What is the Samsung Galaxy Alpha?
The Samsung Galaxy Alpha is a 4.7-inch Android phone and more importantly the company's first ever metal phone. It's not all metal in the same way that the HTC One M8 or the HTC One Mini 2 are, but it's a welcome move after a long series of plastic-only phones.
Sitting between the S5 Mini and the Galaxy S5, the Alpha costs the same as the iPhone 6 and clearly comes with ambitions to bite into some of those potential Apple sales. In its own right, this is a great 'small' Android phone, but we can't help feeling disappointed that new look aside it doesn't offer a great deal more than the larger S5.
Left to right: S5 Mini, Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy S5
Samsung Galaxy Alpha: Design
Inevitably the metal frame is the major talking point here, but it’s the weight or lack of it, that really makes the strongest first impression. It weighs just 115g, making it lighter than the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 (129g), the S5 Mini (120g) and only slightly heavier than the iPhone 5S (112g). That has a lot to do with the fact that there's still plenty of plastic to balance out the more expensive materials.
Samsung still uses a dimpled soft touch back, although the dotted pattern is more discreet and is softer than it is on the S5 and the S5 Mini. Here's where you'll find the heart rate sensor, next to a 12-megapixel camera sensor and LED flash.
Up front, the bezel around the sides of the screen are nice and slim while the dotted theme from the back continues on the front as and it's more prominent than it is on other Galaxy smartphones. Most will probably not notice it, but we couldn't help feeling it was slightly naff and would have been better left plain. The home button with metal trim is a familiar sight and also supports the fingerprint recognition technology first introduced with the S5.
Left: Galaxy Alpha, Right: HTC One Mini 2
And so to the metal. Samsung uses an aluminium frame around the edges of the Alpha, including the buttons and volume rocker, replacing the metallic-looking plastic trim. It's difficult not to immediately think of the iPhone when you get your hands on it. The metal has a cold, flat feel with an anodised finish to give it a similar metallic sheen as Apple's smartphone. The corners are gently raised to help gripping it in landscape mode and it really does the trick of making this a much more attractive phone.
The problem, however, is that there’s still a great deal of plastic here and next to HTC’s metal phones, it's not really in the same league. It's a lovely phone to grip, though, and 4.7-inches appears to be the magic number for a so-called ‘smaller’ phone. In that respect, the Alpha is more manageable in one hand although the corners can dig in ever so slightly.
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The comparisons with the iPhone don’t end there. The volume rocker is on the left edge and the speaker is on the bottom edge next to the micro USB charging port. Like the S5 Mini, the Galaxy Alpha misses out on USB 3.0 support.The Alpha is just 6.7mm thick, so it’s a slim phone as well, but it's not water and dust resistant like the S5 and the S5 Mini.
The back is still removable, as is the smaller capacity battery, although there’s no micro SD card slot and now you’ll need a nano SIM. It’s those kinds of design consistencies across the Galaxy phones that can be really frustrating at times, though it does make it easier to switch from an iPhone which is perhaps Samsung's aim here.
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Samsung Galaxy Alpha: Screen
The Galaxy Alpha features a 4.7-inch 720p HD screen, so it doesn’t match the S5’s Full HD screen resolution and has more in common with the 4.5-inch S5 Mini. The 312ppi pixel density is short of the 326ppi squeezed of the S5 Mini, though the difference is negligible and it's about the same as the iPhone 6.
Samsung still employs a Super AMOLED panel with the same PenTile array, which as explained in our S5 Mini review can lead to some fuzziness up close. You can still expect an exceptionally bright screen, impressively deep blacks, though colours and contrast tend to look a more erratic on the Alpha.
Running a video comparison next to the S5 and the S5 Mini, the Alpha still delivers a sharp 720p HD display, with good brightness and sharp, detailed images. The differences with the 1080p screen on the S5 are more noticeable. The faces in the episode of Justifed we tested show more detail and colours in the faces look more natural. Colours are more accurate and richer on the S5 as well. The differences between the S5 Mini are not as apparent and there's very little to choose between the two smaller Samsung phones.
This is a solid-performing 720p HD screen on the whole, it’s just a shame Samsung didn’t give it the same Full HD treatment as the Galaxy S5, especially when you consider the difference in price.