Samsung Galaxy C5 Unboxing, First Impressions

Samsung has released a new smartphone just last month in China that greatly resembles the newest iPhone and the One Plus 3. What does this peculiar device have? Here’s our unboxing and initial impressions of the Samsung Galaxy C5.

The Galaxy C5 comes in a neat and minimal white box with the brand and model printed in gray color. To open the package, remove the top part of the box and you’ll be greeted by the device protected by sheets of plastic. Upon removal, you’ll immediately feel the cold steel touching your palm and fingers.

Included accessories are a fast-charging wall adapter, the microUSB cable, and a pair of headphones. All of these are in white color. Since the device came from China, there’s also a few pamphlets and reading materials in Mandarin.

Unlike the fragile glass design of the latest models from the Galaxy A and Galaxy S series, the new Galaxy C series uses an aluminum unibody. With the Galaxy C5, you can definitely mistake it for an iPhone 6/6s, the One Plus 3, or even the HTC One M9.

It’s fairly sized with a 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display with a Full HD resolution protected by a smooth glass that curves towards the edges. An 8MP front-facing camera, the earpiece, and a couple of sensors sit atop while the usual Samsung setup of the navigation buttons is present below. The physical home button houses a fingerprint scanner.

Going to the right, we have the power/lock button and the ejectable hybrid SIM card tray for either two micro SIM cards, or a microSD card for storage expansion. To the left are two separate buttons for volume up and volume down.

Up top we just have a secondary mic for noise canceling while the bottom end has the micro-USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack, loudspeaker, and the main microphone.

Checking out the back of the Galaxy C5 puts a smile on our face as it reminded us of a more popular Android smartphone, the OnePlus 3. Anyhow, there’s a main 16MP shooter encased in a square hump with a dual-tone LED flash on the side. A shiny Samsung logo is placed just below it.

Being a mid-range handset, it’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 with a generous 4GB of RAM for your multitasking needs. The internal storage space is at 32GB with support for expansion. There’s LTE and a complete suite of radios including NFC. Samsung Pay is also present but this feature is of no use in the Philippines.

Running on the device is Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Samsung’s skin on top. Interestingly, there’s no app drawer by default but you can switch it on through the settings panel. Due to its slim profile, only a 2600mAh non-removable battery is providing juice to the internals.

Samsung Galaxy C5 specs:
5.2-inch FHD sAMOLED display @ 1080 x 1920 px, 424ppi
1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core processor
Adreno 405
4GB RAM
32GB/64GB internal storage
expandable up to 128GB via hybrid microSD card slot
16 MP f/1.9 rear camera with dual LED Flash
8MP f/1.9 front camera
Dual SIM (Micro, Hybrid)
4G LTE, 3G HSPA+
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.2
GPS, GLONASS, BDS
NFC
Fingerprint scanner
Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
2,600mAh battery

We’ll be taking the Samsung Galaxy C5 for a full spin in the coming week and see how it will fair with everyday usage even though the phone is purposely built for China. The unit we have is provided by Widget City and is selling the device at Php17,990USD 307INR 25,988EUR 292CNY 2,233 for the 32GB variant while a more spacious 64GB model is available at Php19,990USD 341INR 28,878EUR 324CNY 2,481. You check out their listing here.