Display and Software

The display Samsung has used for the Galaxy A5 is a 5.0-inch 1280 10 720 Super AMOLED, which equates to effectually 294 pixels per inch. Although the resolution is the same as the display used on the Galaxy Alpha, the A5 gets a minor size bump from four.7 to 5.0 inches, which makes the display xiii% larger in total.

Quality-wise, the Galaxy A5's display has been produced using the aforementioned generation of AMOLED technology as the Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy Note four. These are some of the best AMOLED displays I've ever seen, with color accuracy, gamma, white residual and saturation all improved over previous panels such as the one seen on the Galaxy S5.

Y'all still get all the fantastic characteristics of an AMOLED panel with the Galaxy A5's. Blacks are deep, providing a contrast ratio that'southward substantially infinite. Viewing angles are also excellent, the integrated touchscreen is extremely responsive, and the panel itself is thin, allowing more infinite to be occupied past internal hardware.

This particular AMOLED display is i of the brightest I've seen, which helps significantly with readability in vivid environments, particularly sunny days. Samsung has still implemented a readability enhancement style that activates when you lot're outside on a sunny day, though it's less aggressive than previous implementations and doesn't launder out the on-screen paradigm as much. I'd still like to run into an option to disable this feature in the device'south brandish settings, all the same.

What y'all exercise get in the settings are the usual screen modes that change the color tone and saturation of the display. You don't get sliders to control these settings (unfortunately), but you can enable AMOLED Photo style if y'all prefer your display to be as accurate as possible.

The downsides to AMOLED panels remains largely the aforementioned as several years ago, though, despite significant improvements in color quality, color accurateness and outdoor readability. The Galaxy A5's display is nevertheless too oversaturated for my liking, and no screen mode strikes a perfect, accurate residual. Brightness, while decent on this AMOLED, still tin can't reach the aforementioned heights as equivalent LCDs available today.

Every bit for resolution, this 720p AMOLED is fine for mean solar day to twenty-four hours use, and generally displays crisp-plenty imagery and text. Manifestly it'south not going to have the aforementioned level of sharpness and clarity as the latest 1080p and 1440p displays, simply in a mid-range device you can't really expect these high-end displays, fifty-fifty in 2015. Luckily for us, 720p is better for performance and meliorate for battery life, especially on mid-range SoCs.

One thing I did detect odd is the continued use of a PenTile subpixel matrix on a display of this size and density. Samsung now has the engineering to produce v.vii-inch and even five.1-inch 1440p PenTile AMOLEDs – at densities of 515 and 575 PPI respectively – so surely it'd be possible to develop a v.0-inch 720p panel that uses the superior RGB stripe matrix. It's definitely not a big deal, only I'd similar to come across more AMOLED's switch to RGB stripe where possible.

Moving on to software, and there's zip unexpected about the Milky way A5'due south mix of Android iv.4.4 and TouchWiz. The included software is identical to that found on the Galaxy Note iv (bated from some hardware-related feature restrictions) which itself is a small upgrade from the Galaxy S5's software. My reviews of both those handsets will tell yous all yous need to know about the latest Samsung Android experience.

My impressions of Samsung's mix of TouchWiz and Android are also the aforementioned as terminal fourth dimension I used it. The skin itself is merely okay, with a bit of clunk and bloat to be establish in well-nigh every corner. Visually, Samsung'due south blueprint is passable, and ideally I'd like to see more than of a stock Android influence. Nevertheless, the characteristic set up is excellent, with a number of useful additions including multi window mode, copious quick settings, and easy connectivity features.

It is disappointing that Samsung hasn't shipped the Galaxy A5 with Android 5.0 on board, especially as the latest version of the Bone would bring full support for the 64-fleck capable SoC inside the handset. As of the time of writing this review, an update to Lollipop hasn't been provided, more three months after the OS' launch.