxy A5 review (2017): Display

The Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) as it did last year comes equipped with a 5.2in, Full HD, Super AMOLED display, racking up a pixel density of 424ppi. That’s not sharp enough to use the A5 with the Gear VR headset according to Samsung (and thus it isn’t supported), but there’s nothing stopping you from using Google Cardboard instead.

Colours are striking, too, covering a perfect 100% of the sRGB colour gamut. While our X-Rite colour calibrator did spot some slight inaccuracy in some of the darker green shades, it’s so marginal that you won’t spot this with the naked eye.