Samsung has launched its new Galaxy Alpha with a metal frame, in a bid to boost sales after the plastic design of its smartphones has been blamed for the company’s recent struggles.

The Wednesday launch of the latest Galaxy smartphone comes after a difficult second quarter for Samsung. While overall smartphones sales grew by almost 27 percent, Samsung’s shipments dropped. In May, the company also appointed a new head of its design team.

Samsung has pitched the Galaxy Alpha with its metal frame as a new start, and the design as something “entirely new” compared to the design of its existing products, which have been justifiably criticized for looking cheap irrespective of what they cost.

However, in reality the shape of the home button still makes it look very much like a Samsung smartphone, and the plastic back has inherited the dimpled design of the Galaxy S5. For some, the changes Samsung has made aren’t nearly big enough.

“Overall it’s a good phone but I was disappointed with the design, even with the metal frame it feels too plastic,” said Francisco Jeronimo, research director for European mobile devices at IDC.

Samsung has also decided to make the Galaxy Alpha thin and light: it weighs just 115 grams and is 6.7 millimeters thick.

Under the hood, the smartphone is based on Android 4.4.4 and powered by an Exynos processor with four ARM Cortex-A15 cores running at 1.8GHz and four Cortex-A7 cores running at 1.3GHz. The screen measures 4.7 inches and has a 1280 by 720 pixel resolution.

The smartphone also has a 12-megapixel camera on the back and a 2.1-megapixel front camera. It has 2GB of RAM and 32GB of integrated storage, but no microSD card slot. The LTE connection supports download speeds up to 300Mbps, as long as there is a network that can handle it as well.

After a string of teasers, Panasonic has finally pulled the wraps off its newest smartphone dubbed P81. The Panasonic P81 is company’s first octa-core priced at Rs 18,990. The device is now available for Rs 17,999  via  Snapdeal. The online retailer promises to ship the device in two business days.

The P81 poses a sleek at 7.9mm profile and follows the phablet trend with a 5.5-inch IPS display with 720p resolution. Just like most of the mid-range smartphones entering the Indian market, it comes with dual SIM functionality. It comes powered by an octa-core processor that clocks at 1.7GHz coupled with 1GB RAM. The chipset isn’t specified, but considering the price point and octa-core capability, it could be Mediatek.

On the camera front, one can expect a 13-megapixel rear snapper with auto-focus and LED flash, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It gets 8GB onboard storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD card slot. The device runs on older 4.2.2 Jelly Bean flavor of Android, and also gets a layer of Play Life UI.

Other connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth 3.0 A2DP. The device will also support FM radio. All of this will be fuelled by a 2500mAh battery.

The device comes packed with app freebies worth Rs 9,900, and accessories worth Rs 2000 along with a leatherette design.