Samsung Galaxy A5 and A5 Duos review: Five star

Qualcomm Snapdragon 410

The Samsung Galaxy A5 relies on a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset and 2GB of RAM to move things along. There's a quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 processor and the Adreno 306 GPU.

Overall, this package doesn't really expand all that much on the Snapdragon 400 abilities of old but as developers optimize their apps for 64-bit architecture and Lollipop reaches more devices, the Galaxy A5 should see a speed benefit.

So let's dive right into the scores. As we always do, we will be focusing first on the overall and CPU benchmarks. Starting with GeekBench 3 and AnTuTu 5 where the Samsung Galaxy A5 showed middling performance falling slightly behind its main competition in the first test and slightly ahead of it in AnTuTu 5.

Basemark OS II focuses on the CPU mostly. It gives an overall score and breaks down CPU performance by single and multi-core. Basemark OS II shows the Galaxy A5 and its Snapdragon 410 chip as a middling to poor performer, outclassed by most of its rivals.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  3214
• Oppo R5
  2806
• HTC Desire 820
  2586
• HTC Desire 816
  1510
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1492
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1469
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1460
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  1400
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  1181

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  51905
• Oppo R5
  31417
• HTC Desire 820
  27070
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  21581
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  21533
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  21002
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  20024
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  18466

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  915
• Oppo R5
  772
• HTC Desire 820
  725
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  564
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  556
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  555
• HTC Desire 816
  520
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  504
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  466

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  2579
• HTC Desire 820
  1812
• HTC Desire 816
  1739
• Oppo R5
  1657
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1420
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1313
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1217
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  1203

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  15096
• Oppo R5
  10000
• HTC Desire 820
  8453
• HTC Desire 816
  7071
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  5481
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  5283
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  5234
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  4880

Next up are the GPU benchmarks aiming to put the Adreno 306 performance in context. GFXBench has two 1080p tests - 2.7 T-Rex and 3.0 Manhattan - in both onscreen (720p) and offscreen (1080p) fashion showing the test framerates.

Keep in mind that anything below 30fps isn't smooth and the Galaxy A5 scored just that. None of the fps we saw from its Adreno 306 are impressive and it's clear that the Adreno 405 found in the Snapdragon 615 is much better at demanding graphics.

Basemark X shows a gaming score that's slightly lower than that of the Snapdragon 615 found in the Desire 820.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  31.3
• Oppo R5
  15.1
• HTC Desire 820
  15
• HTC Desire 816
  5.9
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  5.8
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  5.3
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  5.3
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  5.3

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  48.4
• HTC Desire 820
  26
• Oppo R5
  14.8
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  13
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  12.8
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  11
• HTC Desire 816
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  9.6

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  13.4
• Oppo R5
  5.8
• HTC Desire 820
  5.7
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1.8
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  1.8
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1.8
• HTC Desire 816
  1.7

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  25.3
• HTC Desire 820
  12
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  6.4
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  6.4
• Oppo R5
  5.8
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  4
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  3.9
• HTC Desire 816
  3.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  11065
• HTC Desire 820
  4859
• Oppo R5
  4855
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1904
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1897
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  1895
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1895
• HTC Desire 816
  1437

Kraken 1.1 by Mozilla reflects the JavaScript capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy A5 while Rightware's BrowserMark 2.1 offers an evaluation of its HTML 5 abilities. In Kraken 1.1 the Galaxy A5 took a solid lead over many of its competitors, which could be attributed to good software optimization as most of its rivals in the table have equal or even higher-end chipsets.

BrowserMark was a similar deal with a good overall score, besting that of the HTC Desire 820 with Snapdragon 615 and 816 with Snapdragon 400.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  4911
• Oppo R5
  11656
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  13083
• HTC Desire 816
  13564
• HTC Desire 820
  13568
• Sony Xperia C3 Dual
  15737
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  18323
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  18343
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  18353

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  1364
• Oppo R5
  1319
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1171
• HTC Desire 820
  991
• HTC Desire 816
  774
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  465
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  413

The Samsung Galaxy A5 is no speed demon and neither is its chipset, despite the fancy 64-bit architecture it flaunts. All the benchmarks show a middling to lower end performance in raw CPU/GPU and JavaScript/HMTL 5 tasks. But that's not what smartphones are all about. Sure the Galaxy A5 isn't fit to handle the most graphic-intensive games but it is perfectly adequate for day to day tasks of any kind.

As we reported the user interface doesn't stutter and underperform and you could easily enjoy this phone as your perfectly average midrange daily driver. If you want something more upper-class then you might want to look at devices with at least a Snapdragon 615 chip inside.