With the launch of the Galaxy S8 pushed back to mid-March, if you’re hankering for a new Samsung phone you’d have a bit of a wait on your hands. If you don’t need an absolute top-of-the-line banger, though, two new mid-range phones might grab your attention, and they have a lot of features you’d expect in a more expensive model. Samsung’s new Galaxy A5 and big-screen A7 phones are out in Australia next week: here’s what you need to know.
The Galaxy A series is Samsung’s mid-range model — not as fancy and bleeding edge as the S or the Note, but with a lot of those lines’ design DNA and hardware filtering down from previous generations. The new Galaxy A5 and A7, for example, are IP68 dust and water resistant, and both have microSD card slots with 256GB of potential extra space. You also get fast charging over USB Type-C, Samsung Pay, and twin 16-megapixel front and rear cameras.
Both phones will be sold in Black Sky and Gold Sand colours, and have the same glass-on-metal-frame design that we liked on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. In Australia, we’ll only get one variant of each with 32GB of onboard storage (22GB usable on A7, 23GB usable on A5).
You’ll pay $649 for the 5.2-inch Galaxy A5 and $799 for the 5.7-inch Galaxy A7, although we’ll probably also see discounted phones on monthly repayment options from telcos in the coming months too. Both the A5 and A7 will be out in Australia through Samsung’s own online store from Thursday 16 February, and through its carrier partners and retail stores not too long after. [Samsung]