Samsung may be the primary Android device peddler (it was responsible for over a third of Android phones shipped in the last quarter) but it’s important to remember that the South Korean electronics company still faces stiff competition from around the smartphone market. Not only did phone maker Xiaomi just edge it out of China, claiming Samsung’s long-held spot as the country’s most popular smartphone producer, but they continue to face mounting pressure from Apple’s line of iPhones. The iPhone 6 is right around the corner, gearing up for a much rumoured September release but with Apple’s next phone not even announced yet, Samsung is preparing for battle and getting its troops in order, with the latest handset to lead the charge being the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
Called a potential iPhone 6 killer by the media and simply hinted as being such amongst Samsung’s ranks, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha has all sorts of back of the box features that could make it a worthy contender. Under the hood it’s an octa-core beast, making it one of the first smartphones of its kind to offer such specs (at least, it’s one of the first phones from a popular electronics maker, anyway). The Galaxy Alpha will launch with a quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A15 and a quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 which is just really fancy speak for ‘its brains are smart, its reactions are speedy and we can expect it to crash a whole lot less than any of the Galaxy phones before it’.
Meanwhile, Samsung has gone to great lengths to show off the Samsung Galaxy Alpha’s metal design. A common gripe with previous Galaxy smartphones is that they cost a lot but the plastic design has felt and looked incredibly cheap. No one wants to pay several hundreds of dollars for a phone made from a sub-par material so thankfully we’ll be getting our money’s worth with the Alpha. Launching as part of Samsung’s “new design approach”, they say that the Galaxy Alpha is one of their toughest phones yet thanks to its metal frame and shock-resistant corners. It’s not jargon either as they claim that the corners of the phone make it less likely to go kaput when you drop it from a great height. Handy then, if you’ve got butter fingers like me.
Of course they can talk up the Alpha as much as they like, as they are wont to do, but we won’t know if it’s an iPhone 6 killer for sure until both phones have launched and the reviews have rolled in. Alas, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha release date is September 12th so we’ll know more then.
Source: CNet
Do you think the Samsung Galaxy Alpha can beat the iPhone 6 or will Apple’s new phone come out on top? Leave a comment and let us know.
