Samsung‘s mid-ranger, the Samsung Galaxy A8 DUOS (priced at around Php 24,990 for the 64GB variant), finally found its way here at manilashaker. In regards to its arrival, we went in immediately and unboxed the Samsung Galaxy A8, find out what are our first thoughts on the Galaxy A8.
We also paired the said Samsung device to Sony’s C5 Ultra for a quick size up comparison. The Galaxy A8 is available in all grey markets and online stores in the Philippines for a decent price.
Table of Contents
Unboxing the Samsung Galaxy A8 – What’s in the box?
Before we proceed with the unboxing of the Galaxy A8, we can’t help but notice the attracting blue box of the Galaxy A series, they pretty much has the same design with the A5’s, its just that the A8’s box is a bot more thinner than the A5’s. Now enough about boxes, lets proceed with the content, the Samsung Galaxy A8 retail box carries the unit itself, which for us carries the champagne gold variant, a 3 pin wall charger, a microUSB cable for the charger, the in-ear headset, with different earbuds that has different sizes and a SIM ejector tool.
- Samsung Galaxy A8 champagne gold variant
- 3 pin wall charger
- MicroUSB cable
- Headphones
- Earbud variants
- SIM ejector tool
Hands-on and first impressions
The Samsung Galaxy A8 sports a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display, which looked really good. We happen to unbox the Galaxy A5 yesterday and briefly compared the two’s differences, with the display being the main highlight. For starters, the Galaxy A8 carries a pretty decently large screen in its arsenal, in which has a measurement of 73.8% screen-to-body ratio, while supported by a 1080p resolution and Samsung’s formidable OLED technology.
The Galaxy A8, despite looking luxurious in a distance, felt a bit vanilla-like in hand, in terms of exterior design and overall handling feel. The plastic back felt really non-premium like, despite the really cool champagne color variant, though the metal framing of the Galaxy A8 looks outstanding to say the least.
The Samsung Galaxy A8 is one of Samsung’s thinnest handsets, with a measurement of 5.9mm, though some other smartphones in the market trumps the thinness level of the A8, its still a very good contender in that category.
For the rest of the features upfront, the 5MP front facing camera of the Galaxy A8 is conveniently placed at the upper left part of the device, together with the listening gap, while on the bottom part is its menu button. The A8’s overall front look is kinda reminiscent of iPhone 6, and the ironic gold variant makes it more closer to Apple’s flagship. Despite being a bit out of it, in terms of handling feel, the Galaxy A8 was still available to provide a decent handling performance, thanks to its metal alloy side framings, which gave the device for gripping capability.
On the left is where the plastic matte volume rocker buttons of the Galaxy A8 is handily placed, while on the right is where the power button is sported. The positioning is okay and pretty convenient, despite the absence of anything new on the Galaxy A8’s front.
Lets move on to the back, as mentioned before, the back cover was plastic matte made, which didn’t feel luxurious. It was a shocker, since previous handsets, like the A5 that we have here is metal plated and we praised it for its sophistication, so with its absence, it felt like Samsung could have done something to make the Galaxy A8 more sophisticated. At the top part of the Galaxy A8’s back is its 16MP rear shooter, with its LED flash located at its right side, while on left is where the speaker is oddly located. The speaker positioning was quite something, though it wasn’t necessarily something bad nor good. The titular “Samsung” logo is conveniently located just a bit below the rear shooter.
For device’s apps, the Samsung Galaxy A8 has some pretty decent built-in Google apps, which is actually pleasant to those who uses a lot of Google’s services. The Galaxy A8 also has built-in Microsoft Office applications, which is quite convenient.
Overall experiences so far on the device was really good, however, they were a few lags experienced while texting, we’re not exactly sure if its only on the device that we have or if its something occurs frequently on other Galaxy A8 devices. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 is doing its job.
Screen size up VS Xperia C5 Ultra
The Xperia C5 Ultra and Galaxy A8 are both mid – ranged smartphones, though the Xperia C5 Ultra is considerably more known than the Galaxy A8. The C5 Ultra was seen to be a bit larger and more heavier than the Galaxy A8’s more compact built. The C5 Ultra and Galaxy A8 has an almost identical screen size, though the Super AMOLED screen of Samsung is still more likely to be triumphant than the C5 Ultra’s.
Highlights of first impressions of the Galaxy A8
- Cool alloy side frames
- Vanilla-like plastic matte back
- Excellent OLED technology from Samsung
- built – in Google apps and Microsoft Office apps
- smooth swiping experience
What do you think of the Galaxy A8? Hit us up on the comments section below. We highly value your feedbacks.
Samsung Galaxy A8 specs, PH Price |
| 5.7-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, 386ppi |
| 5.9mm thickness, 151g weight |
| Cornings Gorilla Glass 4 |
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 |
| 2GB of RAM |
| 32GB internal storage, microSD card up to 128GB |
| 16MP rear shooter |
| 5MP selfie shooter |
| 4G LTE, WiFi ac, BT 4.1, GPS, GLONASS/Beidou, NFC, FM Radio with RDS recording |
| Android 5.1 Lollipop |
| 3050mAh battery |
| Pearl white, midnight black, champagne gold |
| Php 24,990 PH price on Lazada PH, as of October 6, 2015 |
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