In this week’s top stories: Our picks for the best affordable Android phones for December, Pebble starts refunding customers after being acquired by Fitbit, Google’s Gboard keyboard arrives for Android, and much more.
While the rumor mill for the much-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S8 is, of course, in full swing, a report from the combined forces of MySmartPrice and notorious leakster OnLeaks is giving us a (rather comprehensive) glimpse at the successor to last year’s midrange Galaxy A7…
It’s not quite the end of the year yet, meaning we still have a few more weeks for companies to squeeze in some product announcements before 2016 rolls in. Samsung has just officially announced its Galaxy A-series of phones for next year and — from the spec sheets alone — they look like decent alternatives to pricey flagships…
Samsung is, unsurprisingly, working on the follow up to its Galaxy A3, A5 and A7 handsets. SamMobile has learned from its sources that the devices will have model names SM-A310F, SM-A510F and SM-A710F in Russia, while Chinese models will be SM-A5100 and SM-A7100.
Little else is known about the devices. The site hasn’t heard anything specific about specifications or pricing, but the slight change in model numbers suggests the improvements will be incremental.
Samsung introduced metal bodies on its phones for the first time with the Galaxy A-series phones, before the solid chassis design hit the Galaxy Note, then the Galaxy S lineups later on. The series itself has been relatively well-received by consumers, offering great build and almost-flagship specs for competitive prices. Although not quite as cheap as disruptive brands like OnePlus and Alacetel OneTouch, the phones did help dissuade fears that the company only knew how to make cheap-feeling, and cheap-looking plastic ‘mini’ phones.
Samsung likely has more devices to update than most smartphone manufacturers, and as such, they’re constantly pushing out updates to their never-ending list of handsets. Sometimes these are bigger updates—like a firmware update to Android 5.0 Lollipop—but more often they’re just very minor version bumps to fix bugs and close minor security holes.
SamMobile keeps track of all of these updates to Samsung’s handsets, and their latest list of recent updates includes firmware spanning Android 4.0 all the way to Android 5.0.2. Devices include the Galaxy A7, Galaxy Core Prime, Galaxy Ace 4 LTE, and more. Many of these are updates to devices in international locales, but at least one, the US Cellular Galaxy S6 Edge, is for a United States device.
Samsung’s Galaxy A7 hasn’t exactly been a well-kept secret, with the first rumors starting in September of last year, followed by regulatory filings, but the device is now official – albeit with some details still not announced.
Samsung introduced the Galaxy A7, one of the slimmest Galaxy smartphones equipped with premium hardware for a superior social experience, expanding on the popular services provided by the Galaxy A5 and A3.
Topping out the mid-range A-series, the A7 has a 5.5-inch AMOLED display, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, a 13MP main camera and – in line with Samsung’s focus on social media – a 5MP front-facing camera for hi-res selfies (including voice-activated ones). It’s available in single- and dual-SIM models, the former getting a quad-core Exynos processor, while the latter gets an octa-core version …
The Samsung Galaxy A7, which made its way through the FCC last week, has been revealed by a Chinese regulatory filing to be Samsung’s thinnest ever Galaxy smartphone, at just 6.3mm thick. To put that into perspective, the company’s flagship Galaxy S5 is 8.1mm thick …
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