The Galaxy Alpha marks a departure from Samsung’s usual design philosophy, and rocks top-notch specs too. Features like the built-in fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor we saw on the Galaxy S5 have made their way to the Alpha too, but sadly, the latter isn’t impervious to water like its more accomplished sibling. With the metal frame as its mainstay, we wanted to know whether the Galaxy Alpha can impress us overall as a compelling option and prove its mettle as a worthy daily driver. And that’s exactly what we hope to accomplish with this review.

1. Samsung
Galaxy Alpha
Review in pictures
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2. 2
First they frame me
DESIGN
The Alpha is the first Galaxy smartphone from Samsung to use metal
Features a metal frame that makes it look like the Apple iPhone
Screams premium in a way no other mainstream Galaxy smartphone has done in the recent
past
Thanks to its 4.7-inch screen, slim bezels and svelte profile, the Alpha is very compact and
great for one-handed use

3. Elegant looks
The metal frame adds to the Galaxy Alpha’s premium feel and elegant looks
Subtle chequered pattern at the rear
The rear panel is removable and gives access to the replaceable battery and the
nano-SIM slot
DESIGN

4. Screen test
The 4.7-inch screen offers a resolution of
1,280 x 720 pixels resulting into a pixel
density of 312ppi
The 720p screen resolution seems low for
a premium device like this
However, the Super AMOLED display on
the Alpha is bright and vivid and we didn’t
really have any issues with it while using
the device as a daily driver
It doesn’t score as high as IPS displays
when it comes to colour accuracy and
viewing angles, but graphics and text look
quite sharp and legibility under direct
sunlight is fine too
Display settings include a glove mode and
various screen modes to let you tweak the
output as per your liking
DISPLAY

5. Shooting shenanigans
The Samsung Galaxy Alpha
offers a 12-meg primary shooter
capable of 4K video recording,
along with a rather mundane 2.1-
megapixel front shooter
The shooting modes available
cover Beauty face, Shot & more,
Panorama, Virtual tour, and Dual
camera, and you can download a
few others
Other features such as HDR
Burst mode and Selective focus
are there too, and you can also
make use of a bunch of live
filters
You can also tweak settings like
ISO, white balance and exposure
CAMERA

6. Pleasing results, overall
The image quality is extremely
pleasing overall, especially when
shot in daylight
The autofocus speeds are quite fast,
but the same can’t be said for the
capture speeds and sometimes, this
can result in blurry shots if the
subjects are in motion
The camera’s low-light imaging
prowess isn’t too impressive, and it
tends to churn out noisy results
when there isn’t enough light
CAMERA
Sunlight
Low Light

7. Touch the wiz
The Alpha runs Samsung’s Touchwiz UI
atop Android KitKat 4.4.4
As usual, you get features like the
Flipboard-powered news aggregator
dubbed My Magazine, along with Multi
Window and a tweaked notification shade
with quick settings
Loads of other features crammed in,
including a handy Download booster, an
Easy mode, Private mode and Direct call
There’s an Air View feature that gives you
thumbnail previews of content such as
images, videos and calendar evens in S
Planner when you hover you finger a little
above the screen without touching it
Battery saving modes include the Ultra
Power Saving mode
USER INTERFACE

8. Frills galore
The fingerprint scanner
and heart rate monitor we
saw on the Galaxy S5
have made their way to the
Alpha too
Setting up the fingerprint
scanner on the Alpha isn’t
as problematic as on the
S5, and the feature works
fairly well. We would still
like to see some more
improvements though
The heart rate monitor at
the rear is tough to locate
by feel, but does its job
USER INTERFACE

9. Testing out its mettle
Powering the show is an Exynos 5 Octa 5430 SoC which utilises a pair of quad-core
clusters clocked at 1.8GHz and 1.3GHz. These are mated to 2GB of RAM
There’s 32GB of non-expandable storage, out of which about 25GB is available to use.
USB OTG is supported, along with support for Indian 4G bands
The Alpha proved to be an able performer and rolled over anything we threw at it –
including multitasking and graphics-intensive games like Asphalt 8
PERFORMANCE

10. The battery keeps up
The 1,860mAh battery
doesn’t seem to great on
paper
Gave us 10 and a half
hours of run time in our
video playback test, but the
battery life isn’t as good in
real life
Can last about a day with
light to medium usage
PERFORMANCE

11. At a glance…
4.7-inch, 1,280 x 720 pixel IPS display
(312ppi)
Exynos 5 Octa 5430 processor (quad-core
1.8GHz and quad-core 1.3GHz)
2GB RAM, 32GB storage (non-expandable)
12-megapixel primary camera, 2.1MP
front
USB OTG, 4G, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11
a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, Wi-Fi
Direct, DLNA, NFC
Android KitKat 4.4.4 with Touchwiz
1,860mAh battery
Fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor

12. Pros and Cons
Elegant looks and metal-reinforced
build
Compact size great for one-handed
use
Smooth performance
Loaded with features
720p screen
Non-expandable storage
Pricey

13. Pricing & Verdict
“The Samsung Galaxy Alpha is one of the best
phones the brand has outed yet. Apart from its low-res
screen and non-expandable storage, it’s difficult
to find fault with it. Sure, the camera is scared of
darkness and the battery life is average, but if you
can afford it, it’s worth considering if you need a
compact daily driver that doesn’t skimp on power
or features.”
Price:
Rs 39,990