Just a few months since launching the Galaxy S10, Samsung has launched yet another series of devices, this time catering to the mid market, debuting its new Galaxy A series devices at a launch event in Sandton

While these are aimed to a larger extent at a younger market, the phones have not scrimped on features, boasting Super AMOLED screens, an Infinity U display, and some pretty interesting looking camera technology, while ranging from 6.1 inches up to 6.7 inches in size.

 If those features sound to you more like what you would expect from high end, rather than mid range devices, you wouldn’t be alone.  

Justin Hume, the Integrated Mobility director at Samsung South Africa, explained that the A series – which folds in the company’s J series of devices - is critical, mainly because the mid segment of the market is booming. At  the same time, he pointed out that the age of just taking selfies is rapidly being supplanted by an era of live broadcasting, whether that is through Instagram Stories or YouTube Live.  

“78% of mobile data traffic is expected to be linked to live services moving forward, which meant that we had to build phones that catered to live streaming. Essential to that  are the design of the smartphone, its battery and its camera,” he elaborated.  

With this in mind the company elected to has included edge to edge screen technology to maximise the viewable area for those capturing, and viewing video. As well, the rear camera enjoys the same wide angle view as featured on the S10 Plus, 123 degrees, slightly wider than the human eye’s view at 120  degrees from the Galaxy A20 and up.

Price wise, it varies from R1300 for the bottom of the range A2 Core up to  R13 000 for the high end A80. Indeed, just below that, the Glaxy A50 and A70  look set to give those who aren't necessarily to splurge on a premium device plenty of bang for their buck. 

Some initial tech specs for the full range that will be available in South Africa are below.

A80

6.7” Infinity-U display

On-screen fingerprint reader

8 megapixel Ultra-wide angle sliding camera and a 48 megapixel camera

3700mAh battery

128GB storage

8 GB of memory

Samsung Pay support

R13000

A70

6.7” Infinity-U display

On-screen fingerprint reader

Ultra-wide angle and triple camera -  5 megapixel, 8 megapixel and 32 megapixel

4500mAh battery

128GB storage

R8000

A50

6.4” Infinity-U display

Triple rear cameras – a 5 megapixel, 8 megapixel and 25 megapixel

On-screen fingerprint reader

Ultra-wide angle and triple camera

4000mAh battery

R7000

A30/20

6.4” Infinity-U/V display

Dual rear cameras with ultra-wide angle shot

Battery – 4000mAh

Storage – 64GB (A30) 32GB (A20)

R3000 (A20) R4500 (A30)

A10

6.2” Infinity-V display

Battery – 3,400mAh

Storage – 32GB

R2000

A2 Core

1.6GHz Octa Core CPU

5” display

2,600mAh Battery

Storage – 16GB or 8GB

R1300