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Samsung Alpha ! a New beginning for Samsung Mobile Design

Anonymous
Not applicable

Samsung Alpha - My review

 

Firstly it was nice to receive a nicely packaged phone. Its box was both compact and robust with no wasted space and contained everything one needed to get started.

 

The phone on the other hand was a breath of fresh air. Its style very reminiscent of the iPhone 4 with its aluminium frame.

I have never really considered Samsung for a handset as even their premium handsets look and feel cheap and plastic so if Samsung continue with this premium styling I may reconsider my choice in future.

 

Handling the phone is very nice and unlike most other Samsung phone has a firm a solid feel with no flexing of any parts thanks to its aluminium frame.

Now its unboxed comes the job of charging the unit.  Wow! A real battery that is user insert able and replaceable so heavy users can buy a spare, a great idea and best of all it has not compromised the phones thickness. (A note to all manufacturers who seal the battery in the phone on the grounds it aids slimness! It’s not true just built in obsolescence). Sadly the battery charger itself was pretty large and clunky. If other manufacturers can manage a charger the size of a slim line mains plug so it should be possible for Samsung too.

 

Sadly the battery cover was back to Samsung’s cheap and cheerful plastic so too was the phones chassis, but give Samsung their dues the chassis was solid with no wasted space.

 

I think the biggest disappointment was the lack of an expandable memory card slot, so not unlike Henry Ford you can have it in any size so long as it’s 32GB. For what is a semi premium phone and a pretty costly one at that the omission of expandable memory is a costly mistake on Samsung’s part.

An overnight charge and it’s time to rock n roll. Powering up the phone one is faced by a super bright and vibrant display.  OK it’s not the highest of resolutions but let’s face it unless one is in league with the opticians a visit will soon be required if you have intentions of watching movies on such a screen size. Really in all honesty I cannot fault the screen, for its size it’s perfect. Sound was not too bad either with a more than adequate volume level. A little tinny but as most users tend to use earphones to listen to music it’s perfectly acceptable.

 

Touch response was both quick and accurate. Streaming video was good and so too was its 4G upload and download speeds. Not much more one can ask from it. Good to see some thought had gone into the choice of processor and graphics processor.  Gamers will not be disappointed.

The camera whilst pretty modest does have the benefit of 4K video, although you will need upgrade your television to see the benefits of it. Colour rendition is good and the colours vibrant on the OLED screen. Sharpness while not the best is almost unperceivable on such a small screen. The only downside of the camera is it’s not flush with the body so the fashionistas out there will still have something to comment on.

 

In conclusion it’s a well presented phone and hopefully something that Samsung will work on.   Better still instead of following in Apples footsteps with an Aluminium frame maybe Samsung should take a radical departure and make a frame and chassis from magnesium for a truly premium phone design

Again the lack of expandable memory will have killed it for many potential users and the excuse of its not required because of the inclusive cloud storage is misleading. Using the cloud to upload and download too eats into ones data allowance.

 

Unfortunately compared to the likes of lesser and cheaper Samsung mobiles it’s overpriced for what you get I would not value it at above £200.

Let’s hope Samsung take note of the criticism and build on this and win a few more customers from the likes of Apple and HTC.

Come on Samsung, follow through and make this a base design for all Samsung mid to premium phones

11 Comments
jonsie
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Nice honest and personal review @Anonymous slight_smile

jonsie
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I've flagged this to be made into a new thread so it's not buried within the pages of TTT:smileywink:

Cleoriff
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Hi @Anonymous 

Good review. Very interesting and informative. I do enjoy these reviews being so varied and interesting nowadays. Great to read. wink

Good call jonsie for asking it to be moved to a thread of its own. I missed it first time round hidden in here..

viridis
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Very informative review,
Can I ask why you valued it so low?
£200 for something on par with iPhone 6 seems a little low to me.
Toby
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Lovely write-up @Anonymous . This is your first ever review on here right? Great job slight_smile

Anonymous
Not applicable

The design was very basic using off the shelf parts. Without the aluminium trim   and its compactness I would have valued it much less.

Samsung have been very clever with the budget selection of components in that they compliment each other. But this is far from a premium phone.

One cannot use an iPhone 6 as a comparison with any phone when it comes to value.

Apple have a loyal following of fashion conscious users who will pay any price to be seen with the latest Apple offering and Apple know it. As with any exclusive product the price in no way reflects the its value so a premium price is listed to make it seem exclusive.

Value wise the iPhone six is terrible value for money even taking away duel speakers and giving the user a mono handset.  Its not rocket science to incorporate two low profile speakers with good tonal range, but it does save money.

Apple have lost the plot with the six, there is no Apple identity in the six, It looks like any other large screen phone on the market. Build wise the HTC M8-M9 are far superior, put an apple logo on them and the Apple brigade of wannabe fashionistas would be ecstatic with delight and singing its praises from the roof tops.

 

Cleoriff
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Hi @Anonymous 

Can I ask what phone you are currently using?

I was convinced you had an iPhone.....until you made those comments about Apple in your last paragraph LOL

Signed 'Cleo...a dedicated Note 3 user'... wink

Anonymous
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Work supplies me with an Apple but not being an iphone lover I hide it in an otterbox defender case, Only good thing about it is the large memory capacity to dump your work onto and leave your laptop at home., My other phone is an HTC One Max, far superior than any apple. I also have an Irridium 9575 Sat phone for work use
Cairdeas
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Nice review @Anonymous I actually quite like samsung, but not the build quality. They seem to be addressing that currently tho, and I may even be tempted over from my beloved HTC in the future. Just maybe mind wink My M8 has micro sd slot , so happy for now slight_smile x

viridis
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Personally I thought the spec was good,(excl screen) hardly off the shelf at all, samsungs first foray into metal bodied handsets while combining slim profile with a very speedy octa core Exynos 5430 was hardly keeping it cheap.
I'd go as far as saying the alpha was actually better specced than the iPhone and even the m7 if discounting the screen.
I'd say it was overpriced and should have sat at the 350-400 range, but not 200.
A phone with that spec for £200?
Never
Cleoriff
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@viridis wrote:
Personally I thought the spec was good,(excl screen) hardly off the shelf at all, samsungs first foray into metal bodied handsets while combining slim profile with a very speedy octa core Exynos 5430 was hardly keeping it cheap.
I'd go as far as saying the alpha was actually better specced than the iPhone and even the m7 if discounting the screen.
I'd say it was overpriced and should have sat at the 350-400 range, but not 200.
A phone with that spec for £200?
Never

And on that note of technical excellence Cleo will 'back away from the mic'..Happy Dance