The Samsung Galaxy A5 is 6.7mm thin. It is a solid unibody design that looks gorgeous. Just look at the photos.

When Samsung announced the all new metal unibody Galaxy A5 along with the smaller A3, I was really keen to try the Galaxy A5 in particular. I had had a blast using the Samsung Galaxy Alpha but the A5 took the materials to the next level over the Galaxy Alpha. It’s a very solid phone, which doesn’t bend! At 6.7mm thin it fits in all my pockets, shirts and jeans with ease. I’m fact, I enjoyed using this phone so much due to its performance, size, camera and finish. Out and about with friends we spent hours taking endless selfies!

As this is a Samsung, the Galaxy A5 comes equipped with an lovely Super AMOLED display and Adaptive Display technology which as expected produces wonderful images.

The Galaxy A5 proved to be a hit taking selfies. The camera has a Wide Selfie (like a panoramic selfie), Palm Selfie (just hold your palm in front of screen to get 2 sec countdown), Animated GIF, Beauty Face Features (3 different adjustments – beautify, thinner cheeks, eyes) and Rear-Cam Selfie, which enabled me and my friends to capture great selfies in high resolution. Again using the Rear Selfie mode, you got a beep to say locked on to our faces, then countdown beeps before taking the selfie.

The Galaxy A5 was really quick at automatically detecting and focusing on a person’s face. In low light or outdoors my friends and I took some smashing photos. This phone has been clearly tuned for decent selfies and this really surprised me.

The Samsung Galaxy A5 comes with LTE Category 4 which is handy for quick uploads and sharing of photos and videos, to Twitter and other social media websites.

I thought the camera took some great photos too.

In some of the specialist modes like night mode and HDR, the 13mp resolution is dropped to 8mp.

One of my favourite features is Ultra Power Saving Mode. One evening, just before 11pm and with just a few percent battery remaining, I turned on Ultra Power Saving Mode which gave me enough juice for another 25 hours basic phone usage.

The key remaining specs are as follows –

Samsung Galaxy A5 Specifications

– Processor 1.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
– Display 5.0” HD Super AMOLED
– OS Android 4.4 (KitKat)
– Camera Rear: 13MP AF with LED Flash, Front: 5.0MP
– Camera Features – Wide Selfie, Rear-cam Selfie, Beauty Face
– Ultra Power Saving Mode
– Changeable Theme (Natural, Classic, Casual, Romantic),
– Private Mode, Multi Screen, Quick Connect
– Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n
– Bluetooth: 4.0(BLE, ANT+)
– NFC (LTE version only)
– A-GPS/ GLONASS
– Sensors – Accelerometer, Proximity, Geo-magnetic, RGB ambient light, Hall Sensor
– Memory 16GB Internal memory + micro SD slot (up to 64GB)
– 2GB RAM
– Dimension139.3 x 69.7 x 6.7mm, 123g
– Battery 2,300 mAh
– Gorilla Glass 4

I tested the loudspeaker which is next to the camera on the rear. As the camera is slightly raised it doesn’t get muffled. It’s a clear loud sound. Headphones sound good via the headphone jack too. USB Audio is not supported.

Touchwiz now has themes which add a lovely bit of personalisation.

But the real takeaway for me and my friends was how solid, stylish and slim the all metal unibody design felt, the fast speed of operation, and how much fun is was to use the Galaxy A5 to snap selfies using the front or rear camera, and then share them quickly using 4G internet speeds.

To find out more on the Samsung Galaxy A5 and current offers head over to Amazon UK