The Galaxy S5 lite
Another possibility is that far from being a superphone, the Galaxy Alpha will actually be a pared back version of the Samsung Galaxy S5. The possibility of a smaller screen already points in that direction and other rumours suggest there might not be a microSD card slot. Taking things out is hardly the sign of an upgrade.
Add to the that the fact that the latest shots we've seen of the phone show it with a metal band rather than a full metal body and it doesn't look quite as premium as we were once expecting either, though it would still be an improvement on the Galaxy S5, which makes the concept of it being a lower end alternative problematic.
Multiple phones
Of course with conflicting rumours flying around there's always a chance that they're all or at least mostly all true but that they're simply talking about two or three different handsets.
The fact that we've actually seen images of at least two different designs adds credibility to that concept and Samsung has been known to flood the market with phones in the past.
We'd say this is unlikely though. Fake images often pop up before a phone's announced and there aren't any rumours that really claim there's more than one mystery handset in the works.
Plus while at least three names have popped up they all seem to be referring to the same thing so the market isn't likely going to get any more muddled, but it's always a possibility.
Our take
With all that in mind we're still leaning towards saying that the Alpha, F and Prime are all one and the same and that Samsung is most likely positioning it as an iPhone 6 alternative.
In which case we'd expect similar or possibly slightly higher end specs to the Galaxy S5 and a more premium build, but with a smaller screen. To get a little more specific the recent shots of the metal edged but plastic backed handset certainly look convincing, so we're going to back them as the likely look.
Then we'd expect it to have a 4.7 inch 1080p display and we'll go out on a limb and say a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor with 3GB of RAM. Samsung's already stuck 3GB in the Note 3, so that wouldn't be such a surprise and the Galaxy S5 is already 2.5GHz, this would just be pushing it up to a slightly newer processor.
While it would work as an iPhone 6 foil it could also be seen as a Galaxy S5 alternative. No better (or not much better anyway), no worse, just different.
- We're already hearing rumours about the Galaxy S6 too.
