Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Flagship features for less

Our Verdict

The Milky way A52 5G impresses with its 120Hz display and 64MP photographic camera, but it's not quite the best mid-range telephone.

For

120Hz display
Versatile main camera
Unique and fun design
Long-lasting battery

Against

Other cameras below average
Easily scratched display

Tom's Guide Verdict

The Milky way A52 5G impresses with its 120Hz display and 64MP camera, just it'due south not quite the best mid-range phone.

Pros

+
120Hz display
+
Versatile main photographic camera
+
Unique and fun design
+
Long-lasting battery

Cons

-
Other cameras below average
-
Easily scratched display

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G specs

Starting price: $499/£400
Display: 6.v-inch FHD AMOLED (1080 x 2400)
Refresh rate: 60Hz/120Hz
Chipset: Snapdragon 750G
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128GB
Expandable storage: microSD upward to 1Tb
Rear cameras: 64MP main (f/1.8), 12MP ultrawide (f/2.ii), 5MP macro (f/2.2), 5MP depth sensor (f/two.2)
Front photographic camera: 32MP (f/2.two)
Operating organization: Android 11 with One UI 3.0
Battery: 4,500 mAh
Bombardment life (Hrs: Mins): 12:19 (60Hz), 10:19 (120Hz)
Charging: up to 25W wired
Size: 6.3 x two.9 ten 0.3 inches (159.ix x 75.one x 8.4mm)
Weight: 6.7 ounces (189 grams)
Water/grit resistance: IP67

The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G offers but enough premium features for picayune enough money to make users call back twice about buying a flagship telephone. Priced at $499/£400, it's designed for the average user who cares mainly about photography, streaming, gaming and battery life. With this phone, you go a 120Hz display, 4 rear cameras and 5G connectivity in a colorful design — all for less than $500.

The Galaxy A52 5G delivers enough flagship-level features that may tempt you to buy this phone rather than the more expensive Samsung Milky way S21 or Galaxy S20 Atomic number 26. Simply every bit nosotros found during testing for our Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review, this handset isn't as potent as other midrange phones in its price range.

Editor's notation (Jan. 2022): The A52's successor, the Samsung Galaxy A53, could exist on its style in the side by side few months.

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Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Toll and release date

The Milky way A52 5G began shipping in the U.S. back in April subsequently previously going on sale in the Great britain. The Galaxy A52 5G costs $499/€429, and comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. This is the aforementioned toll as the Google Pixel 4a 5G, $100 more than the basic iPhone SE (which lacks 5G connectivity), and $200 more than the OnePlus Nord N10 5G.

The latest rival for the A52 5G is the Google Pixel 5a. At $449 it costs a little less than the Samsung, and while it misses out on some features similar the 120Hz refresh rate or multiple rear cameras, the Pixel 5a offers stellar photography and a vivid colorful display that may turn your head.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Blueprint

Samsung has given its new batch of mid-range Galaxy A phones — which include the A32, A52, A52 5G and A72 — another colorful, playful design. I don't retrieve it looks quite as fashionable equally the Galaxy S21 series, only at that place is nonetheless a lot I similar well-nigh it.

I particularly dear the color options, especially my demo model'south Awesome Bluish (aye, that'due south its bodily name), though the Awesome Purple, White and Black all take their charms. The single-piece back, which near-seamlessly flows up into the camera module looks great, and gives the Milky way A52 5G its own fully formed identity, rather than information technology being a knock-off Galaxy S or Milky way Note device.

The Galaxy A52 5G features a plastic back, but at least it doesn't experience cheap, thank you to a nice semi-matte texture that keeps the fingerprints at bay. From the front, the A52 5G looks like all modern Samsung phones, with its central dial-hole camera. The top and bottom bezels are a lilliputian thicker than the average phone, but otherwise the Galaxy A52 5G looks just every bit smart as a Galaxy S21.

The metal edges share the aforementioned color equally the dorsum. Samsung has again placed the volume and power buttons on the correct side of the phone, leaving the left totally blank.

In terms of durability, the Galaxy A52 5G has a IP67 water/grit resistance rating, which means it tin survive 30 minutes under about three feet (ane meter) of water, and won't let in any dust.

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Brandish

The Milky way A52 5G'southward display is one of its strongest features. You become a brilliant and colorful 6.5-inch screen with a polish 120Hz refresh rate — a rare characteristic in a phone that doesn't carry a flagship'southward lofty cost.

The downside with the Galaxy A52's display is that the refresh rate is static, with options for 120Hz or 60Hz only. A dynamic system, like what y'all get with the S21 family, means a telephone can save bombardment life while offer its max refresh charge per unit when it's needed. In contrast, the A52 52's approach requires you to choice between a high refresh rate and a lower battery life or vice versa. At least the refresh rate is faster than the Pixel 4a 5G, which maxes out at 90Hz.

While watching the trailer for Rick and Morty'southward fifth season, information technology was immediately obvious that the A52 is an excellent phone for streaming fans. The large panel rendered the anarchic animation clearly, with the evidence'south bright and varied colors showing upwardly vividly on the bright AMOLED panel.

How bright? Nosotros measured the Galaxy A52 5G at 708 nits with adaptive brightness turned on. That's brighter than both the Pixel 4a 5G (638 nites) and iPhone SE (625 nits).

Set the Galaxy A52 5G to brilliant manner, and you'll get a lot of saturated colors — 201.35% of the sRGB colour spectrum to be exact. Colors are much more accurate when set to Natural style, which recreates 128.ane% of the sRGB spectrum. To put that number in context, the iPhone SE hits 111.2% while the Pixel 4a 5G gives you 140.6%. In natural mode, the Galaxy A52 5G's screen is more than accurate than the Pixel 4a 5G's — Samsung'south phone has a Delta-Due east rating of 0.22 compared to 0.thirty for the Pixel — but the iPhone SE (a 0.20 rating) is more than authentic than both. (Numbers closer to nil are more accurate.)

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Durability

Unfortunately, the Galaxy A52 5G's brandish picked up some scratches during my testing. The phone didn't come from Samsung with the scuffs, and I just laid information technology down on a mousepad and duvet when not testing it, in addition to wiping it down periodically with a micro-fiber cloth. I didn't even put the phone in my pocket before noticing the scratches.

When we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy A20 last yr, that phone also picked upwardly scratches without any obvious cause, although on its plastic back rather than the screen. The A52 5G uses sturdy Gorilla Glass 5 on its display, and then we're baffled as to why this problem has struck again except on the other side of the telephone.

We've reached out to Samsung for comment, just for now nosotros advise you use a screen protector if you buy this phone.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Audio

Samsung has included a headphone jack on the A52 5G, which is corking for anyone still clutching onto their wired headphones. That also helps emphasize the stereo speaker system on the A52 5G, which is quite good.

Listening to black midi's "John L," the strings, guitar and vocals of the self-described "infernal din" came across clearly, even in the song'southward quieter moments. Even as the discordant tune rose in intensity (and I increased the volume), the mix remained well-counterbalanced. Because the price of the phone, the Milky way A52 5G has some impressive lungs.

Stereo speakers are sometimes plant on phones in this price range; the Pixel 4a 5G has them, for case. In comparison, the quality of sound broadcast from both phones' speakers is virtually the same, but the mix is different. The Pixel is much more than treble-forward, which is not bad if you're listening to spoken give-and-take content or the average slice of music. However, listeners with a love for thumping bass or a flatter tone will like the A52'south organisation more.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Cameras

You go a generous 4 sensors on the dorsum of the Milky way A52 5G, but some are more useful than others. The primary camera is 64MP, but past default information technology takes pictures at 12MP to continue the images file sizes smaller. The other principal sensors are a 12MP ultrawide shooter and a 5MP macro camera, with the last sensor existence a 5MP depth camera for adding depth-of-field effects to portrait mode shots.

I tested the Galaxy A52 5G'south cameras against the Pixel 4a 5G'due south dual rear cameras, which feature a 12MP chief sensor and a 16MP ultrawide sensor.

For the main photographic camera test, I chose this view of Highgate No 1 Pond at Hampstead Heath in London. While I appreciate the more than honest coloring of the Pixel 4a 5G'due south photograph, the brighter colors from the A52 5G, aided by its much larger sensor, make for a far more than attractive prototype.

I took the same photo with the A52's photographic camera gear up to its total 64MP resolution, and other than lighting changes caused by clouds passing overhead, there's not much departure beyond the fact y'all can zoom in much further. Without a defended telephoto camera on the A52 5G, being able to take large images like this will let you accept acceptable zoomed-in shots, although they won't hold upwardly side by side to a proper optical zoom lens.

I tried out these sensors in nighttime manner likewise, with a portrait-oriented shot of Tufnell Park'due south Boston Arms pub. Google's Night Sight mode is ane of the best depression-light photo modes in the concern, so it'south no wonder I prefer information technology more than here. The A52'southward image is brighter, which could sometimes be of utilize, simply information technology's far less saturated than the Pixel's shot.

At present we come to the ultrawide camera, which I tested past shooting down the north side of Parliament Hill, back at Hampstead Heath. This is probably the worst comparison of all for the A52. Its small sensor produced a dim shot compared to the Pixel 4a 5G.

I also tested the Galaxy A52 5G'due south macro photographic camera, a feature the Pixel 4a 5G doesn't have. This shut-up of the dialing pad in a London telephone box, is meliorate than I thought it would be, particularly with reproducing the many unlike colors in the weathered metal. Where this photo falls down is its limited focal range, causing the "5" button to look blurry.

I don't peculiarly similar the portrait style photos taken by either phone here, as both shots appear oversaturated. However, the depth sensor-assisted A52 5G delivers a more than natural-looking blur than the software-merely Pixel 4a 5G.

Here we run into a portrait prototype taken with the two phones' front-facing cameras. Neither phone was able to accurately capture all my hair flying virtually in the wind, only generally both phones provided practiced quality software bokehs. The Pixel 4a 5G is my favorite here, as its tendency toward more saturated images makes my skin and the sky in the background look much nicer.

Overall, the Galaxy A52 5G'due south cameras make information technology more versatile than the Pixel 4a 5G, only Samsung's camera phone is a pace backside in terms of overall photograph quality. The Pixel 4a 5G remains one of the best camera phones available for less than $500.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Operation

With a mid-range Snapdragon 750G chipset and 6GB RAM, the Galaxy A52 5G should offer the power yous need to accomplish everyday tasks.

On the Geekbench 5 benchmark, the Milky way A52 5G got an average score of 637 in the unmarried-core test, and one,866 in the multi-core i. That beats the Pixel 4a 5G'southward scores of 598 and 1,614. This is to be expected since the 750G and 765G fries both debuted in 2020, but Samsung has released its phone much later, giving the visitor more fourth dimension to optimize the chipset. The A52 5G still gets crushed by the iPhone SE, though, which managed scores of 1,337 and 3,226 with the assist of Apple tree'southward nevertheless-mighty A13 Bionic chipset.

On the 3DMark Sling Shot Unlimited test, which measures graphical ability, the A52 5G managed two,875 points, which is lower than the Pixel 4a 5G's 2,959 points. This can possibly exist explained by the Google phone using a slightly better Adreno 620 GPU than the Samsung's Adreno 619.

Trying out Call of Duty Mobile and Ball Stars revealed the A52 5G does a decent task of playing mobile games. Both titles had a few jagged edges, likely a result of the below-boilerplate GPU performance and the screen's FHD resolution, but I still had a boom with both titles, thanks to smooth overall performance from the 750G fleck and the 120Hz refresh charge per unit brandish.

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Battery life and charging

You have 4,500 mAh of battery capacity in the A52 5G, a generous amount of room for a phone of this price. In testing how much YouTube I could watch, I constitute that 5 hours of video streaming over Wi-Fi (my standard Lord's day afternoon) tuckered the battery from 100% to 68%. Safe to say, the A52 should final equally long as you'd expect from a battery of this size.

Our battery test backs that upward. Nosotros set up phones to surf the spider web continuously over cellular and the Galaxy A52 5G held out for 12 hours and 19 minutes, placing it high on the best telephone bombardment life list. That result came when the phone'south refresh charge per unit was prepare to 60Hz, though; turn on the 120Hz refresh rate, and the endurance drops to ten hours and xix minutes. However, fifty-fifty that time is better than the boilerplate smartphone'southward.

Samsung offers support for 25W fast wired charging on the A52, and throws in a charger in the A52'due south box too, an accessory you no longer get with its flagship phones. The take hold of is that the included charger is only a 15W model; you'll have to buy a separate 25W brick if yous want max speeds.

With the bundled charger, the A52 5G filled from empty to 31% in 30 minutes when we tested charging in our lab. It took effectually ninety minutes to charge the phone to full. This puts information technology firmly in the heart of the pack when comparison information technology to rivals. The Pixel 4a 5G has a maximum charge speed of 18W, simply since an 18W charger comes with the phone, it charges faster than the basic A52 5G package does, upwardly to 46% full in 30 minutes.

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Software

Samsung is one of the nearly notorious manufacturers for stuffing its phones with pre-installed apps. These are nifty if y'all're already well integrated into the Samsung ecosystem, but otherwise they just take up storage infinite along with slots in your app drawer and home screens that could otherwise exist left clean. At to the lowest degree you tin can delete them if they bother y'all besides much.

The await of Samsung's One UI 3.0 congenital on peak of Android eleven doesn't appeal to me much. As a fan of simplistic Android skins like OnePlus' OxygenOS or the stock Android of the Google Pixel phones, the sheer quantity of colorful custom icons strikes me as a patchwork eyesore. The silver lining I suppose is that I UI looks singled-out. Y'all won't ever fault this Samsung for some other brand of phone.

The ane Samsung-unique feature I do like is the phone'south Edge Panels. These allow you lot place various apps and tools within a set of menus that slide from the side of the display. It's a cross betwixt the normal Android quick settings bill of fare (which you lot can still access as normal from the notification shade) and an iPhone-way Control Center with its mix of practical and personalized options. Edge Panels are something that a power user would love to spend time with tweaking to their exact needs.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Verdict

There are also some things I really like about the Milky way A52 5G, including its playful design, the 120Hz refresh charge per unit and its versatile primary 64MP photographic camera. And the functioning and battery life are very solid for the cost. However, a couple of things frustrated me almost this phone, including the hands scratched brandish. And while Samsung offers more cameras than the Pixel 4a 5G, Google's phone tends to take ameliorate pics overall. While we've non put it head to head with the Pixel 5a all the same, we'd imagine this statement holds true at that place too.

The Google Pixel 4a 5G remains the better choice for the money, bold yous want 5G in your Android handset. Stepping down to the Nord N10 5G is probably merely worth it if y'all're on a very tight budget. If you're very interested in the A52 5G's high refresh rate or its main camera, though, those are good plenty reasons to go for this over the more well-rounded contest.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff author based in London, roofing news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and whatever else people demand advice on. Following on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he's too written for WIRED U.Chiliad., The Register and Artistic Bloq. When not at piece of work, he's likely thinking about how to mash the perfect cup of specialty java.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-a52-5g-review-flagship-features-for-less

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