Galaxy A01 Core sets sights on yet another market

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The Galaxy A01 Core has been going through the usual regulatory motions ahead of commercial release for a while now, and its latest certification points to yet another launch market Samsung appears to be targeting with this decisively ultra-budget smartphone. That would be Thailand, as indicated by a newly spotted product certificate issued by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission. More concretely, the Bangkok authority attested the SM-A013G/DS variant, with that name itself reconfirming dual-SIM support. This appears to be a localized iteration whose availability is likely to be extremely limited.

Internationally, the Galaxy A01 Core will launch as the SM-A013F/DS, based on previous developments.

If all of this seems familiar, that's because it is

It remains to be seen why Samsung is releasing an even lower-end device than the original Galaxy A01, especially given the more recent debut of the Galaxy M01 (not to be confused with the upcoming Galaxy M01 Core). Splitting a sub-$100 smartphone design into two brands, one of which may only release in a single country (the one with plenty of alternatives), isn't the most dubious product decision Samsung ever made. In fact, it's pretty much par for the course in the lowest-end segment.

But based on its previously sighted specs, the Galaxy A01 Core might as well be something Samsung intended to release two years ago, only to misplace an entire production run. We're talking 1GB of RAM, MediaTek's two-year-old MT6739WW, an SoC found in $100 smartphones from 2018, and a 5.1-inch, 720p screen. Not that the Galaxy A01 Core's target demographic makes purchase decisions based on any of those factors, but the closer we're getting to its release, the stranger this entire affair is starting to look like.