Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3 specs and features: metal construction for the mid-range

With quad-core 1.2GHz processors, Android 4.4.4 and 4G connections, these hand-sets look like the perfect mid-range devices

Say what you like about Samsung but they don’t hang about. Just a day after releasing disappointing earnings and swearing to overhaul its line of smartphones its released two new mid-range devices which are the company’s slimmest yet.

The Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3 offer a 5-inch and 4.5-inch display respectively, with the A5 managing 720p HD resolution, while the A3 comes in at only 960 x 540. Both start with 16GB of storage and have the same quad-core 1.2GHz processor, with 2GB of RAM for the A5 and 1GB for the A3.

Thanks to their unibody construction (which unfortunately means no removable battery) these are some slim handsets, indeed the A5 is just 6.7mm thick - even thinner than the iPhone (which has the same 6.9mm profile as the A3).

The Samsung Galaxy A5 (left) and A3 (right).

Samsung also announced a handful of new features that no many will care much about: new pastel colours, new themes for its TouchWiz interface, a gif mode on the camera (actually that’s quite fun) and wide-angle, five-megapixel ‘selfie camera’ (as marketing bods have insisted on relabeling smartphones’ front-facing cameras).

From the specs and early reactions these handsets look like solid smartphones – not flagship devices of course, but attractive and functional. They seem designed to stem Samsung’s losses in the mid-range market where firms like Lenovo and Xiaomi are making in-roads, and so are launching in Asia first this November.

There's nothing official on prices yet but it's expected that the A5 will go at the $400-$450 range while the A3 wil be priced from around $350. They're not quite mid-range prices, but for the aluminium frame and solid construction, Samsung must be hoping that customers will shell out a little extra.