Samsung Galaxy Alpha shows off metal frame (pictures)

Samsung has heeded our calls for a metal Galaxy smartphone. We've got the first official images here, so click through to take a look, and learn about the Alpha's key specs. The Alpha will go on sale in September in the UK, with availability in other countries and prices yet to be confirmed.

The Alpha comes in five colours: black, white, gold, silver and blue. It's packing a quad-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz, or an octa-core chip in some countries.

The 4.7-inch display is a little disappointing. The Alpha has a 1,280x720-pixel resolution, which isn't as high as the 1080p resolution we're used to seeing these days.

That's a 12-megapixel camera on the back. The front features a 2.1-megapixel snapper, for selfies and Skype calls.

The Alpha has 32GB of internal memory and 2GB of RAM -- but here's another bit of bad news: there's no microSD card slot. That's unusual for Samsung, and could annoy those who regularly transfer files to and from their phones.

The camera records video in a 4K resolution at 30 frames per second. That means your footage will have plenty of pixels, though we'll need to do some hands-on testing before we can vouch for the quality of the video it captures.

The Alpha has the same dimpled look as the Galaxy S5 and the Tab S tablet.

As this picture shows, the Alpha is quite slim, measuring 6.7mm thick, and weighing a mere 114g (4 ounces).

We're working hard to get some detailed hands-on photos of the Galaxy Alpha as soon as possible, so stay tuned for more images. In the meantime, let us know what you think of the design.