Samsung have many Android smartphones arranged across a number of different families. The flagship devices are called the Galaxy S for the normal sized device or the Galaxy Note for the “phablet” sized device. We then have a number of different families with their model number preceded by a letter of the alphabet, so we have the J-series, E-series and the A-series. These are lesser models in the Samsung stable, but each offers a slightly different flavor of Android. The J- and E-series families are lower to mid range devices, with the A-series being all about the design rather than the internal components. The forerunner to the Samsung Galaxy A-series was the Galaxy Alpha, a beautifully thin and metal design housing mid-range components, but designed to appeal to those of us who like our devices to look and feel good as well as do the things that we expect of a modern smartphone. The rest of the A-series are also metal-clad, offering mid-range specifications: however, for many people a mid-range device is better than their two or three year old device, and if they are moving from a two year old Samsung Galaxy smartphone, the new A-series is also built from a different material.
We recently reported that Samsung appeared to be importing various components of a new device, the Samsung Galaxy A9, into India for testing purposes. There were a number of solid clues about this such as the model designation being SM-A9000 (other models in the A-series follow a model number convention whereby the Galaxy A8 has a model designation of SM-A8000). And now a Samsung Galaxy SM-A9000 model designation has appeared going through the AnTuTu Benchmark website. The reported specifications may not be accurate, as these things can be modified, but the device specification is more or less in line with what we would expect. It appears that the Galaxy A9 is based around a 5.5-inch, 1080p (or Full High Definition, FHD) display. It’s unclear if this is a Samsung AMOLED panel or a LCD unit. Under the screen, the A9 is powered by the new generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 620 system-on-chip, ably backed up by 3 GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 620 is one of Qualcomm’s new chips based around the ARM Cortex-A72, a new generation 64-bit application core designed as an improvement over the older Cortex-A57. The chip is structured around a dual quad core arrangement, with a quad core ARM Cortex-A53 application processor backed up by a quad core ARM Cortex-A72 processor. Maximum clock speeds set by Qualcomm are 1.8 GHz for the A72 cluster and 1.4 GHz for the A53 cluster, although the AnTuTu website does not detail the clock speed of the purported A9. However, AnTuTu reports that the Snapdragon 620 was supported by the Adreno 510, which is the expected GPU for this chipset.
The source Tweet does not include information about the A9’s cameras, battery size or availability of a MicroSD card slot, but it does show us that the hardware was running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The source link also includes a benchmark score of 45,339 for the device, which is very creditable for a mid-range Qualcomm processor (and bodes well for the up and coming Snapdragon 820). Given that the smartphone is likely not ready for release, this benchmark score is likely to change between now and the production version. Nevertheless, the alleged Galaxy A9 appears to be that much closer to a release and the underlying hardware certainly seems capable for a super-mid range device. This is a developing story and if we hear anything else, we will let you know.
