Samsung Galaxy A7

Ready for the "autoselfie"?

By Anca Gagiuc on Feb 4, 2015 in Technology

I was browsing through images of computers, phones, and smartphones and their transformation over the course of years, when it dawned on me that not only art imitates life, but technology does, too. All of the sudden, my mind was back in the Baroque period, reminiscing the famous paintings of Flemish painter Sir Peter Paul Rubens.

The term “Rubenesque” popped into my mind, terminology known by art enthusiasts to be referring to his fondness of painting plus-size women, the beauty standards of those times. And I stared at the world’s first desk computers, at the first phones, at their generous widths.

How times change… today’s beauty standards got stuck somewhere at size zero. The ever-skinnier tech devices follow the trend.

The latest to enter the scene of skinny devices is Samsung’s Galaxy A7, one of the company’s slimmest smartphones yet, only 6.3mm (0.245 inches) thick that weighs 141g. At first glance, its design makes you think of Apple’s iPhone 5 with its curved edges, metallic band, and silver home button surround. But you’ll soon see the Samsung in it.

Samsung Galaxy A7 is attempting to please its followers and to catch the attention of Apple users as well, as “one of the slimmest Galaxy smartphones equipped with premium hardware for a superior social experience, expanding on the popular services provided by the Galaxy A5 and A3.” The hardware on the 5.5-inch smartphone, even though not Samsung’s best, is worthy of attention as it humbles the price along with the technical specifications.

A7 comes equipped with two separate quad core processors – 1.8GHz and 1.3GHz or 1.5GHz and 1.0GHz for the dual-SIM version – paired with a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon chip; eight cores should be snappy at handling multiple tasks. Backing up the package are 16GB of storage plus a microSD slot of up to 64GB, 2GB of RAM and a 2,600mAh battery. The OS running on it is Android 4.4 KitKat.

With this device also Samsung focuses on complying with the needs of camera-phone enthusiasts. The rear-facing camera sports 13 megapixels, while the front-facing camera 5 megapixels. Furthermore, the software allows the user to take a “wide” selfie, while “autoselfie” enables the users take pictures of themselves using a voice command or a simple wave of the hand.

The Galaxy A7 will be available in three colors: Pearl White, Midnight Black, and Champagne Gold. The launch date and the price remain to be announced.