Samsung announces the metal-frame Galaxy Alpha to compete with the 4.7-inch iPhone 6
Samsung has been making smartphones with the same components for years, and it’s worked very well. The company reached the pinnacle of smartphone sales while pushing devices made of plastic with weird faux-leather textures, but then things went wrong. Samsung’s sales have started to tank and it seems like the mediocre designs are the cause. After promising that it would use new materials in a phone this year, the long-rumored Galaxy Alpha has been announced. It has a metal frame, smaller screen, and — rather unfortunately — more modest specs than the S5. It’s also a substantial departure for Samsung’s design language — the Galaxy Alpha looks a lot like an iPhone.
The metal build is being pushed heavily in all the advertising for the Alpha, to the point you’d assume the whole thing is a solid chunk of metal like the HTC One M8. Alas, it only has a metal frame around the edge, replacing the plastic painted to look like metal that has graced most of Samsung’s recent phones. The back panel is still made of plastic and is removable to reveal a smaller 1,860 mAh removable battery. The Alpha also has 32GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM, and a 12MP camera.
The Alpha is definitely not meant to be a successor or replacement for the Galaxy S5, even though that device hasn’t been selling particularly well. The screen on this phone is smaller at 4.7 inches (same as the rumored iPhone 6), but it’s only 1280×720. It does still rely on Samsung’s customary Super AMOLED tech, though. Stepping back to 720p places this phone clearly in the mid-range of Samsung’s offerings despite the metal construction.
Going to 720p is an interesting choice for Samsung. The lower resolution means the display will use much less power than a full HD panel would, and that allows for the use of a smaller lithium-ion battery. The overall device is therefore thinner and lighter — it’s only 6.1mm thick and 115 grams. By comparison, the Galaxy S5 is 8.1mm thick and 145 grams. The screen has a density of 312 pixels per inch, which is reasonably good, but Samsung’s AMOLEDs use a PenTile subpixel arrangement, which can produce visible blurriness at this resolution. It’s not a problem at 1080p.
That lower resolution screen will also serve to make the device more responsive, to better compete with the next generation iPhone. The version of the Alpha announced by Samsung has an Exynos 5 Octa processor, which should have no trouble pushing the pixels on a 720p screen. While the Galaxy S5 was a fast phone, Samsung’s devices tend to get a little sluggish over time (even on Android 4.4). The Alpha will hopefully avoid that.
The Samsung Galaxy Alpha is a hedge against several troubling trends for the world’s largest smartphone maker. It partially addresses concerns over device build quality with the metal frame, it changes up Samsung’s boring old design language, and it slims down to better compete against the iPhone. It’s basically an experiment — a prototype device that explores new approaches that might stop Samsung’s sales slide before it’s too late. It’s possible the Galaxy S6 will look a lot more like the Galaxy Alpha than the Galaxy S5. The Galaxy Alpha is shipping early next month, but pricing and regional availability are still unknown.
Author: By Ryan Whitwam