Galaxy A52 5G review: Samsung's best budget phone with flagship features

September 04, 2022

Galaxy A52 5G review: Samsung’s best cost phone with flagship features

With the Galaxy A52 5G, Samsung found an appealing balance between price, features and executive smart compromises. It’s the latest good sub-$500 5G named and joins the nearly half a dozen phones from Motorola, OnePlus and TCL. The Galaxy A52 5G damages $500 or £399 (it isn’t sold in Australia but that converts to AU$740). That’s at the higher end of what’s considered an affordable phone. The A52 5G also straddles the line between persons a good affordable 5G phone and a incredible one. The only other sub-$500 phones that do that are the iPhone SE, which doesn’t have 5G, and the Google Pixel 4A 5G, which is now almost a year old.

The A52 5G has a high refresh rate exhibit, years of OS and security support, a good main camera and good battery life. It has features that the more expensive Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra lack like: a headphone jack, expandable storage and the inclusion of a wall charger in the box.

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Like

120Hz high refresh-rate display
Good battery life on 5G
Wonderful software upgrade support
Simple, clean, unified design
Good main camera with OIS

Don’t Like

Fingerprint sensor is too low on screen
Macro camera is mediocre
Duplicate apps
4K video recording lacks stabilization

As with any named, even a good one, not everything is roses and sunshine. The in-screen fingerprint reader is so annoying to use that I preferred to bright my PIN to unlock the phone. The mediocre macro camera seems like a frivolous add-on that is only there to boost the total number of cameras on the requested. More is definitely not better. There are many duplicate apps like Samsung’s version of an internet browser and photo gallery app in instant to the ones from Google.

But after two months, when I step back and consider everything, the Galaxy A52 5G is an all-around good requested with some great features and a few minor and annoying flaws. It’s a solid buy for $500, but as I write this reconsideration, you can get a Galaxy A52 5G unlocked on Samsung’s website for $425, which makes it even harder to pass up.

Galaxy S21 Ultra-inspired looks in a plastic reality

The develop is good. It’s not premium and that’s fine, because it feels good. When you tap on the back you can definitely tell it’s plastic. (So don’t tap on the back.) The look of the requested is clean. It has curved plastic edges, symmetrical thin bezels throughout the screen and a matte finish. The camera bump loosely echoes the one on the Galaxy S21 Ultra, in the same way my haircut does Kit Harrington’s.

Over two months, the phone collected its share of nicks along the sides. The matte finish back definitely doesn’t look fresh or new. Most republic will inevitably put the phone in a case, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

The A52 5G is excited IP67 for water and dust resistance and can be submerged notion three feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

Galaxy A52 5G has a 120Hz high refresh rate display

On the precedent is a 6.5-inch full-HD display with a hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera. The display is high-refresh rate and can be set to either 120Hz or 60Hz. At 120Hz, animations look smooth, gaming feels more immersive and even mundane things like scrolling above a feed look crisp. The display is without a doubt the best feature on the phone.

Brightness is good. Most displays on price phones have horrible brightness, especially outdoors. Topping it all off is a slab of Gorilla Glass 5. Beware if you slice your phone screen down on a table and unattended. The coating will make it slide off a seemingly flat surface all on its own.

Let me smooth some expectations. This display isn’t as good as the one on the Galaxy S21. But it is really good for $500.

The biggest downside to the develop and display is the in-screen optical fingerprint sensor. The situation of it feels low for one-handed use. I can rarely get the fingerprint reader to unlock the requested on the first attempt. I find it easier to just swipe up and titillating a PIN.

The Galaxy A52 5G has four rear cameras, but only the main one is good

There are four rear cameras on the A52 5G, one of which is a depth-sensor that works with the main camera to give you some absolutely fun and ridiculous AR effects and outrageous portrait mode photos.

Galaxy A52 5G macro camera — The macro camera is a bit of an odd duck. It scholarships you to focus close like on the foam of a cortado. But the margin of error between your subject populate in-focus and out-of-focus is incredibly thin. I wish there was focus proverb available to see when you have focus on your subject.

Patrick Holland

There’s a macro camera. And (sigh) we’ve seen this from other phone affairs. It’s not that most people probably won’t use a macro camera on a requested, it’s that compared to the main camera on the A52 5G, the macro camera isn’t tall. It allows you to focus closer, but you need to be genuine. You’re just a handshake or breath away from populate out of focus. I wish there was focus proverb on the macro camera to help you see when your copies is in focus and when it’s not. Pro Mode accounts focus peaking but for the main camera only.

Galaxy A52 5G ultrawide camera — The ultrawide camera is fun. It scholarships you a great exaggerated perspective.

Patrick Holland

The A52 5G has a outrageous ultrawide-angle camera. The main camera has optical image stabilization and a 64-megapixel sensor that combines pixels for a 16-megapixel photo with good detail and brightness.

Photos from the main camera are good. Your personal taste will vary when it comes to the amount of vivid saturation. To me, it’s a touch oversaturated but smooth looks good.

Galaxy A52 5G main camera — Red cars go faster, right? Colors from the A52 5G are punchy.

Patrick Holland

In edge light situations, you start to see the main camera’s weakness. There is a Night mode to help, and photos look incrude but you’re not going to get the same results as Night mode on the Galaxy S21.

The A52 5G can picture 4K video which in good light is good but as it gets darker, image noise and artifacts become more apparent. Curiously, you can’t use the optical image stabilization when recording 4K video. But if you drop down in resolution to 1,080P video, you can use Super Steady which works very well. Take a look at the video under to see sample clips shot with the Galaxy A52 5G.

The selfie camera has a 32-megapixel sensor and Samsung’s full-arsenal of face-smoothing, jawline-defining and eye-enlarging tools. And then there’s Fun mode that lets you use Snapchat AR filters deprived of using Snapchat. You can use Fun mode with the main and depth cameras on the back or the selfie camera. Fun mode actually lives up to its name.

Galaxy A52 5G Fun mode — With Fun mode, I can finally be the brunette with cat-eye glasses I’ve always wished to be.

Patrick Holland

To put this all into perspective, both the iPhone SE and Google Pixel 4A 5G have better overall camera systems for photos and videos — both also have fewer cameras. That speaks less about the A52 5G’s camera prowess and more near what Apple and Google are able to put into their phones.

Peppy Android performance for the price

The A52 5G has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G chip with 6GB of RAM. It runs Android 11 and at the time I’m writing this, runs the July 2021 software update. Performance is good. It’s not blazing fast which is apparent with the miniature delay that occurs when I open the camera from the lock cover, or rotate the phone between portrait and landscape.

In benchmark demonstrations it scored ahead of the Google Pixel 4A 5G and just gradual the Motorola One Ace 5G. See the results of our benchmark demonstrations below.

GEEKBENCH V.5.0 SINGLE-CORE

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

GEEKBENCH V.5.0 MULTICORE

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

3DMARK SLINGSHOT UNLIMITED

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

It has Samsung’s OneUI 3 interface, which I enjoy using. It’s clean and friendly to one-handed use. There are approximately duplicate apps, which is annoying. But all Samsung phones, no matter the price, do as well. One of the best parts of the Galaxy A52 5G is that you get three generations of Android OS updates and at least four ages of security updates. This is still a rarity for Android cost phones.

5G for less than $500 and good battery life

As the name indicates, this is a 5G phone that works on sub-6 5G networks in the US. I tested it in Greenville, South Carolina on T-Mobile and speeds were just OK. Despite an onscreen 5G indicator, many times the phone was actually connected to 4G LTE. This has everything to do with T-Mobile’s coverage as the same sketching happened when I tested other phones on T-Mobile here.

The A52 5G has a 4,500-mAh battery. Samsung claims two days of use when fully charged. I reliably got one day with the display at 120Hz. On days with lighter use or when the note was set to 60Hz, it easily lasted a day and a half.

In our CNET battery complains with continuous video playback in airplane mode, it lasted a valid 17 hours, 40 minutes and that was with the reveal set to 120Hz. That’s longer than the OnePlus 9 Pro and the iPhone SE. In the same test, Motorola and its effort phones scored four of the five longest times of any arranged this year. Keep in mind, none of these Motorola phones have a high refresh rate display.

It doesn’t have wireless charging which is a wise omission, but it does support 25-watt fast charging. It’s just that the engaged charger is only 15 watts.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G specs vs. Motorola One 5G Ace, Google Pixel 4A 5G, Apple iPhone SE

	Samsung Galaxy A52 5G	Motorola One 5G Ace	Google Pixel 4A 5G	Apple iPhone SE (2020)
Display size, resolution	6.5 inch FHD+ Super AMOLED, Infinity-O Display (1080 x 2400 pixels), 120Hz	6.7-inch FHD+ LCD, 2,400×1,080 pixels	6.2-inch FHD+ OLED; 2,340 x 1,080 pixels	4.7-inch Retina HD LCD; 1,334×750 pixels
Pixel density	407ppi	394ppi	413ppi	326ppi
Dimensions (Inches)	2.95 x 6.29 x 0.33 inches	6.54 x 3 x 0.39 in	6.1 x 2.9 x 0.3 in	5.45 x 2.65 x 0.29 in
Dimensions (Millimeters)	75.1 x 159.9 x 8.4mm	166.1 x 76.1 x 9.9mm	153.9 x 74 x 8.2 mm (Sub-6 only); 153.9 x 74 x 8.5 mm (mmWave + Sub-6)	138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm
Weight (Ounces, Grams)	6.67 oz; 189g	7.49 oz; 212g	5.93 oz; 168g (Sub-6 only); 6.03 oz; 171g (mmWave + Sub-6)	5.22 oz; 148g
Mobile software	Android 11	Android 10	Android 11	iOS 14
Camera	64-megapixel (main), 12-megapixel (ultrawide), 5-megapixel (depth), and 5-megapixel (macro)	48-megapixel (wide), 2-megapixel (macro), 8-megapixel (ultrawide)	12.2-megapixel (wide), 16-megapixel (ultrwide)	12-megapixel (wide)
Front-facing camera	32-megapixel	16-megapixel	8-megapixel	7-megapixel
Video capture	4K	4K	4K	4K
Processor	Snapdragon 750G 5G	Snapdragon 750G 5G	Snapdragon 765G	Apple A13 Bionic
Storage	128GBGB	128GB	128GB	64GB, 128GB, 256GB
RAM	6GB	6GB	6GB	NA
Expandable storage	Up to 1TB	Up to 1TB	No	No
Battery	4,500 mAh	5,000 mAh	3,800 mAh	NA, Apple claims it has the same battery life as iPhone 8
Fingerprint sensor	Optical in-screen	Rear	Rear	Home button
Connector	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C	Lightning
Headphone jack	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Special features	5G-enabled, 120Hz display, IP67 rating for water and dust resistence, 25W Fast Charging	5G enabled, IP52/54 comprising for water and dust resistence (IP54 for T-Mobile)	5G enabled; dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM); fast charging	Soaks resistant (IP67); dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM); wireless charging
Price off-contract (USD)	$500	$400	$499	$399 (64GB), $449 (128GB), $549 (256GB)
Price (GBP)	£399	N/A, converts to £280	£499	£419 (64GB), £469 (128GB), £569 (256GB)
Price (AUD)	N/A, converts to AU$740	N/A, converts to AU$500	AU$799	AU$749 (64GB), AU$829 (128GB), AU$999 (256GB)