Samsung Galaxy A17 Review: Mid-range phone with incremental upgrade

Samsung earlier this month launched the Galaxy A17 series 5G phone in India.

It comes with good upgrades over the predecessor in terms of design language, enhanced build quality, new processor and more. Here are my thoughts on Samsung's new mid-range phone.

Design, build quality, and display

The first big change we notice in the Galaxy A17 is the long vertically aligned camera capsule with three sensors. The previous iteration, Galaxy A16 (review), features three individual camera islands.

Samsung Galaxy A16 (left) and the Galaxy A17 (right).

On the front, the display has remained the same infinity-U design. It sports a 6.7-inch full HD+ (1080×2340p) super AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate.

However, the screen is well protected with Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus shield, which is very rare for a phone under Rs 19,000 to boast of. It can safeguard against scratches when kept with metal objects such as keys, coins or pens in the close confines of a pants pocket.

Samsung phone is also protected against water splashes. It comes IP54 water-and-dust resistant rating.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

Our review unit is blue. It is dark navy blue and looks lovely in the sunlight, and to an extent, manages to repel sweaty fingerprint smudges. The back is made of glass fibre made of reinforced polymer material. The company also offers two other colours-- black and grey.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

The 6.7-inch super AMOLED display, which comes with a pixel density of 385 ppi (pixels per inch) and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and peak brightness of 800 nits, is really good for multimedia consumption and playing games for long hours indoors.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

However, outdoors, users will face the reflection issue. Unlike the premium phones, it doesn't come with an anti-glare coating. This is not a deal breaker, as all phones in its class face the same drawback as the A17 series.

The device houses hybrid dual-SIM slots. It offers one dedicated nano SIM slot, and for the second slot, the customer has to decide whether to use the second SIM or get a microSD card for extra memory space. By the way, it supports up to 2TB of storage.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

Samsung phone features a Type-C USB port for data transfer and charging. On the right, just below the volume rocker, it houses a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. It works like a charm with less false rejection rate.

Performance

The Galaxy A17 is powered by a 5nm class Samsung Exynos 1330 octa-core processor with Mali-G68 MP2 GPU, 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, 128GB / 256GB (expandable up to 2TB) and a 5,000mAh battery with a 25W charger.

The chipset houses two Cortex-A178 cores, which can clock up to 2.4 GHz, and six Cortex-A55 cores, which can reach 2.0Ghz CPU speed. It is good enough to support most of the popular battle royale games, such as BattleGround Mobile India (BGMI), and others on the Google Play Store.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

In terms of day-to-day activities, the device works smoothly without any pressing issues to complain about.

The device runs Android 15-based One UI 7.0 and will soon get the latest Android 16-based One UI 8. The user interface is clean, and any first-time user can get around the settings to enable or disable a feature. Users will find the search tab at the top of the settings very handy to change settings of display, wallpaper or any aspects of the user interface.

The device is guaranteed to get six years of Android OS updates and software security patches for protection against emerging cyber threats up to 2031.

Also, the Samsung phone supports generative Artificial Intelligence features such as Gemini Live, Circle to Search and more.

As far as the battery life is concerned, the Galaxy A17 comes with a 5,000mAh battery with 25W charging capability, the same as the predecessor. It should be noted that the company offers both the charging brick and data cable free of cost with the retail box.

Under normal usage with Wi-Fi connectivity at home and office/college, the device can easily last a whole day. However, if you are fully reliant on a 5G cellular SIM for data all day, like a work trip outside the city, the device can last up to dinner time. It is still a safe bet compared to the other phones in its class.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

Photography

The Galaxy A17 flaunts a triple-camera module, the same hardware as the predecessor. It has-- main 50MP camera (with f/1.8 aperture, auto-focus), a 5MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide angle sensor and a 2MP (f/2.2) macro camera with LED flash on the back.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

It takes pretty good photos in natural sunlight conditions. Like most Samsung phones, this device also boosts the colours of the subject, such as the human face and flowers.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

It supports ultra-wide-angle mode. The device, as you can see from the sample photo, manages to capture the wide area of the landscape within the frame.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

With the night mode on, it takes really good photos with less noise, on par with other phones in its class.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

The portrait mode, too, the Galaxy A17 does a fine job with sharp focus on the subject. Even the contours of the subjects get captured perfectly in most scenarios. It also does a good job with blurring the background.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

It supports 2X zoom and can digitally zoom up to 10X. The picture quality remains good up to 5X, and beyond that, it begins to accumulate more noise

Samsung Galaxy A17.

In macro mode, the close-up photos captures all minute details of the subject pretty neatly.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

On the front, it houses a 13MP (f/2.0). It takes pretty nice selfies in the daylight and low-light conditions in the evening or early morning. Indoors, with controlled light conditions, the picture quality is quite good.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

Both the front and the back cameras can record 1080p at 30 frames per second (fps). The video quality is decent, on par for a device which costs less than Rs 20,000.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

Final thoughts:

Samsung Galaxy A17 ticks all the major aspects we look for a new mid-range phone such as good build quality, full day battery life, reliable performance and a decent camera.

Also, it supports several gen AI features and will get more with future software updates. By the way, the device is guaranteed to get six Android OS updates up to 2031. These aspects make a compelling case to get the Galaxy A17.

Samsung Galaxy A17.

The device comes in three colours -- black, blue and grey. It is available in three storage options-- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 256GB storage-- for Rs 18,999, Rs 20,499 and Rs 23,499, respectively.

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