Samsung's A Series officially arrives in South Africa, starts at R7,500

Samsung’s line-up of mid-rangers — the A55 5G and A35 5G — are now official in South Africa. Uh, more official than they were in March when you could pick up both devices from Vodacom (on contract only), at least. Samsung officially brought the A Series to life in Johannesburg, where the South Korean manufacturers basked in the glory of Cassper Nyovest, Kamo Mphela and Youngsta CPT — the faces of the A Series.

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If those names mean nothing to you, you’re probably in the right place. We’re more interested in the tech under the hood and Samsung’s “ongoing commitment to making the best of mobile innovations available to everyone.” The thing is, the A Series has been official for months — meaning we’ve already had a peek under the hood. The final secrets of the devices were the official pricing, RAM/storage flavours and colours. Until now.

But first, a quick refresher on the Samsung A55 and A35. The ringleader, the A55 5G, arrives in South Africa for R11,500, and reps a 5,000mAh battery and 6.6in FHD+ Super AMOLED display — both features shared by the weaker A35 5G. The differences lie in the Exynos 1480 SoC, and up to 12/256GB of RAM specs.

Unfortunately, South Africa’s models are devoid of that 12GB RAM spec, though customers do at least have the choice of 128/256GB of storage to play with. For an inflated price, of course. Oh, and you’ll have to put up with Samsung’s monotonous ‘Awesome’ naming conventions before you can pick between Sky Blue or Navy.

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That missing 12GB of RAM on the A55 5G might hurt its sales, but it could also raise the A35 5G’s, which shares the same 8GB of RAM and choices of 128/256GB storage, even if it does support the altogether less-powerful Exynos 1380 processor. It even shares the same 50MP main sensor and 5MP macro lens found in the A55, though can’t keep up with its 32MP selfie camera, only hitting 13MP. It’ll set you back R7,500 — and shares the A55’s colours, and also adds ‘Awesome Lilac’ to the mix.