Exactly one and a half years later Samsung launched a similar-looking phone with better internals that produced more power and also supports future 5G technology. Yes, we are talking about the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G that Samsung launched on 17th August 2021.

Earlier on March 19th, 2020 they launched the Galaxy A52 so it’s actually an upgrade from the previous generation where apart from the internals everything seems exactly similar. Now maybe you think what’s the point to knowing about an old phone where other features haven’t changed.

Here Samsung plays the trick and actually managed to offer Galaxy A52s 5G at the same price and since there’s no sacrifice here feature-wise or price-wise the phone is worth recommending over the older model.

Look and design-wise it’s a nice phone and here Samsung is providing the same polycarbonate material although the quality is good and we do not have any complaints because the Galaxy A52 was a good-looking device.

The Galaxy A52s 5G also sports similar color options, quad-camera placements, identical battery, stereo speakers, and IP 67 rating, and uses a very good quality immersive AMOLED display for media consumption.

But with the Galaxy A52s, Samsung has added a couple of improved features and specifications. It has a 120Hz display with a 240Hz touch sampling rate, and a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G SoC that performs better than the Snapdragon 750G found in the A52.

The Specifications:

Design and Display of Galaxy A52s 5G:

Samsung always produced better-looking phones for their A-series and here they continue the same tradition, the A52s 5G looks pretty modern and good-looking. Although they use plastic or polycarbonate material but still the in-hand feel is good and looks premium from the outside.

Just like Samsung’s other recent A series phones the A52s 5G has that signature soft matte finish and comes in black as well as a variety of pastel colors like white, purple, and mint. The frame has a smoky chrome finish, while the back panel has a matte surface that feels like marble.

The back feels nice and grippy and hides fingerprints quite well and plastic doesn’t always mean cheap you get IP 67 rated dust and water resistance here which most other mid-rangers don’t provide.

With the mat finish, the rear camera module of the phone is also nicely tilted, which covers the rear camera bump at least a little bit. This makes the lens cut-outs stand out and gives the phone a very modern appearance.

The phone measures 159.9 x 75.1 x 8.4 mm (6.30 x 2.96 x 0.33 in) not a slim phone but the thickness helps the phone to distribute heat better. The weight is 189 grams little heavy but the aspect ratio helps to hold the phone easily.

On the right-hand side, we have the power on/off and volume controller buttons, A hybrid sim card slot placed at the top for a  physical nano sim and micro SD card along with a microphone.

A USB Type-C port, one speaker, and a 3.5 mm port are at the bottom and we have nothing on the left side. At the back, we have a Samsung logo and quad camera placements along with an led flash. The front side is covered with Gorilla Glass 5, and an in-display fingerprint scanner is placed underneath the screen.

The Galaxy A52s has a 6.5-inch full-HD+ Super AMOLED display with a cutout for the selfie camera and an accurate under-display fingerprint reader. The screen has 2400X1800 resolution and the pixel per inch is 405 so you expect rich vibrant colors with dark black and white proportion.

This panel is quite nice quality-wise with deep OLED blacks and HDR 10 plus support. The color accuracy isn’t perfect but it’s pretty close we achieved around 380 nits maximum with a brightness slider and it boosts to 800 nits in auto mode when out in the bright sun.

Scrolling through the phone is super enjoyable because the 120Hz screen refresh rate and touch response are great because the screen supports a 240Hz touch sampling rate.

One good thing about the display is the refresh rate is not adaptive, which means it will stay set to the setting you have selected and will not change depending on the content being shown. You have the option to choose between 120 Hz and 60 Hz. 120 Hz refresh rate obviously delivers a better, smoother, faster scrolling experience, while 60 Hz can help you save battery.

Finally, in the display department, nothing changed and Galaxy A52s brings a good quality display, although everything on the screen seems a little more colorful, if you adjust a few settings, you will get a fairly good experience.

Storage and Performance of Galaxy A52s 5G:

In terms of storage, the Galaxy A52s 5G offers you 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB or 256GB of internal storage. The phone also supports expandable storage you can increase the storage up to 1TB using a microSD card.

In the performance section where Samsung upgrade the new device with a much faster processor the Snapdragon 778G. This chipset is extremely popular in the mid-premium smartphone range, and in the Galaxy A52s, it more than does the job with ample smoothness and an air of uncluttered simplicity.

The Snapdragon 778G is an Octacore processor built on 6nm technology where 4 Kyro 670 cores are clocked at 2.4 Ghz and the other 4 Kyro 670 cores are clocked at 1.9 Ghz. The GPU here is Adreno 642L and has an X53 5G Modem for better connectivity.

The performance of the Samsung Galaxy A52s’ Snapdragon 778G isn’t bad, but it isn’t on par with competing smartphones at the same price level. Everyday performance is smooth, and pretty much every regular work app loads without a hiccup. The chipset inside is powerful enough for basic multitasking.

The overall performance of this chip is good and with 8GB RAM, the device manages to run anything that you throw at it. The normal daily tasks are smooth and surfing, gaming, shooting, watching are no problem and in terms of gameplay.

Although the graphics performance is not quite as impressive as Motorola Edge 20 or Xiaomi 11 lite NG 5G it’s very close and considering the price in mind we should expect more from the A52s 5G.

We played Call of Duty Mobile, and BGMI at Very High graphics and frame rate settings with no noticeable heating issues or frame drop but as we used the 6GB RAM version the device responded slowly after a long period of gameplay and we have to clear the memory sometimes.

For general usage and light gaming, you don’t find any problem regarding performance but If you’re planning to use this device for gaming, then you should go for the 8GB version for smooth performance.

Quad cameras of Galaxy A52s 5G:

One department where Samsung phones are always excellent is the camera and we have a Quad camera setup here. Although in today’s smartphone market it’s an ongoing trend to increase the number of lenses as much as you can let’s find out about each one individually.

The primary camera is a 64-megapixel f/1.8 lens and has optical image stabilization, then you have a wide-angle 12 MP camera with f/2.2 aperture and captures a 123-degree field of view, lastly the two macro and depth sensors are used for additional options during shooting and they both are  5 MP with f/2.4 aperture.

During daytime the 16-megapixel photos from the main cam come out quite decent they have enough detail accurate colors and a wide dynamic range for the class thanks to auto HDR. Portraits taken with the main cam and depth sensor look good as far as photo quality goes the subject detection is decent but can easily be messed up by busier backgrounds.

The 12 megapixel photos from the ultra-wide cam are great for the class there’s a good level of detail and the photos are sharper than you’d expect from this sort of camera and photos are distortion correction is proficient too. The details it produces from the ultrawide camera are very good almost similar to the main cam.

If you’ve enough lighting in the background then the 5-megapixel micro cam and the depth sensor both can produce good images, there are enough detail and the color tones are natural but in low lights, these sensors are hunting for focus and the photos came up very noisy.

Night photos are coming up really well from the main cam with plenty of detail along with well-handled light sources and pretty low noise. Night mode isn’t a major improvement but it restores some blown highlights.

The ultra-wide cam does a decent job at night for this sort of camera the exposure is okay and you get some detail and the dynamic range isn’t bad the ultrawide supports night mode and it improves exposure and boosts the shadows. Here are some pictures to see and judge yourself…

For selfies, we have a 32-megapixel f/2.2 aperture camera and using pixel binning the images came up as 8 megapixels. The front camera produces good skin tones in selfies, but we’d advise against using the filters. Most of the built-in filter options tend to over-soften skin textures, giving selfies an artificial look.

Videos can be captured with the main cam and up to 4k resolution at 30fps and they’re excellent with plenty of detail and natural-looking processing colors are spot-on and the dynamic range is reasonably wide. But we advised using a tripod for more stable output because 1080p 60fps and 4K 30fps clips looked very shaky.

In low light, the quality dropped quite drastically with blurred textures and limited dynamic range, and stabilization wasn’t great either. So overall photos are good in most cases you’ll enjoy your time with the cameras.

Software and Security:

The Galaxy A52s 5G features the new One UI 3.1 based on Android 11 and this custom skin brings you tons of functions and features. The main tweaks in One UI 3.1 impact the notifications bar, widgets, and lock screen.

There is also new feature added such as new video backgrounds for calls, eye comfort shields, continue apps on other devices, video call effects, removal of location data in pictures, google discover, set bedtime alarm, control smart home accessories, and lots of new camera features.

One UI 3.1 introduces the new Object eraser tool to help you to get that perfect image. Use this intelligent photo editing tool to cut out unwanted parts of your photos effortlessly, without time-consuming manual editing.

Improved touch autofocus and autoexposure controller give the best shot every time. With just a swipe left or right anywhere on the screen, you can now edit the brightness of your image before you’ve taken the shot.

In pro video mode the Multi Mic Recording feature allows you to simultaneously record audio through both your phone and a connected Bluetooth device. So vloggers and creative musicians can create unique videos can get creative and make videos that look and sound incredible.

New Eye Comfort Shield mode, automatically adjusts the blue light based on the time of day. One UI 3.1 removes metadata that reveals the location of photos before you share them or uses Private Share to control who is allowed access to the content you send, and how long it is available.

In terms of phone security here Samsung did an extremely good job by introducing the Knox security system inside the device. It’s a hardware-based security feature that helps the phone to detect easily and resist intruders to access the phone data.

The Knox platform contains overlapping defense and security mechanisms that protect your data against intrusion, malware, and malicious threats. It’s not only for businesses but also for individuals who are using it as a complete personal device. Using Secure Folder, Knox makes sure your personal and private data is encrypted and isolated from other apps.

Battery Life:

The Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G uses the same capacity battery as the A52 and here you get a 4500 mAh battery which is a little less by today’s standards. But Samsung is doing some tweaks and the 6nm processor also helps the battery stay longer.

After watching some of your favorite web series and videos, surfing, taking occasional photos, video and audio calling, and playing games for some time the battery will almost last a day but in the end, you have to plug the adaptor. Roughly we get 9 to 10 hours of backup using the phone.

In the charging department, the Galaxy A52s 5G supports 25-watt fast charging and with the 25-watt charger the phone can take 1 hour and 10 minutes to fill but unfortunately, we have a 15-watt charger in the box that takes 1 hour and 43 minutes to full charge.

Other Features:

• The phone has dual stereo speakers where one speaker at the bottom and the earpiece doubles as a second speaker. The sound is great and loud with the right amount of bass in it.
• we have a 3.5 mm headphone jack means you can connect your favorite wired headphones and the audio output is great.
• The A52s 5G sports an under-display fingerprint scanner which is not the fastest but works every single time.
• The official IP 67 rating helps the device stay active in water and dust so you don’t have to worry about the outside rain. phone stands up to 1.0 meters of water for up to 30 minutes.

• In terms of connectivity, the Galaxy A52s supports 12 bands of 5G, Dual-band WiFi version 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC that supports Samsung Pay.
• On top of everything, Samsung has promised three years of OS updates and four years of security updates so you don’t have to worry about future use.
• You have the Widevine L1 supports here so enjoy your Netflix, and Prime content in Full HD.

Purchasing Options:

The device initially launched in some markets but is now available in all leading countries offline and online. You can purchase the device online directly from Samsung or visit your nearby Samsung experience store t know more.

Alternatively, you can purchase the Galaxy A52s 5G from any E-commerce website like Amazon, eBay, Reliance digital, Flipkart, and others.

Should you buy Galaxy A52s 5G?

If you’re looking for a good-looking Samsung phone for around $400 then Galaxy A52s is a good choice where you get a solid build and design and there is a positive upgrade in terms of processor.

It has a great 6.5″ AMOLED panel with 120 Hz refresh rate and 240 Hz touch sampling rate, a quad camera setup that actually takes images with great details in normal and low light, great loud stereo speakers, good 4500 mAh battery, IP 67, 3.5 mm jack and all the good stuff like its older brother the A52.

But here you see the obvious improvements in processing power and speeds as the A52s use the powerful Qualcomm 6nm 778G chipset which is power efficient and supports 5G. On top of this, we have the new improved One Ui 3.1 that takes great advantage of strong hardware and produces smooth operation with new features.

But there is some downside like the absence of a Glass back, don’t have wireless charging, Slow UFS 2.1 storage, RAM is LPDDR4, Provide the 15-watt charger in the box, and most importantly the price is higher when we compare other phones with the same hardware like Realme GT, Xiaomi 11 Lite NE 5G, Motorola Edge 20 they are less expensive.

Although Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G is a good all-around phone but looking at the competition we think it’s overpriced and if you get this phone for less than $400 then it’s probably a good buy otherwise look for other alternatives. Anyway love to hear your comments on this device so please share your views in the comments section below.