It has been coming for more than a year now but finally Samsung Galaxy A8 2016 is here. The phone has been made available to those in the local South Korean market, but it should make its way to the rest of the world in no time.
Ever since the start of the Galaxy A series, Samsung has had a lot of success with the midrange family. This has led to the expansion of the series to include more handsets, but this doesn’t mean the tech giant has turned its back on older handsets in the same series.
The release of Samsung Galaxy A8 2016 is an indicator that last year’s variant was indeed a success, hence the need for a refreshed version.
Ever since the company shifted the design material of its flagship Galaxy S series from plastic to glass and metal, Samsung has been coming in with premium-looking metallic Galaxy A handsets and the new Galaxy A8 2016 is no exception. Although a mid-ranger, you will definitely love the looks of the new handset.
Being a phablet, the Galaxy A8 2016 measures 156.6 x 76.8 x 7.2 mm and has a weight of 182g thanks to the all-metal build it comes with. The display screen of the handset is 5.7 inches in size and it’s a Super AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. To make it more unique and a little bit closer to the likes of Samsung Galaxy S7, S7 Edge and Galaxy Note 7, the company added Always On Display to this handset.
Under the hood, you get last year’s flagship chipset – the Exynos 7420 – an octa-core processor that is clocked at a speed of 2.1GHz. This is the same chipset you find in the likes of Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5. The new Galaxy A8 2016 further borrows the same 3GB RAM and 32GB of onboard storage used on the 2015 Samsung Galaxy flagships, alongside a microSD card slot. Samsung will also be offering the phone with a 64GB storage variant but in limited numbers.
At the back of the Galaxy A8 2016 you get a 16MP sensor with f/1.9 aperture while the front has an 8MP sensor that keeps the same aperture. The battery capacity is 3300mAh and it is rechargeable via a microUSB v2.0 port. Android Marshmallow powers the phone out of the box.
As for the pricing and availability, the Galaxy A8 2016 is currently available in South Korea for pre-orders, with the official release coming later this month. The phone has a price tag of 649K Korean Won, an equivalent of about $590. It remains to be seen if this price and specs combination of the A8 2016 will attract more followers.