Samsung hasn’t had a very good time of late, what with its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7, having to be recalled over battery concerns. However, the company isn’t letting this speed bump become a major roadblock in its smartphone plans going forward. According to earlier reports, the company is already working on its 2017 Galaxy A lineup which will apparently have at least three devices to start off with – the Galaxy A3, Galaxy A5 and the Galaxy A7. While the release date is far from certain, some reports have suggested that Samsung may actually launch the devices this year, although there’s no official confirmation on that at this point in time.
Either way, whether or not the next-gen Galaxy A-series handsets are launched this year, the steady stream of leaks and rumors about them has continued unabated. The Galaxy A5 (2017), expected to be a mid-range smartphone from the South Korean company, has already been spotted on both Geekbench and GFXBench recently and now for the first time, we may be getting a first glimpse at what the device may look like in real life. A Vietnamese blog has published a couple of images that seemingly show off the frame and the outer casing of the upcoming smartphone. While that’s not a lot to go on, it does suggest that much like the current-generation Galaxy A5, the upcoming handset will also have a metal frame.
While the latest leak doesn’t really bring any new info to the table, earlier leaks had provided a few clues about the upcoming device. According to GFXBench, the Galaxy A5 (2017) is expected to feature a 5.5-inch 1080p display, although other sources have hinted at a 5.2-inch panel with the same resolution. The device is also expected to come with the Exynos 7880 SoC instead of the Snapdragon 615 that can be found in the Galaxy A5 (2016). The rest of the specs are likely to be incremental upgrades to the previous-generation device, including 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Interestingly, both front and rear cameras could come with 16-megapixel sensors, while the battery is expected to be a 3,000 mAh unit. On the software side of things, the device is expected to come with Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) pre-installed with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI on top.
