Samsung is about to launch a follow-up to its Galaxy A series in the near future. New images of the Galaxy A7 have leaked online and show the smartphone will have a similar design to the Galaxy S6, complete with premium materials like glass and metal.

Samsung is currently preparing to launch successors to its Galaxy A series of premium midrange smartphones and phablets. We recently reported that the Samsung Galaxy A3 and A5 passed through the FCC, which could indicate an imminent release.

The third member of the new Galaxy A lineup, the A7, is expected to be an extremely capable 5.5-inch phablet that will offer users impressive specs in addition to an affordable price. While the Galaxy A7 didn't pass through the FCC yet, it has passed through China's telecom regularity authority, also known as Tenaa, which has leaked images of the Galaxy A7.

The leaked images of the Galaxy A7 show a design that's very reminiscent of Samsung's current flagship Galaxy S6, complete with an ultra-thin 6.95 mm metal frame, protruding rear camera and larger 5.5-inch but lower resolution 1920 by 1080 resolution display. The handset will reportedly include 16 GB of internal storage in addition to a microSD expansion slot that will support up to 128 GB microSD cards.

The Galaxy A7 also appears to possibly have a fingerprint scanner embedded in its home button like Samsung's higher-end smartphones. The phablet is believed to pack in a 13 megapixel rear camera and a front-facing 5 megapixel shooter for selfies and video chat. The phablet is expected to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, Adreno 405 GPU (graphics processing unit) and 3 GB of RAM to keep things running smoothly. The handset is also believed to ship with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, with an Android 6.0 Marshmallow update sometime next year.

We'll be sure to keep you posted on any new Galaxy A7 information as it's released.