The other selling point of the device is the 5MP front snapper, which is capable of taking some quality selfies. Contents Retail package Design and construction Display and sound Specs sheet Battery Software Performance Camera Verdict Retail package The first time you see the retail package of the Galaxy A3 you will notice that Samsung is aiming for something else.
The box is small, minimalistic with only two main colors — blue and white.
As we mentioned earlier, Samsung is aiming for a more premium design and the Galaxy A3 actually looks pretty good, especially for a mid-range device. One thing is bothering us though, on the back of the retail box says that the Galaxy A3 features all-metal design, but clearly this is not the case. It is almost completely covered in glass, but there is no word whether Samsung used Gorilla Glass for protection. At the top right corner is located the front 5MP camera along with the light and proximity sensors.
The back of the phone, on the other hand, is made out of plastic and here comes the surprise — it is not removable, so sorry to disappoint you Samsung fans. Also, there is an oddly big LED flash and the usual protruding camera sensor along with the loudspeaker. Now we get to the most exciting part — the aluminum chamfered edges. The bottom of the phone features 3. The left edge is occupied only by the volume rocker and the top side houses only the noise cancelation microphone. The overall feel and look are good.
How to find your lost Samsung Galaxy A3 using Google search:
We liked how the designers managed to get identical looking colors for the plastic back and the anodized aluminum edges. Even the surface of both materials feels almost the same. The Galaxy A3 features a 4. However, sometimes you will notice that some colors are over-saturated and the whites look a little blue-ish at times, but nothing too serious. It is important to note that Samsung has put just the right amount of pixels in the 4. The battery capacity is just what we expect from a mid-ranger — mAh, which would be enough to power the 4.
We expect some pretty good results, though, especially considering the new Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, which aims to be much more power-efficient compared to its successor. However, we made a few tests to see how the battery life stacks up against other smartphones on the market. The tests are as usual — voice call, web browsing, watching a movie and gaming. The Galaxy A3 managed to stay on for minutes 14 hours and 37 minutes of non-stop voice calls.
Comparison: Oppo Find X vs Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
We can consider this as a good result. For this test, we use our own script that automatically browses through over 70 various websites. Significantly lower than web browsing, but still satisfying result.
Again, pretty good result for a mid-ranger — minutes 4 hours and 48 minutes. The Galaxy A3 comes with Android 4. We noticed something different in this model, though. Samsung has put effort in bringing some really useful functions we find in the higher-end models from the company like the Galaxy S5, Note 4 and etc.
Enabling this will notify you for a missed message or phone call when you pick up the phone with the screen switched off. It actually is quite handy. Jumping to the power managment section. You will find this quite useful when you need the extra juice for the rest of the day. For example, you can remove Chrome as a default browser for opening links.
There are also some third party companies who have organised deals with the networks so that they can also unlock a Samsung phone without making it difficult. Remember that although we talk about Samsung Galaxy phones, any Android smartphone can be unlocked using these methods. If you want to unlock an iPhone , you can also do that. For some older Samsung Galaxy phones, there are some unofficial options, including free unlock codes, through which you might be able to unlock them.
This generally involves installing some unofficial software on your phone. With so much malware and viruses on Android, I would really recommend that you avoid these methods.
Find Out Galaxy Smartphone Country Of Origin From IMEI Code
Check if it is actually locked, send your IMEI number to DirectUnlocks and then use your phone on whatever network you want. The easiest way to tell if your Samsung Galaxy is locked is to put a different SIM card into it and see what happens. So a Giff-Gaff sim will normally work on an O2 phone.
SIM Cards are cheap now though, so you could order multiple from different networks and check them all. The cheapest way to unlock your phone is to go direct to the network. We have had a lot of feedback from people who have had to wait weeks for Vodafone to unlock their Samsung phone. They also have very strict restrictions over which phones they will unlock. You need to have had a contract with them for at least 6 months but it must also be active. So if your contract has finished, it resets back to 0 and you need to sign up for another 6 months before they will unlock your phone.
For the majority of people it is better to use DirectUnlocks because they will unlock your Vodafone Samsung phone no matter how long you have had it. They just unlock it. For some O2 customers it can be very easy to unlock their Samsung phone. If you are a Pay-Monthly customer, who got their phone from O2, and you are still in your contract, you can normally get your Samsung phone unlocked for free. You do need to provide security information about your account and the IMEI number but after about a week it should be unlocked. In those cases you will normally find it easier to use DirectUnlocks because they can unlock any Samsung phone on O2 without needing any security information.
Samsung phones that are locked to Three are one of the easiest to get unlocked. On weekdays Monday — Friday , DirectUnlocks say that they can unlock any Samsung device, that is locked to Three, in a matter of hours. Just click on DirectUnlocks and follow the instructions for Three. At the time of writing EE have some pretty stringent rules about unlocking Samsung Galaxy phones.
You must have been on a contract with them for a minimum of 6 months. It used to be that with older Samsung Galaxy phones Normally the Galaxy S3 and older it was quite easy to unlock your phone for free. Just a few years ago this was a reasonably safe thing to do with your phone. But now, it leads to a number of issues. The least of which is that Samsung software, since , regularly checks whether the handset is running an official version of their software and will lock the phone again. Worse than this though is that just like Jail-Breaking on iOS devices, the whole industry behind rooting phones or Jail-breaking, has been taken over by organised criminals who want to install malware on your handset.
I would recommend that you pay the small amount to get your Samsung Galaxy phone unlocked properly and keep the official Samsung software on there. Switching to another mobile network is a great way to save money.
Mobile networks are a bit like banks in that they love to offer great deals to new customers and they all take their existing customers for granted. If your Samsung phone is unlocked then you will be able to switch network, and normally retain your current phone number, and save money. One thing to keep in mind though is that there are now 3 different sizes of SIM cards.