Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
With 5G, a 120Hz display and solid performance, this is Samsung’s best-value smartphone yet
PRICE £333 (£399 inc VAT) from samsung.com
Samsung’s mid-tier Galaxy A52 5G intends to plug the everwidening gap between the top and bottom ends of the phone-buying scale. Often, that means annoying compromises, but I’ll speak plainly from the start: this is a brilliant buy.
It looks like a premium phone, even it isn’t as lavishly furnished as the Galaxy S21 ( see issue 318, p68) on closer inspection. It has a softtextured plastic back, with a slim camera housing and an aluminium frame that’s available in four colours; “Awesome Violet”, “Awesome Black”, “Awesome White” and “Awesome Blue”. Thesaurus for Mr Samsung.
Still, it isn’t quite as awesomely eye-catching as its predecessor, lacking the pearlescent finish and subtly curved sides of the Galaxy A51 ( see issue 310, p75). The front of the phone is unassuming too, with a simple hole-punch notch in the topcentre portion of the screen and chunky bezels on all four sides.
One neat addition is the inclusion of an in-display fingerprint sensor at the bottom of the screen, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack that sits next to the phone’s USB-C port and speaker grille. Another positive – take note OnePlus – is that it’s IP67rated for water and dust protection.
The Super AMOLED screen is 6.5in from corner to corner, with an FHD+ (1,080 x 2,400) resolution and a pixel density of 405ppi. Unlike the A51, this new model also supports a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. If you’re after more natural colours then switch to Natural mode: this closely matched the sRGB colour space, with a coverage of 98.4% and a total volume of 112%. Vivid widens the gamut and gives c colours more impact.
What you don don’t get is top-notch colour accuracy, with an average Delta E of over two in both modes – for example, red and light green tones are oversaturated. Still, that’s us being fussy: this display is superb for the price. Maximum brightness isn’t bad either, peaking at around 450cd/m² in auto mode and, as this is an AMOLED screen, contrast is effectively perfect.
Inside is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750 processor, an eight-core chipset clocked at 2.2GHz with an embedded Adreno 619 GPU for graphics processing. The UK model has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, which can be expanded via microSD.
Performance is a significant step up from its predecessor. In the Geekbench 5 single-core CPU benchmark, it was almost twice as fast as the A51, scoring 648 versus 346, and it’s roughly 50% faster in multicore processing too: it scored 1,926 to 1,316 previously.
It’s a similar story in games. Its average frame rate of 45fps in the GFXBench Manhattan 3 onscreen test matches or beats the totals of budget rivals such as the OnePlus
Nord N10’s 0’s 37fps, ( see
issue 317, p65), p65 the Google ogle Pixel 4a’s 40fps 0fps ( see issue 313, p60) p60 and the Moto G 5G Plus’ 50fps ( see issue 312, p68), while the A51 limped to 25fps in the same test.
It’s notable that the only rival phone to beat the A52 for stamina is again the Moto G 5G Plus, which lasted for just shy of 23 hours in our videorundown test. The A52 kept going for 18hrs 23mins, which is almost identical to the Pixel 4a and 37mins shy of the A51.
The camera arrangement is mostly the same as before, with a 12MP (f/2.2) 123˚ ultrawide camera working with a 5MP (f/2.4) depth-sensing unit and a 5MP (f/2.4) macro camera for close-up photography. But the main unit is now 64MP – an increase from 48MP – complete with a wider f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilisation.
Quality-wise, I have no major complaints about the cameras. It even manages to hold its own against the terrific Pixel 4a in some instances. Pictures are filled with detail, it does a good job at cutting through the darkness in lowlight conditions and HDR worked without a hitch.
There are a couple of areas where the Pixel 4a pulls ahead, however: the A52 5G’s portrait modes aren’t as crisp, with softer background blur even at the maximum level. I also preferred the video stabilisation on the Pixel 4a at 1080p 60fps (4K is limited to 30fps on both phones).
That said, the Pixel 4a only has a single camera, so the A52 5G is a better pick if photographic versatility is important to you. It’s also received a few upgrades on the software front, including 4K video snap, which lets you grab a still image from footage.
This is one of the reasons why the A52 5G is, overall, a better pick. The Pixel 4a is an astonishing mid-range handset, but its camera isn’t as versatile, it has a smaller (and 60Hz) screen, no expandable storage and a slightly weaker processor. The Galaxy A52 5G has scaled the ranks, disrupting the recent tradition of “Pixel is best”. As long as you can afford the extra £50, you can’t go wrong with picking one up.
“In the Geekbench 5 singlecore CPU benchmark, the Galaxy A52 5G was almost twice as fast as the A51, scoring 648 versus 346”