Samsung continues to add flagship specs to its Galaxy A line

Samsung’s mid-range Galaxy A line doesn’t garner much attention in the press, but it’s slowly becoming a flagship caliber device for a fraction of the price.

On Monday, Samsung announced the Galaxy A lineup – three different phones in total – are all gaining the same IP68 rating the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge currently enjoy. The IP68 rating translates into water resistance in 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes, with the added bonus of dust resistance.

The latest feature addition comes a year after Samsung added its mobile payment platform, Samsung Pay, to Galaxy A devices.

The Galaxy A7, Galaxy A5, and Galaxy A3 will ship with Samsung’s AMOLED display, complete with the company’s always on display feature, ranging in size from 5.7-inches, to 5.2-inches to 4.7-inches, respectively.

The A7 and A5 will come with 3 GB of RAM, while the A3 drops down to 2 GB of memory. All three models will support microSD cards up to 256 GB, in addition to 32 GB of storage for the A7 and A5, with the A3’s storage cut in half, to 16 GB.

The trio of devices will ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, USB Type-C connector for charging, and have dual-SIM capabilities.

Pricing wasn’t included in today’s announcement, however traditionally the devices were priced under $500. Samsung plans to release the revamped Galaxy A devices starting in Russia in early-January, followed by wider global availability.

By continuing to add flagship features to its lower costing smartphones, Samsung is able to remain competitive in emerging markets, as well as saturated markets like China where companies such as Huawei garner much of the attention and, in turn, profits.