After several leaks and rumours, Samsung has finally launched its slimmest smartphone, the Galaxy A8, in China. The Samsung Galaxy A7 successor is just 5.9mm thick but is not the slimmest in the market. Handsets like Gionee Elife S7, Oppo R5 and Vivo X5Max feature 5.5mm, 4.85mm and 4.75mm thickness respectively. The Samsung smartphone is available in Black, White, and Gold colour variants, and is up for preorders only in China.
The Android 5.1.1 Lollipop-based Samsung Galaxy A8 runs TouchWiz UI on top and features two SIM slots, of which one also acts as a microSD card slot. This means that users would either get a dual-SIM support without a microSD card storage expansion or a single-SIM support with microSD card expansion. The smartphone boasts metal side bezels, near bezel-less screen and appears similar to the flagship Galaxy S6 from the front. However, besides its slim profile, the company has managed to squeeze in a fingerprint sensor, which also doubles as the home button.
(Also see: Samsung Galaxy A8 vs. Samsung Galaxy A7)
As for the specifications, the Samsung Galaxy A8 houses a larger display, better camera, and a bigger battery over its predecessor, the Galaxy A7. The device equips a 5.7-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) resolution Super AMOLED display and runs on the same 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor (four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.5GHz + four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.0GHz). Also included is the Adreno 405 GPU for handling graphics, and 2GB of RAM. The smartphone is available in two storage variants - 16GB and 32GB inbuilt storage. Support for microSD card (up to 128GB) is also present.
The Galaxy A8's camera setup features a 16-megapixel autofocus rear camera with optical image stabilisation, f/1.9 aperture, a wide-angle lens (120 degrees) and LED flash. Like seen in Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, the Galaxy A8's camera can also be activated quickly by pressing the home button twice. A front-facing 5-megapixel camera is also included. The connectivity options include 4G FDD LTE, TDD LTE with Band 40 (2300MHz) support available in India, Bluetooth 4.1, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, GPS, Glonass, Beidou, NFC, and USB 2.0.
(Also see: Samsung Galaxy A8 vs. Gionee Elife S7)
The latest offering by Samsung is backed by a 3050mAh battery, which as per the company gives a standby time (4G TDD LTE + 2G GSM) of up to 304 hours. The Galaxy A8 measures 158x76.8x5.9mm and weighs 10 grams more than its predecessor - 151 grams.
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