Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Good battery life ; Potent OLED screen ; High-quality build

Fairly pedestrian CPU tech ; No camera OIS ; A little pricey for the hardware

The new Samsung Galaxy A5 looks like a flagship, performs like a mid-ranger and is priced somewhere in-between. It's a great phone, but a middling camera and CPU ensure it doesn't fully rise above rivals.

Great build quality ; Punchy AMOLED screen ; Good battery life ; Decent cameras

Video could be a little sharper ; Some better-specced competition ; Audio is disappointing

Neatly balancing performance and price, the A5 has plenty to like - but there are strong rivals nipping at its heels

Flagship features like water resistance, AMOLED screen ; Decent performance and battery life ; Killer design

Outdated Android ; Beaten on specs by cheaper rivals ; Camera only works well in good light

Takes most of the features we loved in the Galaxy S7, but distills them down into a much more affordable handset. Specs might lag behind the OnePluses of the world, but design is on point.

Premium design ; Smooth performance ; Well designed UX ; Strong display

Out-performed by similarly priced phones ; Fingerprint magnet ; No 4K video recording

It’s not a perfect mid-range phone, but it consistently hits all the key notes you’d want a device in its class to, and it does so very well. It also does an excellent job of distilling down some of the main draws of the Galaxy S7 flagship, so if...

The Galaxy A5 2017 is a fantastic mid-range phone, with the looks of a flagship and some decent performance and all-round specs. Our only real concern is that Samsung is pricing itself out the market, with just a small difference in price separating...

High-end metal and glass build materials and design, capable processor, well-optimised hardware and software, waterproof, decent camera, great display, superb battery life, affordable

A little lacking in top-end performance grunt

A really fantastic phone for the price, with excellent design and build, and has some of the best battery life on the market

I'm in two minds about the Samsung Galaxy A5. On the one hand, Samsung Pay and IP68 certification are really nice. On the other hand, the OnePlus 3T offers dramatically more performance for the same price.

We take away two things about the S7 and the new A5 after using both for a while: these are two very good phones, but they are also different in more ways than is apparent by just looking at the two from aside.

Great design: solid build, comfortable size, nice heft ; Water resistance is a great extra ; Excellent battery life and quick charging ; Very good image quality in daylight ; Excellent on-screen keyboard, great typing experience ; Support expandable...

A bit overpriced ; Sub-par video rec quality, lack of video stabilization results in very shaky videos ; Runs on a 1-year-old Android version (6.0 Marshmallow) ; Performance is a bit stuttery, especially with more intense apps ; No LED notification light

The Galaxy A5 (2017) is such an interesting device: it’s designed to near perfection with a stylish curved glass back and metal frame, and has the water-protection that only more expensive phones have.