Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) review: Standing tall

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) is powered by an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor. Samsung is cagey about chipset details, but our unit is built around a Snapdragon 615. The 2GB of RAM are below par for this price range. Also, the Adreno 405 GPU does not provide the smoothest of framerates for graphics intensive gaming.

The Galaxy A5 (2016) is available with an Exynos 7580 too, a very similar chipset with eight A53 cores and Mali T720MP GPU. This is not the version we're reviewing though, we have the S615 model and this page is based on it.

AnTuTu 5 shows a big improvement over the old Galaxy A5 (which ran on Snapdragon 410), but the new model has competition from some quite affordable devices such as the Xiaomi Mi 4c or the OnePlus X. The latter even uses a Snapdragon 800 chipset!

Then again the HTC One A9 (which is the expensive of the lot) has a Snapdragon 617 chipset, which got winded pretty quickly.

Running Basemark OS II 2.0 on the Galaxy A5 shows similar findings - it's better than last year's model, but not as good as some cheaper handsets.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  69396
• LG Nexus 5X
  51948
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  50875
• HTC One A9
  40631
• OnePlus X
  39990
• vivo X5Pro
  34649
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  34077
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  33841
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  21581

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  1674
• LG Nexus 5X
  1591
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  1233
• OnePlus X
  1213
• HTC One A9
  944
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  859
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  833
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  804
• vivo X5Pro
  738
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  569

Digging into the details, the CPU performance seems pretty great. Not Galaxy S6 great, but it gives the Snapdragon 808-based Xiaomi Mi 4c a run for its money (in multi-core performance, single-core is obviously a different story thanks to the two powerful Cortex-A57 cores that the Snapdragon 808 wields).

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  5215
• LG Nexus 5X
  3527
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  3321
• HTC One A9
  3209
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  3061
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  2842
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  2827
• OnePlus X
  2297
• vivo X5Pro
  2241
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1460

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  6306
• LG Nexus 5X
  5808
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  5739
• OnePlus X
  5118
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  2976
• vivo X5Pro
  2767
• HTC One A9
  2753
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  2469
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  2169
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1861

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  26799
• HTC One A9
  19160
• LG Nexus 5X
  17456
• OnePlus X
  16983
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  16466
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  15126
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  14276
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  12172
• vivo X5Pro
  8733
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  7492

The GPU offers a 50% to 100% boost in performance compared to the older A5, but you still don't quite get awesome framerates. Even the old Adreno 330 in the OnePlus X is almost twice as fast as the Adreno 405.

Note that the Galaxy A5 (2016) doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.1 at this point even though the chipset should theoretically support it.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  24
• LG Nexus 5X
  16
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  15
• OnePlus X
  9.9
• Huawei Honor 7
  9.2
• HTC One A9
  6.4
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  5.8
• vivo X5Pro
  5.8
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  5.8
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  5.7
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1.8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• LG Nexus 5X
  17
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  14
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  12
• OnePlus X
  10
• Huawei Honor 7
  9.3
• HTC One A9
  6.7
• vivo X5Pro
  5.8
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  5.8
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  5.7
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  3.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  27169
• LG Nexus 5X
  16609
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  12096
• OnePlus X
  10572
• Huawei Honor 7
  9377
• HTC One A9
  6617
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  5215
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  5108
• vivo X5Pro
  5091
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  4947
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1897

The Galaxy A5 (2016) is a sizeable upgrade over its predecessor in terms of overall performance. You won't get to enjoy graphic-intensive games at fluid framerates, but the bigger issue is that you can get better performance for less money.

At its current price point, we would have liked a Snapdragon 808 to be at the heart of the A5. The HTC One A9 is in a similar boat - too pricey for its S617 chipset - but that's no excuse as LG, Xiaomi and OnePlus found a way to offer you more bang for your buck.