Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: A serious mid-range 5G contender Review

There are a whole lot of phones in Samsung’s Galaxy A variety, all with a concentration on mid-variety pricing. The Galaxy A52 5G is the product of the present crop — a 5G handset with IP67 certification against dust and drinking water ingress. Then there’s the 6.five-inch screen’s 120Hz refresh charge, and twin speakers for stereo sound. All of this will come in at a SIM-no cost price of £349, or $349.99 in the US. 

The Galaxy A52 5G has an fascinating chassis style. Its back again is built from plastic, and the just about opaque, matte end is visually interesting. Importantly it doesn’t accumulate fingerprints and is not slippery. In spite of this, the handset just failed my ‘chair test’: it slid off the arm of my couch a couple of periods, but was better at clinging on than numerous. The edges are a shiny chrome, and seem a bit out of position against the backplate’s matte. Samsung has decided all four backplate colours are ‘awesome’, so your options are Brilliant Black, Brilliant White, Brilliant Blue and Brilliant Violet. As pointed out, the Galaxy A52 5G has an IP67 rating for dust and drinking water resistance. 

The back again is punctured by a lifted camera housing. This is shallower than numerous, but its place on the leading proper edge when the handset is sitting down on a desk means that prodding the monitor on all but the incredibly base of the left aspect tends to make the cellphone rock all-around. 

Samsung has outfitted the Galaxy A52 5G with a three.5mm headset jack on the base edge, which numerous will welcome.  

The Galaxy A52 5G steps seventy five.1mm wide by 159.9mm deep by eight.4mm thick and weighs 189g. The monitor is a 6.five-inch super AMOLED pane that sits in recognizable, but not huge, bezels. The leading and base bezels are a couple of millimetres further than all those on the extended edges, and the screen-to-overall body ratio is eighty four.eight{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd}. The little slice-out in the leading centre of the monitor that accommodates the entrance camera is hardly recognizable when the cellphone is in use. The fingerprint sensor is an productive and trustworthy in-monitor kind.  

The 6.five-inch monitor provides distinct, bright and sharp written content at FHD+ resolution (2400 x 1080, 405ppi), with a couple of monitor method settings — Vivid and Organic — readily available. If you opt for Vivid you can modify the white stability, even controlling crimson, inexperienced and blue values individually in ‘Advanced settings’ if you desire. There is also Samsung’s standard Eye Comfort and ease method, which minimizes blue gentle and can be often on, or scheduled to kick in possibly at set periods or to toggle at sunrise/sunset. Once again, you can customise this setting’s colour temperature. 

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As on much more high-priced handsets, the screen’s refresh charge can be set to 120Hz or 60Hz, while there doesn’t seem to be to be a facility for the cellphone to change concerning the two settings dynamically based on what you might be undertaking. My evaluation was finished solely with the 120Hz setting, and if I were being a common consumer I probably would dismiss 60Hz absolutely. 

The exceptional monitor is complemented by a powerful stereo speaker set up, sending sound out of the leading and base of the cellphone. Gamers will respect the loaded audio high-quality, as will everyone listening to songs or watching movie devoid of headphones. 

You are unable to count on a £/$350 handset to operate on a flagship chipset, but the Galaxy A52 5G’s Snapdragon 750G 5G cell system, supported by 6GB of RAM, sent first rate Geekbench five CPU scores of 642 (single core) and 1659 (multi core). For comparison, the £329 OnePlus Nord N10 5G, which is dependent on the Snapdragon 690 platform, scored 608 and 1866 respectively. 

This 5G handset can accommodate two SIMs, but if you want to augment the inside storage, one particular SIM will require to make way for a MicroSD card. There is 128GB on-board, of which 26GB is employed out of the box, leaving 102GB no cost. That 26GB is occupied by Android eleven, the Samsung Just one UI three.1 overlay and a bevy of additional applications. 

Samsung’s overlay adds some helpful characteristics to the settings spot, but you also get many applications that replicate all those furnished with Android. If it is really way too a lot, a hard reset will allow you basically not to set up whichever of the Samsung applications you never want. There is also a bunch of 3rd-party applications, like Spotify, Netflix, Fb and TikTok, in addition Microsoft Business office, OneDrive, Outlook and LinkedIn. You can often uninstall any you never want if you have not dismissed them through set up. 

SEE: 5G smartphones: A cheat sheet (no cost PDF) (TechRepublic)

There are four rear cameras, with the principal one particular possessing a 64MP sensor, an f/1.eight wide-angle lens and optical image stabilisation (OIS). This is complemented by a 12MP f/two.two extremely-wide-angle (123°) camera, a 5MP f/two.4 depth sensor and a 5MP f/two.4 macro camera. The entrance-experiencing camera is a 32MP f/two.two unit. 

Point-and-click shooting with the principal and entrance cameras was fantastic: colours were being accurate and pics were being satisfying. But point-and-click is definitely about the limit. 

Zooming is electronic (there’s no telephoto camera), and so fidelity disappears rather swiftly as you head in direction of the most 10x. The macro lens is discouraging as it lacks autofocus and have to be held three-5cm from the topic — you may require a steady hand, and it doesn’t get close in plenty of to go as a very good macro camera. The depth sensing camera is minimal in use and could as nicely not be existing. So, two of the four rear cameras are very good, but zooming is electronic only when the macro and depth cameras are mainly superfluous. 

The Galaxy A52 5G’s 4500mAh battery quickly stored the handset heading for a day beneath ordinary use, lasting for eleven hrs 58 minutes beneath the PCMark for Android Work two. battery lifestyle exam. It also has rather very good endurance for movie viewing, offering three hrs of YouTube movie from a entirely billed battery with a loss of eighteen{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd}. Rapidly charging (25W, fifty{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd} in thirty minutes) is supported, but there’s no wireless charging. 

Conclusions 

Samsung’s Galaxy A52 5G offers a very good set of characteristics at a mid-variety (£/$350) price point. A distinctive chassis style with a great matte end to the backplate, IP67 dust/drinking water resistance, a three.5mm headset jack and 6GB of RAM in addition 128GB of inside storage give it wide charm, with dual SIM, 5G and MicroSD assist adding to the combine. Add in the Tremendous AMOLED monitor with a 120Hz refresh charge and first rate general performance from the Snapdragon 750G chipset, and you might be wanting at an desirable offer. 

But never be fooled by the quad-camera array at the back again. There are two first rate cameras (64MP wide angle, 12MP extremely-wide-angle), a disappointing macro camera and a depth sensor that could as nicely not be there. Point-and-shoot snappers will be fantastic, but much more demanding photographers could want to seem somewhere else. 

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