Many smartphones that are available in the US do not always make it over the border to Canada. So when Samsung announced earlier this week there would be three Galaxy A models, many in Canada may have been wondering if they would get one or all of the models. Well it seems that there is now confirmation from Samsung that the Galaxy A5 will certainly be available in Canada and in spite of the A range not becoming available in the US. Although, when it comes to last year’s models, only the Galaxy A5 was sold in Canada, so this might come as no surprise. The 4.7-inch Galaxy A3 and the 5.7-inch Galaxy A7 will not be offered at this time. Likewise, Samsung has not provided a time frame or price on the Galaxy A5, although it probably should be expected to be priced around $400 – $450 on a no term.
The Samsung Galaxy A5 is a mid-range device with a premium feel. Samsung continued their glass back design to the Galaxy A5 with a metal bezel surrounding the device and it feels great in hand. There is no curved display here, but you will find an IP68 certification for water and dust-resistance, and even a welcomed fingerprint scanner. It measures 146.1 x 71.4 x 7.9 mm, weighs in at 157 grams, and comes in four colors – Black Sky, Gold Sand, Peach Cloud, and Blue Mist.
The Galaxy A5 sports a 5.2-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass 4 for protection. This 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution gives the A5 a very respectable 424 pixels-per-inch (PPI.) The display uses the ‘always-on’ feature to help save battery life from its non-removable 3,000 mAh battery with fast charge support. For the processor, Samsung used their Exynos 7880 octa-core clocked at 1.9 GHz and a Mali-T830MP2 GPU for graphics. It packs 3GB of RAM and an expandable 32GB of internal memory. It has a front and back 16-megapixel camera, and both have a large f/1.9 aperture. The primary camera has autofocus and a LED flash. It has the usual suspects – WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth v4.2, NFC, and a reversible Type-C port for charging and data transfer. With its NFC chip and fingerprint sensor, the Galaxy A5 will be able to offer mobile payment functionality through either Android Pay or Samsung Pay.