Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
A lot to like, but hard to love.
The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G is the company’s latest entry in the cheaper phone market, and the company has made steps to make this handset its best yet for an affordable price. The A52 5G isn’t the lowest price smartphone you’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly much cheaper than the company’s flagship offerings like the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 Ultra.
That means the Galaxy A52 5G won’t be able to compete with the absolute best phones, but it also isn’t trying to do that. What Samsung is trying to do is make a conscious effort to bring features such as a high-refresh rate screen and improved rear camera to its cheaper A series.
Design
The Galaxy A52 5G is designed to have a solid build without the bells and whistles you’ll find on flagship smartphones. For that reason, you may feel the build of the handset is a touch cheap with its plastic rear and aluminum frame.
It doesn’t feel as premium as Samsung’s top-end phones, but it feels durable enough in the hand that we didn’t dislike the smartphone’s build. This isn’t a small device either given its 6.5-inch display.
With dimensions of 159.9 x 75.1 x 8.4mm it’s fairly large despite being a cheaper handset. It weighs 189 grams, which is neither heavy nor light for a smartphone of this type.
The phone comes in four colours, and two of them are particularly bold and bright. Your options are black, white, blue or violet (we’ve pictured the violet version throughout this review). The handset is also IP67-certified dust and water resistant.
Little else is exciting about the design of the Galaxy A52 5G, but some will be ecstatic to see
If you want super-fast 5G connectivity, you’ll want to opt for this member of the new Galaxy A series of smartphones.
Samsung has kept the 3.5mm headphone jack on this smartphone, which you’ll find on the bottom edge of the device.
That sits alongside the USB-C port, and you’ll find a volume rocker alongside the power button on the right hand edge of the phone. There’s also a punch-hole camera in the screen, so there isn’t a big bezel at the top to house this tech.
Display
That display uses Super AMOLED and has a Full HD+ resolution, and we found the 800 nits of brightness to look fantastic when we turned the screen all the way up to its maximum brightness setting. If you’re looking for a smartphone to watch video on you’re unlikely to be disappointed in this display.
The exact resolution is 1080 x
2400 - which equals a pixel density of 407 pixels per inch - so you will likely find this satisfactory, but it won’t compare to QHD smartphone screens like older Galaxy S series models.
There’s a punch-hole at the center of the top edge, and the bezels around the screen are thicker than some may like. That said, it still looks great when you’re watching a video or scrolling through social media feeds.
A punch-hole camera isn’t to everyone’s tastes, but Samsung has clearly made a strong effort to try and hide this away here, and it’s a suitable alternative to a notch at the top of the screen.
One of the big upgrades from previous Galaxy A phones is the introduction of a 120Hz display, which is a feature usually reserved for flagship handsets. This essentially means the image on your screen refreshes faster than on most other smartphones, which gives a smoother experience when scrolling through social media or playing mobile games.
This is a notable difference, and once you’ve used this you’ll likely find it difficult to go back. That said, 120Hz isn’t a specific reason to opt for this phone. But we found it to perform well without having a noticeable difference on battery life.
Specs and performance
If you want super-fast 5G connectivity, you’ll want to opt for this member of the new Galaxy A series of smartphones. It allows you to make use of next-gen internet connectivity, but most will find it’s just good future proofing right now for when the technology becomes more prolific.
There’s an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G processor doing the heavy lifting here. You won’t get a top-end experience with this chipset, but it’s powerful enough for most tasks and you’re unlikely to be frustrated when it is a touch slower.
If you’ll be playing a lot of mobile games you may want to look elsewhere, but this is still a capable phone, its chipset just means you may have to wait a touch longer for apps and games to load rather than it being unable to undertake basic tasks.
We found on Geekbench 5 the phone was capable of an average multi-core score of 1,623. That’s notably lower than Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S21, which scored 2,699, but that’s also a far more expensive phone.
The camera on the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G sounds good on paper, and we’ve found the results to be similarly impressive in real life. The A52 5G can even hold its own against the Google Pixel 4a, which is a top smartphone camera in this price bracket.
This won’t give you a flagship camera experience, but we found the main shooter worked well in automatic mode and we were capable of getting a lot of shots with ease.
The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G isn’t going to blow you away with top-end specs or a remarkably affordable price, but it’s still a solid choice for a mid-range handset that can compete with the likes of the Google Pixel 4a. It’s a difficult phone to love, but if you’re looking for a lot for a lower price point than most other Samsung devices, you may enjoy what the Galaxy A52 5G has to offer.
James Peckham