Photos of unknown Samsung smartphone with metal edge appear online

Photos have surfaced online of the Samsung A-500, a mid-range smartphone that would fall in line with the recently released Galaxy Alpha. Based on the images, the phone appears to only have a metal bezel just like the Alpha.

The phone has appeared at Tenaa, a Chinese inspection body for smartphones, among other things. Because manufacturers themselves supply the devices and documentation to the inspection body, it only distributes correct information, although it often concerns variants that appear in China.

The photos show a device with now familiar elements of Samsung’s smartphones, such as the front with a rectangular Home button. The sides are clearly metal, but the back is not, judging by the pictures. A color difference can be seen and, moreover, the metal speaker grill next to the camera is made of metal. Moreover, with this housing there is no place for the antennas, which function poorly behind metal. An earlier rumor had it that the entire housing would be made of aluminum, but that seems incorrect based on this information.

The device has a 5 “amoled screen with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels and runs on a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, presumably a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400-soc. The front camera would have a resolution of five megapixels, just like Samsung’s upcoming ‘selfie smartphone’ The camera on the back has a resolution of up to thirteen megapixels.The phone measures 14x7cm and is 6.7mm thick.

An earlier rumor spoke of a September release, something that would mean Samsung will unveil the phone soon. Tenaa’s approval also means a release is near. It is unknown how expensive the phone would be. Samsung’s metal smartphones so far, the Galaxy Alpha and Note 4, have suggested retail prices of 599 euros and 799 euros respectively. Given the features of the device, a suggested retail price between 250 and 500 euros would be obvious.