Samsung Galaxy Alpha official

Sensamic · Aug 13, 2014

It's finally official:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...etal-made-and-the-thinnest-Galaxy-yet_id59293

Those who wanted better build quality (myself included) will be happy, although it's still plastic on the back (and on the front?).

Good specs except the battery.

Cool to have 4K video recording.

They say price is over 600$. Too much if you ask me just to have a metal frame.

No microSD, but 32GB of on-board storage might be enough for many.

Anyone interested in buying?

dec. · Aug 13, 2014

Too thin, people will drop it. Why is Samsung on this "thinner!!11!1!!!"-trip?
No Micro-SD? That's a joke.
Protruding camera - completely unusable on flat surfaces like Starbucks coffee tables.

Fail.

Shuri · Aug 13, 2014

Sensamic said:
It's finally official:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...etal-made-and-the-thinnest-Galaxy-yet_id59293

Those who wanted better build quality (myself included) will be happy, although it's still plastic on the back (and on the front?).

Good specs except the battery.

Cool to have 4K video recording.

They say price is over 600$. Too much if you ask me just to have a metal frame.

No microSD, but 32GB of on-board storage might be enough for many.

Anyone interested in buying?

Well, it's not a beauty if you ask me, but that's highly subjective obviously.

I don't see a problem with the battery: Many people could get through the day with this and therefore don't want a thicker device: Good move.

What bothers me is the screen: I recall correctly the S3 had a 4.8" 720p display with a pentile layout and it looks rather washed out. On the other hand it matches the fact, that the battery is smaller than on a S4/S5.

Price seems ok since it will a) drop in price in the market and b) try to compete the iPhone which is at 700$ and fix.

All in all I wouldn't buy, but I can see what Samsung is aiming at and in my opinion it's a good idea: You can debate if they're clustering their phone section to much (I wouldn't do this if I were them), but it has its advantages.

----------

dec. said:
Too thin, people will drop it. Why is Samsung on this "thinner!!11!1!!!"-trip?
No Micro-SD? That's a joke.
Protruding camera - completely unusable on flat surfaces like Starbucks coffee tables.

Fail.

Thinner is very easy marketable, Apple understood this.

Samsung to date tries the: This thing has an HexaCore Ultra 4K triple Z 2.0 High Definition Processor... whatever this even means.

If someone absolutely not into tech goes into a store and sees a phone as thin as never seen before he will leave amazed (and probably with that phone).
Samsung's equivalent of Apple's making-it-thinner was making the screen bigger, but they're reaching the limits.

tl;dr Phone makers need something, that is visible on first sight and thus makes older phones feel dated.

skratch77 · Aug 13, 2014

Samsung missed it in my opinion. Why can't they make this a 4.8 1080p in the same shell with a little less bezzle and add 3 GB ram with a 805 soc along with a 2400 battery?

That would of been a game changer as some or most of us are sick of there phones getting bigger and bigger with the latest flagship specs.

Samsung give us a real power house flagship 4.8 in cell and get rid of all the bs active,mini,mega,micro 2009 speced cells you dump out.

We want a flagship mini phone with decent battery and killer screen.

nfl46 · Aug 13, 2014

I guess they are trying to cripple Apple sales some...5.7" Note 4 + 4.7" Galaxy Alpha in September.

Oohara · Aug 13, 2014

I don't mind thin, I always use a case anyway so a phone can hardly get too thin for me. Hopefully the Note 4 is also thinner than its predecessor, would be really nice if it was very light to make prolonged holding more comfortable.

Shame about the screen res though. I thought they were going for a really premium device to compete with the iPhone 6.

Shanghaichica · Aug 13, 2014

This is a no for me.

If the S series and Note series is going down this line, I.e style over substance, no micro SD card then I may as well cut my losses with Samsung and go back to Apple.

Oohara · Aug 13, 2014

Shanghaichica said:
This is a no for me.

If the S series and Note series is going down this line, I.e style over substance, no micro SD card then I may as well cut my losses with Samsung and go back to Apple.

I highly doubt they'll go this way with the Note and regular S series. This was probably just a quick stab at grabbing some of the users who'd be getting an iPhone mainly for style reasons. Our Note 4 should retain all the bells and whistles the series is known for...otherwise they'll seriously have shot themselves in the foot.

The Game 161 · Aug 13, 2014

Oohara said:
I highly doubt they'll go this way with the Note and regular S series. This was probably just a quick stab at grabbing some of the users who'd be getting an iPhone mainly for style reasons. Our Note 4 should retain all the bells and whistles the series is known for...otherwise they'll seriously have shot themselves in the foot.

Yeah that's how I see it too. They have too much good with what works with the note line.

JaySoul · Aug 13, 2014

They've got certain things right but others wrong:

- Screen is fine, 90% of people will be happy
- Size is excellent
- 32gb is nice (again most people don't need more)
- Still has removable battery
- Camera should be good enough
- Super slim and light, very good
- Bit of metal makes it a bit more premium

The not so good:

- Front is a blatant copy of iPhone, embarrassing
- That back is just ugly
- Price too high if they really want to sabotage the iPhone
- Not waterproof
- It will still run TouchWiz

tbayrgs · Aug 13, 2014

Wow, the Alpha is even getting crushed by the Android faithful over at Android Central--common theme is 'iPhone clone' and only releasing before the next iPhone so that they aren't accused of copying them. I can't say I disagree--display size and resolution, battery size (only 1860 mAh) nearly identical to rumored iPhone 6 specs. Also, no microSD slot. I don't really understand Samsung's thinking on this one. If potential iPhone customers aren't enticed by the S5, why would they choose a device that's inferior in nearly every way to the S5 and only marginally smaller?

jamezr · Aug 13, 2014

tbayrgs said:
Wow, the Alpha is even getting crushed by the Android faithful over at Android Central--common theme is 'iPhone clone' and only releasing before the next iPhone so that they aren't accused of copying them. I can't say I disagree--display size and resolution, battery size (only 1860 mAh) nearly identical to rumored iPhone 6 specs. Also, no microSD slot. I don't really understand Samsung's thinking on this one. If potential iPhone customers aren't enticed by the S5, why would they choose a device that's inferior in nearly every way to the S5 and only marginally smaller?

Agreed......you would think if they were going to do this they would "Go Big" and do it right....but the Alpha is not it......

Cnasty · Aug 13, 2014

Oh Samsung...

tbayrgs · Aug 13, 2014

jamezr said:
Agreed......you would think if they were going to do this they would "Go Big" and do it right....but the Alpha is not it......

And early indications are that pricing is going to be pretty close to all other flagships.

Until this point I found most of the claims of Samsung copying Apple to be pretty much nonsense but moves like this are going to do nothing to squash those claims, and I can't say I disagree. This purely screams 'Can't beat 'em, join 'em.'

Shanghaichica · Aug 13, 2014

JaySoul said:
They've got certain things right but others wrong:

- Screen is fine, 90% of people will be happy
- Size is excellent
- 32gb is nice (again most people don't need more)
- Still has removable battery
- Camera should be good enough
- Super slim and light, very good
- Bit of metal makes it a bit more premium

The not so good:

- Front is a blatant copy of iPhone, embarrassing
- That back is just ugly
- Price too high if they really want to sabotage the iPhone
- Not waterproof
- It will still run TouchWiz[/QUOTE]

It's a Samsung phone so it's going to run Samsung's software not pure android or sense or something else.

jrswizzle · Aug 13, 2014

Lmao - Samsung.....

Well, it's been a nice run. Looking forward to seeing HTC and LG step up and take over the high-end Android segment. Samsung's on the way down....

blairh · Aug 13, 2014

Seeing this makes me more excited for the iPhone 6 because I'm betting the iPhone 6 will be even lighter than the Galaxy Alpha.

With respect to the Alpha, I find it a lot more appealing than the S5. Battery life however would concern me and I'd wait for official reviews before making a buying decision.

Shanghaichica · Aug 13, 2014

jrswizzle said:
Lmao - Samsung.....

Well, it's been a nice run. Looking forward to seeing HTC and LG step up and take over the high-end Android segment. Samsung's on the way down....

I doubt that LG et al will be able to achieve the same dominate that samsung currently enjoy. HTC were on top before but they were nowhere near as successful as Samsung have been.

jrswizzle · Aug 13, 2014

Shanghaichica said:
I doubt that LG et al will be able to achieve the same dominate that samsung currently enjoy. HTC were on top before but they were nowhere near as successful as Samsung have been.

Oh let's hope not. While I would much rather see HTC or LG on top to see what they could do as the lead dog, I hope we don't ever see the same dominance from another Android OEM as we've seen from Samsung. It's just not good for the platform when one OEM has a stranglehold on the market share - especially an OEM with poor software and inefficient hardware.

Sensamic · Aug 13, 2014

jamezr said:
Agreed......you would think if they were going to do this they would "Go Big" and do it right....but the Alpha is not it......

Maybe they didn't want to give it high end specs because they already have the SGS5 and Note 4 for that. Having three high end flagships in one year would be crazy and they would end up eating sales from each other.

People would stop buying the SGS5 if the Alpha were the same but thinner and with metal.

Overall it's an interesting phone IMO, but that price... not worth it.

gotluck · Aug 13, 2014

hey jr samsung hardware is great

probably the most well rounded android oem regarding bleeding edge processors, camera quality, screen quality, sdcard, battery life + removable

most other OEM's have to sacrifice camera, LG seems to overheat more than samsung

It's killing me that that they wont offer stock android on samsung though. I'm getting the feeling GPE is dead for samsung and its been too quiet on the whole silver thing

OT: I've only had qualcomm devices, is this processor current gen?

jrswizzle · Aug 13, 2014

gotluck said:
hey jr samsung hardware is great probably the most well rounded android oem regarding bleeding edge processors, camera quality, screen quality, sdcard, battery life + removable

most other OEM's have to sacrifice camera, LG seems to overheat more than samsung

It's killing me that that they wont offer stock android on samsung though. I'm getting the feeling GPE is dead for samsung and its been too quiet on the whole silver thing

I prefer LCDs to AMOLEDs - HTC's hardware was better IMO, save for the bezel-to-display ratio. That is something I think Samsung does the best.

Processor speed is irrelevant if the software runs it down. Sense is a far better skin which makes it seem like the HTC One is a far faster device - even if the processor isn't technically as good.

Battery life is pretty much on par with almost every other device out there. I haven't seen major swings on any devices I've used. They all generally get me through a day with somewhere between 30-50% left.

And I'm not a fan of Samsung's design language - hardware or software-wise (except for the Alpha because it looks like an iPhone).

gotluck · Aug 13, 2014

jrswizzle said:
I prefer LCDs to AMOLEDs - HTC's hardware was better IMO, save for the bezel-to-display ratio. That is something I think Samsung does the best.

Processor speed is irrelevant if the software runs it down. Sense is a far better skin which makes it seem like the HTC One is a far faster device - even if the processor isn't technically as good.

Battery life is pretty much on par with almost every other device out there. I haven't seen major swings on any devices I've used. They all generally get me through a day with somewhere between 30-50% left.

And I'm not a fan of Samsung's design language - hardware or software-wise (except for the Alpha because it looks like an iPhone).

well, since I have GPE I suppose my experience is skewed, Spec wise though, the hardware is cream of the crop

I too prefer LCD, but gave it up for the better camera

I like HTC and Moto as OEMS more
cant fix the camera, but the user can fix the software (well, in current gen samsungs case, only if you buy tmobile)

Wiesenlooser · Aug 13, 2014

The frame kind of looks like many of these aluminum bumper cases for the iphone.

Otherwise it looks fairly decent. But it is still samsungs touchwiz plus the battery on this thing will just melt away

But that background image looks pretty cool

ritholtz · Aug 13, 2014

That wall paper is nice. I think, it is good. It is cross of s5 and iphone. I would like to get this metal bezel for my S5. Not many pics of blue color one.

Samsung Galaxy Alpha official

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