Samsung Galaxy A3 (2016) review – Baby ‘A’

Alongside the A5 and A7 devices for 2016, Samsung have prepared something for the users who don’t want to spend too much – the A3. This is an entry level device of the “A” series from 2016. It emerged on the market towards the end of 2015, in December to be more precise. The advantages of this device are definitely its compact and attractive design, ability to execute any task on a satisfactory level, and the fact that it doesn’t cost a small fortune. Inside the box, you can find: a Samsung charging adapter, a microUSB cable, 3.5mm in-ear headphones, a SIM tray tool and user manuals. This device comes in several color options: Black, White, Pink and Gold which we have for our test. Whether the Samsung’s baby of the “A” series justifies its price, let’s take a look!
 

The thing which is definitely one of the most important points of the A3 is its display. Compared to the 2015 model, the 2016 edition’s display got several improvements: the diagonal got increased to 4.7” (4.5” on 2015 model), the resolution is now HD (qHD on 2015 model), and the number of PPI is now – 312 (compared to 245). For this price range, the sharpness of the display is excellent. The panel is well-known for Samsung devices – SuperAMOLED and it offers amazing colors. Black color is especially well reproduced which is, indeed, an advantage of the AMOLED display. Viewing angles are very good, as well as visibility on the direct sunlight. Screen protection is managed through Corning Gorilla Glass 4.
 

The A3 (2016) ships with two different chipsets: Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 and Exynos 7578. Both are quad core chipsets, but the difference is that the Qualcomm’s cores are clocked at 1.2 GHz, while the Samsung Exynos’ cores are clocked at 1.5 GHz. This is, therefore, a quad core chipset with Cortex-A53 cores and ARM Mali-T720 MP2 GPU. In both cases we get 16GB of internal storage, and 1.5GB of RAM. This hardware ensures fluent work of the device, with no signs of slowing down. More than the A3 could chew, however, would be longer gaming, because the device suffers slight overheating. This device comes with Android v5.1.1 Lollipop preinstalled, but the system updates have brought Android 7.0 Nougat in the meantime. The A3 runs fluently and the interface is highly intuitive.
 

Speaking of cameras, improvements are quite obvious compared to the 2015 edition. The rear facing camera has the resolution of 13MP with f/1.9 aperture. Auto-focus system is, of course, also present, and it is quite fast. Other camera functions are: Geo-tagging, Touch Focus, Face Detection  and Panorama. Photo quality is, however, only average. Videos are captured in FullHD resolution at 30fps. The front facing camera again has 5MP resolution, but this time with bigger aperture. Quality of this camera’s photos is pretty decent. It captures videos in HD resolution at 30fps.
 

The list of connections is also quite good. The device supports 4G networks. MicroUSB port is used for charging and data transfer. 3.5mm headphone port is also here.
When it comes to wireless connections, there are:

This device is SingleSIM, and it supports one nanoSIM card and a microSD card for storage expansion. Storage is, this way, expandable up to 256GB. DualSIM version is also available.

As in other devices of the “A” series, the A3 (2016) also has a non-removable battery. Capacity of this battery is 2300 mAh, and it is a Li-Ion battery. With a full charge, up to 13 hours of 3G network usage or up 58 hours of music reproduction is possible.
 

Of course, not everything is in specifications and cores, megapixels and other numbers. There is plenty of room for improvement, especially when we talk about the main camera and the battery draining in stand-by mode. There are always users who seek a beautiful device which will perfectly execute all basic tasks, as well as some more demanding ones – and A3 (2016) is exactly this kind of a device.

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Samsung Galaxy A3 (2016) Full Specifications