The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G is the proverbial mid-range Phone situated perfectly between Samsung's Entry Level Phones and their Flagship Phones. After 3 months with my Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, Let's look at what's good and what's bad about this phone.
Let's start with the good.
Design and Build
The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G sports a 6.5-inch super Amoled display with a 120Hz refresh rate and it's protected by Gorilla Glass 5. I like the design of the back panel of the phone as the matte finish contours nicely with the Camera bump compared to usual glossy back of other phones with a protruding camera bump.
Audio Jack
Another good thing about the Samsung Galaxy A52 is that it retained the 3.5mm audio jack, which is usually not present on other mid to high end phone. This way you woth need a usb type c adapter just to use your headphones.
IP67 Rating
In terms of protection, aside from the screen being protected by Gorilla Glass 5, it also comes with a plastic screen protector out of the box. The phone also has an IP67 rating which means it is dust proof and can withstand being dropped in water 1 meter deep for as long as 30 mins.
5G
For connectivity, the phone supports 5G and should be useful if you are in an area with 5G coverage. If not then maybe the A52 4G is a better option for you.
Camera
On the camera department you have a quad camera set-up highlighted by a 64MP main camera together with an 8MP ultrawide camera, a 5MP macro camera and a 5MP depth sensor. And then at the front you have a 32MP selfie camera.
Photo and video quality is really good and here are sample photos I got using this phone.
Now let's go through some things that I don't like about this phone. starting with the limited options on storage.
Storage
The only available variant in the Philippines is 256Gb and the 128Gb option is not officially available. I had to buy online just to get a 128Gb version of this phone. One good thing about the A52 5G is that the simcard tray is a hybrid tray and can accommodate sd cards for memory expansion.
15W charger
This phone supports 25-watt fast charging but only a 15-watt charger comes with the box and with that charger it would take you more than 1 and a half hours to fully charge the phone.
Fingerprint scanner
Compared to my POCO F3 and other Realme and Xiaomi phones, the fingerprint sensor of the Samsung A52 5G is in-display. However the sensor is not that accurate compared to to other phones. There are a few tricks to improve the fingerprint sensor but I would still experience misreadings from time to time.
Price
Lastly the price. With Samsung phones you are also paying for the brand hence for Php24,000 you could get other phones with much better specs. The POCO F3 for one can be seen being sold for less than Php20,000 with a much better set of features. And for a few thousand more you can even have the Realme GT with a flagship Snapdragon 888 processor. The only thing I like better with the A52 compared to these phones is the camera plus the very rare software bugs.
