Samsung Galaxy A52 review: A mid-ranger that feels like a high-end phone

If someone showed you lot the Galaxy A52'due south specs without telling you the name of the telephone, you would never realize that it's a sequel to the Galaxy A51. At that place are many high-end features on the Milky way A52 — stereo speakers, water resistance, high refresh rate screen — that elevate it above what nosotros expect from a mid-range Milky way smartphone.

It'southward non simply the upgrades that volition excite customers. The fact that the Milky way A52 comes with a Snapdragon processor for every market place is going to make more than a few people happy. Throw in stuff like a big battery, 25W super fast charging, and iii years of guaranteed Bone updates along with the latest software out of the box, and the Milky way A52 becomes a huge yr-on-year upgrade and an even huger (is that a word?) upgrade for those using a two-yr erstwhile phone, such as the Milky way A50.

Simply do those features come together in a cohesive manner and make for a corking user experience, or did Samsung just cheque them off the list for marketing purposes and call it a 24-hour interval? Find out in this Galaxy A52 review.

Blueprint

The first sign of simply how different the Galaxy A52 is from its predecessors comes from the phone's design. The front is still all screen with a punch pigsty for the selfie camera, but all the rainbow-ish slope effects have been replaced by a smooth, make clean await at the back of the phone. This simplistic approach is common to all of Samsung's 2021 A series mid-rangers; everyone here at SamMobile likes information technology, and you probably will, too.

Samsung has opted for a matte cease on the dorsum

Samsung has also opted for a matte finish on the back, which makes the A52 feels a little more premium than the A50 and A51, even though the dorsum and sides are all the same plastic. Of course, the biggest blueprint alter cannot be seen, only experienced. The Galaxy A52 is water and dust resistant, which means it'southward going to be far more durable in day-to-twenty-four hour period life. Water resistance is not high on the list of must-haves for everyone, but its presence on the A52 is very welcome.

Cheers to the 6.five-inch display, the Galaxy A52 balances screen estate and ease of use very well, and at 189 grams, it weighs just right. If you think 189 grams is too much, keep in heed that the A52 has a 500 mAh larger battery than the Galaxy A51 and Galaxy A50, and that translates to almost two days of battery life with low-cal use (more on that in the bombardment department). And you get a microSD slot and a headphone jack likewise, though the former is a hybrid slot this time around so yous tin can either employ two SIM cards or one SIM card and a microSD card.

Display

The 90Hz refresh rate on the Milky way A52 makes it feel a lot more like Samsung'south flagship phones in everyday operation than any other mid-ranger the visitor has put out. Other mid-range Galaxies can be quick, simply they are never fluid. That is no longer the case. The Snapdragon 720G is perfectly capable of consistently driving that loftier refresh charge per unit, resulting in shine animations and scrolling beyond the lath.

The Milky way A52 offers a fantastic viewing feel with its AMOLED screen

At that place are some slowdowns here and at that place, similar when you are playing a game and switch to the home screen or when apps are updating in the background, but 95% of the fourth dimension, the high refresh rate sticks. In fact, I think 90Hz strikes the correct balance between performance and battery life. While some folks may be able to tell the difference between 90Hz and 120Hz, well-nigh customers will be fine with either.

Even with the high refresh rate turned off, the Galaxy A52 offers a fantastic viewing experience with its AMOLED screen. You get vivid colors, deep blacks, and broad viewing angles, and the 800 nits of effulgence that the display tin can touch in high brightness mode is more than than enough for comfortable viewing under harsh sunlight (although the display can exist a scrap too reflective at times). Oh, and the display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 instead of the now outdated Gorilla Glass 3 institute on the Milky way A51.

The congenital-in fingerprint sensor is also excellent. Samsung'southward in-display sensors were rather mediocre for a while when they were offset introduced, but the one on the Galaxy A52 is fast and has a very low failure rate. Equally usual, you can opt for facial recognition for more than convenient device unlocking, though that isn't as secure equally fingerprint recognition and never volition be.

Cameras

The Milky way A52 has a 64MP main rear camera with optical image stabilization, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, a 5MP depth camera (used for bokeh pictures), and a 5MP macro photographic camera. Let me start with the macro photographic camera: It's equally useless as the macro cameras on other Galaxy phones. At merely 5 megapixels and without any autofocus, the photos you become are lifeless and lack detail, and finding out but when the object is in focus is very tough. You might get some skillful pictures of your nutrient, but at the cease of the day the macro camera is just at that place to pad the spec sheet.

The 64MP rear photographic camera is first-class for a phone in the mid-range segment

The 64MP rear camera, meanwhile, is fantabulous for a telephone in the mid-range segment. Thanks to OIS, blurry pictures (and shaky videos) are a matter of the past, and photos taken in daylight are sharp and accept good dynamic range, although the color reproduction tin can sometimes be off and make things expect less colorful than they actually are. Nighttime performance is pretty good too even without the assistance of Dark mode. In fact, for some reason, the phone sometimes takes amend low-calorie-free pictures in auto way than in Night mode.

Night mode doesn't light upward dark areas of the image every bit much every bit it should, and the but advantage I see is reduced noise, just that comes at the expense of reduced detail in dark areas (a consequence of those dark areas not beingness lit up properly). I guess it'south prissy that the regular Photo mode automatically does a adept job with depression-calorie-free pictures, but it'due south not nice to take a Night style that does the opposite of what it's supposed to do. Thankfully, advanced users tin can switch to the Pro mode to adjust values such equally shutter speed and ISO during the nighttime to get better results.

Below is an farthermost example of how Night fashion can sometimes do the opposite of what it's expected to do (slide left for the Dark mode shot). The Night fashion shot looks nice, but information technology's too dark.

← SLIDE →

The ultra-wide camera does a laudable chore, though ultra-wide photos can lack detail and also need sufficient amount of ambient light to be usable. The depth sensor, meanwhile, enables impressive bokeh when the field of study and lighting are right. Loose hair, as usual, is problematic sometimes, but that'due south to be expected with phone cameras no matter how plush a device might be. Selfies on the A52 come out sharp and well exposed. Depression-light situations are difficult and result in soft images, but yous tin use the screen flash to get effectually that.

Here are a agglomeration of regular, ultra-wide, and bokeh pics:

The Galaxy A52 has a nifty play tricks up its sleeve (and so does the Galaxy A72): Information technology has a new style called Fun that puts a number of Snapchat filters and effects right into Samsung's camera app. These effects are updated regularly (the mode needs an internet connexion to work), and the advantage is that you lot get new effects to cull from and yous can get higher-quality photos than what you might go when shooting pictures with the Snapchat app.

You can notice some regular selfies and a few taken with Fun manner beneath.

The A52 is likewise the first mid-range Galaxy phone to get Pro video mode, and it works just as well hither as it does on the flagships. Y'all can shoot at 4K or Full Hard disk in Pro video manner, although threescore fps is but available for Full Hard disk in both Pro and regular video modes. All of the usual suspects are likewise in that location, such every bit tedious motility, super slow-mo, panorama, food, AR Doodle, hyperlapse, and night hyperlapse. Unmarried Accept is included as well.

Software

The Galaxy A52 joins an ever-growing listing of phones that run Android 11 and One UI 3.one out of the box. You lot go almost of the software features you see on the flagship Galaxies, such as the total Bixby suite which includes the fantabulous Bixby Routines; all the Google integration that the Milky way S21 introduced, like Google Discover on the home screen and Google Messages set as the default SMS app; and everything else we've come to love on Samsung's phones, similar a screen recorder, theme support, Samsung Pay, Secure Folder, Edge panels, and Always On Display.

You get nearly of the software features yous see on the flagship Galaxies

The Galaxy A52 does miss out on one very useful feature introduced with I UI 3.i: video telephone call furnishings. This feature allows you to blur the background in popular video calling apps such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Duo, and I tin simply assume the lack of raw horsepower on the Milky way A52 is the reason why video phone call effects are missing. Or, well, they're missing because Samsung doesn't want complete parity between its mid-rangers and flagships when it comes to software functionality.

Where the Milky way A52 does match Samsung's flagships is long-term software support. Like the Galaxy A51, the Galaxy A52 will get three guaranteed Os updates and 4 years of security updates. That'south more than what any manufacturer other than Samsung is offering in the mid-range segment. While some manufacturers practise provide a lot of updates to devices priced similar to the Milky way A52, nonepromiseto exercise it, which is what makes all the difference in the earth.

Performance

The Snapdragon 720G isn't the most powerful chipset around, but information technology's more than than sufficient to offer a fast and smooth user experience no matter what you might be doing on the phone, something you couldn't say nigh the Galaxy A50 and Milky way A51. As mentioned in the display department, things can wearisome downwards sometimes, but information technology's rare enough that yous won't find yourself lament.

Gaming performance is splendid, too, with titles like Cobblestone 9 and Phone call of Duty running well at the highest graphics settings without heating up the telephone too much even subsequently long sessions. However, I didn't see the selection to play Cobblestone 9 at 60 fps, so the high refresh charge per unit may not come into play (no pun intended) in most games (to be fair, that'due south also true in many games for flagship phones with loftier refresh rate displays).

Bombardment life

Samsung's A5x lineup of phones has finally received a bombardment capacity upgrade, and the 4,500 mAh jail cell inside the Galaxy A52 delivers in spades. With lite to moderate utilise and the high refresh rate turned on, it can go almost two days without needing a accuse. With heavy use, you can hands get to your bedtime before needing to plop it on the charger. Battery life is fantastic, in brusque, and won't allow y'all down, ever.

The Galaxy A52 can go almost two days without needing a charge

With a 25W charger, you lot can too charge the phone to full in an 60 minutes and 15 minutes, while 10 minutes of charging gets you to effectually 20%. Unfortunately, y'all simply get a 15W charger in the box, which means you're looking at around two hours for a full charge if you don't separately purchase a 25W brick. It'due south a cost-cut mensurate I wish Samsung didn't brand, peculiarly since this is the first fourth dimension the A5x lineup has fabricated the jump to 25W charging, only it is what information technology is.

Sound, call quality

The Galaxy A52 and Galaxy A72 aren't the first mid-range phones from Samsung to feature stereo speakers, but they are the kickoff ones with stereo speakers to be globally available. Samsung claims the stereo speakers brand for louder audio output compared to final year's Galaxy A51 and A71, but I tin can't say I noticed much of a difference, even with Dolby Atmos enabled.

These speakers are perhaps x% louder, although thank you to the stereo setup, they do offer fuller, more than punchy sound. Not as punchy equally the speakers on Samsung's flagship phones, but certainly improve than annihilation nosotros have seen heard on any previous mid-range Galaxy phone. They certainly made watching the latest Godzilla vs Kong trailer enjoyable, though I wager about customers will still want to use earphones instead.

And yes, the Galaxy A52 does characteristic a headphone jack, merely yous will have to bring your own earphones as at that place are none in the box. In fact, I call back Samsung has stopped putting earphones in the box for practiced no affair which segment a telephone might belong to. Not like the earbuds the company provided with its mid-range phones were amazing, only you have to keep the actress expenditure in mind when buying these devices.

Every bit for call quality, I have no complaints. Everything works as well equally it should in this 24-hour interval and age. For those wondering, the Galaxy A52 supports carrier aggregation and can connect to 4G+ networks, dissimilar handsets in Samsung'south Galaxy M and F series.

Verdict

The Galaxy A52 is the best mid-range phone from Samsung yet. Actually, it feels a lot like a high-end telephone, and in some markets, that'due south the reason why it's priced a little above the Galaxy A51. It's a good thing and then that yous're getting an excellent telephone. The just disadvantage I run across is that you are still getting a macro photographic camera instead of a zoom camera, and maybe the stereo speakers could have been louder. Other than that, the Milky way A52 does everything correct, and y'all can club one with your eyes closed if you lot're in the market for a sub-$400 telephone.

P.Southward.: Want to know something about the Milky way A52 that's not mentioned in the review? Ask me in the comments department and I'll practice my best to answer.

Source: https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/galaxy-a52/review

Posted by: hallpreaddly.blogspot.com

Share this post