Though a 2016 variant of the Samsung Galaxy A5 already exists, the company appears to be working on a refresh. Carrying the model number SM-A520F, the newer variant looks poised to be graced with a typical evolutionary upgrade, including a faster Exynos processor and an extra gigabyte of RAM.
Polish blog Tablety has caught wind SM-A520F on both Geekbench and GFXBench, with a couple of welcome, if largely incremental upgrades. Where the current Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) sports Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 615 processor, the benchmarks indicate that Samsung’s own octa-core Exynos 7880 could soon take care of proceedings, flanked by Mali T830 graphics. The 2 gigs of RAM is expected to improve to 3 GB, whilst on-board storage may double to 32 GB of (presumably expandable) real estate.
Both the front and rear cameras could offer 16-megapixel resolutions, while the latter looks set to be graced with f/1.9 aperture. The 2900 mAh battery of the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) could also be set for a minor bump to 3000 mAh. Given how excellently the existing version’s battery performed during our review, here’s hoping for more of the same in this regard.
Software-wise, the benchmarks point to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with TouchWiz. Given the December-January time frame of past release, there’s good reason to believe the new Galaxy A5 won’t roll out until the turn of the year — by which time, it’s likely that Android 7 Nougat may be present right off the bat. Having said that, it’s worth pointing out that Galaxy A5 (2016) stumbled out on Android 5.1 Lollipop despite Marshmallow having been around for months, so there are no guarantees.
In our review, we found the Galaxy A5 to be a decent sub-flagship smartphone hindered by a decidedly abject user experience — thanks in no small part to Samsung’s TouchWiz interface. If Sammy can make the necessary software adjustments in line with these purported hardware tweaks, though, we have a rather exciting upper-mid-ranger in prospect.
The Galaxy A5 is likely to be refreshed along the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A7 later this year. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for further info, so stay tuned.
The current Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
