Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G review — Too little for too much

• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G is the company’s latest mid-range 5G smartphone.
• It comes with the Snapdragon 778G processor, 64MP quad cameras, a Super AMOLED display and a 4,500mAh battery.
• Here’s our detailed review on the Galaxy A52s 5G.

Samsung overhauled its midrange and budget smartphone segment with the revamped Galaxy A series and Galaxy M series. It currently offers multiple smartphones covering all different price segments giving consumers various choices which are also sometimes quite confusing. The Galaxy A smartphones differ from the Galaxy M phones with more focus on aesthetics. Samsung’s most recent launch in this series is the Galaxy A52s 5G, a midrange 5G smartphone.

It’s an upgrade over the Galaxy A52 that launched in India at the beginning of this year. The Galaxy A52s comes in the same design but with 5G, a faster processor and some upgrades under the hood. Samsung also offers the Galaxy A52s 5G at a much higher price of ₹35,999 for the base model. We used the Galaxy A52s 5G for a couple of weeks, and here’s what we think about this phone.

Design, form factor

The Galaxy A52s comes in a slim and light plastic body. I personally liked the form factor a lot as the phone is easy to use with one hand but it’s not too small or big at the same time. The phone is also more on the lighter side so it’s easy to carry around. We got the black colour model of the Galaxy A52s but if you want your phone to stand out more than you can go for the light violet, mint or white colours. It also has a matte-like finish at the back that tends to attract a lot of fingerprint smudges.

Display

The Galaxy A52s 5G features a 6.5-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display. It also has an Infinity-O notch cutout for the camera. Samsung phones usually offer one of the best displays even in the mid-range segment. The Galaxy A52s 5G has a really good display with colours looking bright and rich without being an overkill. The 120Hz refresh rate really adds to the overall display and smooth scrolling experience. If you switch to the 60Hz refresh rate you will feel a difference but it doesn’t really affect the overall experience.

Cameras

With the Galaxy A52s 5G you get a quad-camera setup featuring a 64-megapixel primary sensor, 12-megapixel ultra wide angle lens, a 5-megapixel macro lens, and a 5-megapixel depth sensor. We tried out the Galaxy A52s 5G’s cameras in different lighting scenarios and it unsurprisingly performed the best in daylight. It can nicely capture colours and also does a good job of keeping objects in focus. You’ll have to manually choose the 64-megapixel camera mode which produces better and more natural colours but prepare for a slower camera app.

Low-light photography on the Galaxy A52s 5G still needs a lot of work. There’s a lot of noise in photos captured in the evening and at night. It’s after post-processing that the photos turn out to look decent but don’t expect great results.

For selfies, it houses a 32-megapixel front camera. You’ll get good selfies with the Galaxy A52s 5G but the phone tends to still add that slight beautification even with no optimisation. The macro mode was also quite impressive in capturing details. The Galaxy A52s 5G also has many features to play around with like Single Take, built-in Snapchat filters, super slow motion video recording and AR doodles.

Performance, battery life

The Galaxy A52s 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G processor with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The phone’s performance is quite an upgrade over the Galaxy A52 as it ran smooth during regular usage as well as multitasking. You can easily shuffle through multiple apps with ease and not face any noticeable stutters or slowness. We also tried a few games like Among Us, and Genshin Impact. With graphics set to the highest, there are noticeable lags and stutters. But it can easily handle light games like Among Us. The phone does tend to heat up a little bit while gaming but it’s quite normal.

In terms of battery life, the Galaxy A52s 5G will last you throughout the day even if you put in a few hours of streaming and some gaming. On regular usage, it can even go for a day and half. While it does support 25W fast charging, Samsung ships a 15W adapter with the Galaxy A52s 5G. With this charger, the phone takes almost two hours to fully charge.

One thing to highlight about the Galaxy A52s 5G is the massive bloatware that the phone arrives with. In addition to the default Samsung apps and Google apps, there are many other pre-installed apps including Glance for the lockscreen. Setting up the phone is also not very smooth with too much intrusion from Samsung. Yes, these apps can be uninstalled but it can really spoil the user experience.

Verdict

The Galaxy A52s 5G offers a decent performance overall. But it faces stiff competition from smartphones that are priced around the same. Also, the Galaxy A52s 5G seems to overcut its price as you can get the same and even better performance from phones like the OnePlus Nord 2. If you’re looking for a phone worth your money then we wouldn't recommend the Galaxy A52s 5G.

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