Friday, February 20, 2015

Overview of the smartphone Samsung Galaxy A3: stylish “middling” – BBC News

In a series of Samsung Galaxy A includes smartphones colorful, all-metal body, because of the color resembling plastic. Devices that have received the same, eye-catching design, characterized by their filling and screen sizes. For a start, Vesti.Hi-tech tested the youngest model – A3.

As you know, until recently the company Samsung Electronics does not use metal design their smartphones. Perhaps confused problems arising from manufacturers who in this way tried to provide a premium look of their devices. The first Android-powered device with a metal frame and steel Galaxy Alpha Galaxy Note 4. But at the end of last year the company announced the launch of a series of smartphones Galaxy A, made in a single design and all-metal, multi-colored blocks. Today, it includes models A3, A5 and A7 with screen sizes of 4.5; 5 and 5.5 inches, respectively. Interestingly, all these devices have received although different, but not premium toppings. The color scheme with lots of options provides nouveau devaysa catchy and stylish appearance. It is unclear, however, why it was used for metal buildings, then to paint it “under the plastic”.

Specifications Samsung Galaxy A3

  • Model: SM-A300F
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  • Operating System: Android 4.4.4 (KitKat) with shell TouchWiz
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  • Display: 4.5 inch, capacitive, Super AMOLED, resolution of 540×960 pixels (qHD), the density of dots per inch 245 ppi, protective glass Corning Gorilla Glass 4
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  • Processor: 4-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916), core ARM Cortex-A53, 1,2 GHz
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  • Graphics: Adreno 306
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  • Memory: RAM – 1 GB; built-in – 16 GB (11.9 GB available); slot for memory cards microSD / HC / XC (up to 64GB)
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  • Camera: basic – 8 MP, autofocus, flash, video recording 1080p @ 30fps, digital zoom (4x); front – 5 MP
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  • Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n (2,4 GHz), Bluetooth 4.0 (LE), ANT +, USB 2.0, NFC, 3,5-mm audio
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  • Contact: GSM / GPRS / EDGE, WCDMA, LTE (Cat. 4)
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  • Navigation: GLONASS / GPS, A-GPS
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  • The number of SIM-cards: 1 or 2
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  • Type SIM-card: nanoSIM (4FF)
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  • Sensors: accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor Hall
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  • Radio: FM-tuner
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  • Battery: removable, rechargeable lithium-ion, 1900 mAh
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  • Dimensions: 130,1×65,5×6,9 mm
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  • Weight: 110.3 grams
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  • Color: Silver, black, white, gold, blue, pink
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Design and Ergonomics

The most budget option in the new line of Galaxy A is the youngest model – A3. Of course, its dimensions have no relation to the size of the paper of the same name (297h420 mm). On The Contrary. Equipped with a 4.5-inch screen smartphone has the “classic” compact (130,1×65,5 mm) and fairly thin (6.9 mm), for example, iPhone 6 (6.9 mm).

A3 thickness only 0.2 mm more than the model Alpha (6,7 mm), which is considered the thinnest among fellow “Galaxy”. And the weight at A3 is small – just over 110 grams.

In general, compared with fashionable nowadays planshetofonami this device seems frankly a little – a kind of ladies’ trick. No wonder that, among the colorful buildings, in addition to strict – black and white, elegant – silver and gold, and there are glamorous – pink and blue.

Although the body of the model A3, unlike, say, Alpha, is completely made of metal, but the presence of the latter resemble only silver bevel rim extending around the perimeter.

In particular, given to us for testing models of white paint with pearl shade artfully stylized metal matt literally velvet, plastic. It is clear that in the cold to confuse the two materials touch virtually impossible. Well, in a home-office environment to ascertain the truth is, perhaps, to put the device in the refrigerator (which do not need to, of course, it is not necessary).

The Samsung differ continuity of design in the front panel. And this tradition A3 does not violate.

At the top of its front panel, covered with protective glass of the new generation Corning Gorilla Glass 4, just above the logo of Samsung, put lattice “conversational” speaker, light sensor and proximity, as well as the front camera lens.

Below the display are two dedicated touch buttons “Back” and “Recent Applications “with the indispensable mechanical key” Home “between them.

On the left edge of the unit carried volume rocker,

and on the right – the power button lock, as well as two private slots with trays. The one above, and more, combined, and can take as nanoSIM-card and memory card microSD. Second, that the lower and smaller, is intended only for the second subscriber identity module (but also in the format nanoSIM). In general, hello, iPhone and hello, i-clip, but as the master key for the trays can, as usual, use its analogue stationery.

At the lower end of the body gathered for the opening” conversational “microphone, microUSB connector for charging and syncing, and 3.5-mm audio headset connector.

On the upper end remains only an opening for the second microphone.

Not forgetting another logo Samsung, the top of the non-removable rear panel provided holes LED flash, lens with chrome surround the main camera, and the grid “multimedia” (“call”) the speaker,

The bottom part caused proprietary information.

Due to its compactness and low weight perfectly smartphone fits in almost any, even the most delicate hand, and the usual button layout makes its use even more comfortable. And the size of the screen makes it easy to be controlled with this unit with one hand. Molded body A3 obviously eliminates any backlash and squeaks.

screen, camera, sound

Model A3 received Super AMOLED-display with a diagonal of 4.5 inches and a fairly low resolution 960h540 pixels (qHD). Recall that the total number of points on the qHD-screen is one-quarter (quarter) of Full HD (1920×1080). Thus, the density of pixels per inch is not less than 245 ppi. Scheme with two sub-pixels (PenTile RGBG), based on the features of the physiology of the human eye, replacing the matrix used (Super AMOLED) traditional, with three sub-pixels (RGB).

As you know, Super AMOLED-displays, which provide a” real “deep black color, in contrast to conventional AMOLED, disappeared air gap between the sensor layer and the matrix, which increased brightness, to reduce the reflection of light, as well as reduce the already economical (due to lack of light) energy. This screen has a good anti-glare properties, which makes it possible to easily use it even in bright light.

The touch screen supports multi-A3, and the program MultiTouch Tester has shown that recognized only up to five simultaneous keystrokes. By viewing angles of the display issues, in general, no. Due to the light sensor, the backlight level can be set not only by hand, but also with the automatic adjustment. The “Adaptive Display”, which works for some applications (including “Play Books”, “Gallery”, “camera”), automatically adjusts not only the brightness but also other image parameters depending on the ambient light, as well as how to use the smartphone . As stated, this can greatly reduce the load on the user’s eye. In turn, the manual adjustment of colors allows you to stay at a more comfortable colors. In addition to the main mode available two – “Film AMOLED” and “Photo AMOLED”.

The display in A3 prevents the protective glass of the new generation of Gorilla Glass 4. That, at least, it is stated on the website of Corning, though, frankly, glass test sample smartphone looks than not impressed (see, as usual). If Gorilla Glass 3 technology NDR (Native Damage Resistance) positioned to protect against a variety of daily threats, while creating Gorilla Glass 4 focused only on the fall. At least, the results published crash tests have shown for this window, at least twice the best result of resistance to cracking in comparison with its competitors.

Despite the low resolution, the screen A3, unless, of course, not cuddle up to him nose, trying to see PenTile, leaves a good impression. At the very least, test videos in HD-quality look at this very worthy display.

smartphone Galaxy A3 main camera got ordinary 8-megapixel photo module with a fairly nimble autofocus and flash. The maximum frame size is achieved at a ratio of 4: 3 (8 MP) and is 3264h2448 points. The quality of images is consistent with the apparatus of the middle class, especially in good light. Examples of the photo you can see here (Dropbox).

In the application interface “Camera”, in addition to “Auto”, it is suggested to use the following shooting modes – “Retouch”, “Panorama”, “Auto Self”, “Continuous Shooting”, “tint”, “Night” and ” GIF-animations. ” In the settings you can select the picture size and resolution of the video, turn on the flash, to determine the white balance, exposure value, etc. Here are three of the filter – “Negative”, “Sepia” and “Grayscale”. Volume rocker is easy to put in charge of the shutter release, the beginning of the video or digital zoom. Commonly used touch-sensitive buttons in the settings conveniently make the top of the screen where the default settings are icons, flash and change the camera.

As for the front camera, it added a 5-megapixel sensor, which is clearly superior to conventional video needs on Skype, but allows you to do pretty quality” sebyashki “. Indeed, the maximum frame size at a ratio of 4: 3 (5 MP) is 2576h1932 point. For fans of “crossbow” here are three modes – “Self-Portrait”, “GIF-animation” and “Group Self” (Groof). In the settings available for self shooting with gestures and simple tools for correcting self-portraits.

Mode” GIF-animation “allows up to 20 sequential shots and automatically combine them into a single animated gif-file.

With the help of both cameras can record videos as Full HD (resolution of 1920×1080 pixels, 16: 9) with a frame rate of 30 fps. During this process, you can take pictures with a resolution of the main camera – 3264h1836 points (6 MP, 16: 9), and for the front – 2576h1449 points (3.7 MP, 16: 9). All video content is stored in the container file MP4 (AVC – video, AAC – sound).

Having only one speaker unit, however, a good idea to play music – a sound he has a pretty clean, although the range of volume and could be increased. Even if the smartphone is on a flat surface “on the back,” the speaker grille he does not overlap, as this prevents the chrome bezel main lens photo module, which acts as a couple of millimeters.

In the A3 has a built-in FM-tuner that supports online record any radio broadcast. Recall that as a shortwave antenna must always be connected to your phone wired headset or headphones.

Filling performance

Galaxy Smartphone A3 received a 4-core Snapdragon chip 410 (MSM8916) from Qualcomm, which is made taking into account the design rules of 28 nm. This is the first 64-bit processor this company, which then uses the commands ARMv8 architecture and core ARM Cortex-A53, working here at a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz.

The acceleration of graphics operations takes an integrated on-chip coprocessor Adreno 306 (400 MHz). Located in the same signal processor supports PV modules with matrices of up to 13 MP and video quality with Full HD 1080p. In Snapdragon 410 LTE-built modem with an absolute majority of the world’s network generation 4G / LTE and 3G, while providing work with two or even three SIM-cards. Also available wireless communication Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, multi-system receiver for satellite navigation (GPS / GLONASS / Beidou) and FM-radio.

The basic configuration of the test smartphone includes 1 GB of RAM, that modern standards, quite a bit, especially given the hunt until memory shell TouchWiz. Therefore, the results obtained in the tests for the model A3, in principle, not bad, but not a record. Note that the chips 400th series devices are positioned for the middle class, thus, promote them as the best choice in terms of price-performance.

In the synthetic tests AnTuTu Benchmark Version 5.6.1 new model was displayed at the end of the results list, earning just 18,819″ virtual parrots ” .

On Vellamo benchmark for the number of “horsepower” (Metal) and efficient use of processor cores (Multicore) Smartphone nothing special stood out, that only confirmed stuffing “middling”.

If you forget about the low resolution of the screen (960h544 points), the two main options on the visual test results at Epic Citadel A3 were a flagship. Thus, the average frame rate for High Performance and High Quality (performance at the expense of quality and vice versa) was 59.1 and 58,1 fps, respectively. And the result is to configure the Ultra High Quality, too, in general, it was not so bad – 44,2 fps.

Do not look far nerekordnye tragedy results in a universal gaming benchmarks 3DMark, obtained, in particular, the recommended test for this smartphone Ice Storm Extreme. Recall that the model A3 is not positioned for the coolest 3D-games.

Of the 16 GB of internal memory is available in A3 only about 11.9 GB, and even less freely. To expand a slot designed for memory cards microSD / HC / XC, maximum capacity of 64GB. Support for USB-OTG in the machine does not have.

As already noted, the new Snapdragon chip 410 supported wireless interfaces, of which A3 implemented IEEE 802.11 b / g / n (a frequency range of 2.4 GHz) , Bluetooth 4.0 (LE), as well as NFC. When installing the SIM-card (nanoSIM) available not only cellular networks 2G / 3G, and LTE – 4G Cat. 4 (150 Mbit / s). It is possible to install two of the Subscriber Identity Module (both formats 4FF), but then have to give up the card to expand internal memory, which is not very great.

In determining its location on the program AndroiTS GPS Test test sample was limited to a smartphone Only A-GPS, for whatever reasons, ignoring the satellites of the GPS and GLONASS groups. Most likely, it is a bug of the test apparatus, although first of all like to sin on the problem of antennas in full metal body.

Smartphone Samsung Galaxy A3 received non-removable lithium-ion battery is very small capacity – 1900 mAh. Nevertheless, according to the manufacturer, one can talk charging in 3G network to 12 hours, surf the Internet via the 3G / LTE / Wi-Fi, respectively 08/08/11 hours listening to music, or up to 60 hours to watch 11 hours. In our testing set of videos in MP4 and HD-quality at full brightness spun continuously for about 6 hours.

In addition, the tests battery AnTuTu Tester 2.5 device honestly earned quite a decent amount of points (7301). This is largely due to low resolution (540×960 pixels) and manufacturing technology of the screen (Super AMOLED).

In the settings A3 offers the option” Extreme energy efficiency “when saving the battery goes by limiting the number of functions (reducing the number of available applications, temporarily disable the communications and use the home screen theme simplified in shades of gray).

To save power when the positioning and navigation data can be used only WiFi- and mobile networks (mode A-GPS).

Software

Galaxy A3 is running an operating system Android 4.4.4 (KitKat) familiar with other Samsung smartphones branded shell TouchWiz. Her appearance in comparison, for example, with premium models have not changed, but the functionality was only the most necessary.

The interface TouchWiz application icons widgets and folders, as usual, brought to the desktops, and for programs there is a separate menu. General settings, maintaining its structure, assembled in a single vertical list with bright flat icons.

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