Samsung Galaxy A52 4G-LTE review: Feature-rich mid-range phone
Recently, Samsung released the company's new mid-range phone Galaxy A52. For now, only the LTE model is available in India.
It comes in two configurations--6GB RAM + 128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage-- for Rs 26,499 and Rs 27,999, respectively.
As the name suggests, the Galaxy A52 succeeds the popular A51 series and comes with a lot of upgrades in terms of all aspects such as design, build quality, camera, battery and processor.
I have been using it for quite some time and here are my thoughts on Samsung's new phone.
Design, built quality and display
Our review unit is an Awesome Blue model and it truly personifies the variant. Samsung has done a fantastic job with the sleek and slim design of the Galaxy A52. It has a polycarbonate-based shell and the company has incorporated the frosted glass with a matte finish. It looks lovely in the sunlight and an instant eye-turner. The camera module slightly protrudes a bit, but seamlessly blends with the rest of the layout on the back.
The railings around the edge flaunt a light blue shade with a metallic chromium finish and match beautifully with the shell.
Also, it is thin and lightweight. I had no qualms in terms of grip and holding on to the phone without any worry of dropping it.
The Galaxy A52 features a power button and volume rockers placed one above the other on the right side. And on the left side, there are no physical buttons as such.
At the base, you will find the type-C USB port flanked by the single-grille speaker on the left and the 3.5mm audio jack and microphone to the right.
On top, it features a hybrid SIM slot (nano-SIM 1 + nano-SIM 2 or microSD card) and a microphone.
On the front, the Galaxy A52 flaunts a beautiful 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display. It supports 90Hz display refresh rate, offers peak brightness of up to 800 nits and a pixel density of 407 pixels per inch (ppi). It has an 84.1 per cent screen-to-body ratio.
I had a wonderful time watching movies, TV series and play games on the new Samsung phone. Also, another plus point of the device is that the maximum brightness is just enough to view content under direct sunlight.
The in-screen fingerprint is really good in terms of response to the finger impression and unlocks the phone with fewer cases of false rejection. It tends to go wrong if you have sweaty fingers.
As far as the build quality is concerned, it comes with the Corning Gorilla Glass 5 shield, which takes of daily wear and tears such as save the screen from scratches by keys and pen in the pocket.
Another advantage of the Galaxy A52 over rival brands in the sub-Rs 30,000 price category is the IP67 rating. The device can sustain water for up to one meter for close to 30 minutes. This comes in handy when the phone gets dropped accidentally in a swimming pool or water splash. Also, it can survive rains.
Performance
The Galaxy A52 houses Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G octa-core CPU backed by Adreno 618 Android 11-based One UI 3.1, 6GB/8GB RAM, 128GB storage, and a 4,500mAh battery with a 25W fast charger.
The new Samsung phone works fine when doing day-to-day activities such as browsing webs, operating the camera, playing graphics-intense games such as Asphalt 9 series. I didn't face any serious issues such as over-heating, but it does get a bit warm, if you stream multimedia content or play games, or do 4K video recording for long. This is acceptable, as most phones exhibit the same behavior in such conditions.
On Geekbench 5.0 performance testing application, it scored a decent 445 and 1442 points on single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.
Also, it consistently delivered a full day's battery life (active hours - 6:00 am to 10:00 pm) with more than 30-percent juice left before I retired to the bed. The charging is quite fantastic. It takes just 30 minutes to charge from zero to 50 percent in around 30 minutes and a full 100 percent under 90 minutes. Yes, Samsung is offering to charge adaptor with the retail package unlike the Galaxy S20 series, where you have to buy one separately.
Camera
The Galaxy A52 LTE comes with quad-camera module-- main 64 MP ( f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.7-inch, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) + 12 MP (f/2.2, 123-degree- (ultra-wide angle, 1.12µm pixel size) + 5 MP macro sensor (f/2.4) + 5 MP depth sensor (f/2.4) with LED flash. It supports panorama, HDR, 4K at 30fps, full HD (1080p) AT 30/60fps, gyro-EIS (Electric Image stabilisation) for stable videos.
Samsung's new mid-range phone takes pretty good pictures. The details are captured beautifully with details. I have to say the colour of the subjects particularly the flowers is a bit warmer than natural.
But, I won't complain as the images are gorgeous worthy to be shared on social media platforms. This actually saves a lot of space in the phone, as you need not have to install third-party photography enhancing apps.
The Samsung's camera offers wide-angle, wide, zoom (30X), portrait, and several modes. As you can see from the samples posted here, the pictures are captured well. Even the close-up shots came off really well during the review period.
The only qualm is that the night mode pictures have a bit of grainy, more visible when they are seen on the but on par with rival brands in its class. Also, the photo with max (30X) zoom, the resulting picture is grainy.
On the front, it features-- 32 MP wide snapper with (f/2.2), 26mm lens, 1/2.8-inch, 0.8µm pixel size. It supports HDR, 4K at 30fps, and 1080p at 30fps.
It takes decent selfies and users can make good use of the Beautify tools and filters to enhance the profile pictures.
Also, users can utilise the Augmented Reality (AR) Doodle feature to liven up the photography session.
Final thoughts
Samsung's Galaxy A52 is a pretty solid value-for-money phone. It fares well in three key aspects --excellent display, really good camera, and day.
Also, the design language in terms of the paint job, matte finish, and premium hand-feel impressed me a lot. This makes the Galaxy A52 LTE (2021) stand out among the rival brands.
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