With product launches from different Phone manufacturers almost every month, it's hard to pick the best phone that would satisfy your needs as well as your budget. I recently bought the POCO F3 and while I'm really happy with this phone, it's still not perfect and there were things that I wished it had as shown in my earlier video. Realme and Oppo recently released their mid-rangers but the phones would either be lacking 5G or have an inferior chipset. Samsung on the other hand have 5G offerings but most are always above Php20,000. That is until I discovered a 128Gb variant of the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G selling for just over Php18,000 so let's unbox the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G and check out its features.
The Galaxy A series has been around for a while and offers both 4G and 5G phones with the A32 5G as their most affordable offering at Php 15,990. However this model doesn't have an Amoled screen and also differs in chipset as well as the camera compared to the A52 5G. In the Philippines the only available variant of the A52 is 256Gb selling for almost Php24,000. Luckily, I stumbled upon a seller in Lazada, offering the 128Gb variant for less than Php19,000. Delivery took around 8 days with the item coming from Hong Kong, I ordered May 17 and the phone arrived May 25.
Packaging was simple with a single bubble wrap protecting the box but showed no damage or dents whatsoever.
Aside from the phone, inside the box you have the sim card ejector pin, a transparent jelly case, a usb type c cord, and a 15W charger.
The phone has a 6.5-inch super Amoled display with a 120Hz refresh rate protected by Gorilla Glass 5. The frame and back is built with plastic with the back sporting a matte finish, a departure from the glassy back panels you see on most phones at this price range.
The back features a quad camera set-up highlighted by a 64MP main camera together with an 12MP ultrawide camera, a 5MP macro camera and a 5MP depth sensor. And then at the front you have a 32MP selfie camera.
On the right hand side of the phone you have the volume rockers and the power button. At the top you have the sim card tray which is a hybrid dual sim microsd slot. At the bottom you have the 3.5mm jack port, the usb type c charging port and the stereo speaker grills.
The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G has an in-display fingerprint sensor which is decent but certainly not the fastest.
The phone also has an IP67 waterproof rating and the unit already comes with a plastic screen protector.
The battery is 4,500 mAh which should last you the whole day for casual use if not more. The phones supports 25watt fast charging although as mentioned earlier only a 15Watt charger comes with the box.
The A52 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 750G 5G mobile platform which should handle daily tasks easily. Though not designed for gaming, the phone can handle games such as PUBG on high setting and Genshin Impact on medium setting.
The phone already ships with Android 11 and uses Samsung's One UI 3.1.
For connectivity, the phone is capable of 5G connections which is one of the main reasons I tried this phone. The 256Gb 4G version of the A52 sells for around the same price as this 128Gb 5G version. This specific unit however will not give you 5G out of the box and instead you'll need to configure some hidden settings for your 5G to work in the Philippines or in other countries since this has a Taiwan ROM.
As far as my first impressions, the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G is a solid phone offering 5G at a decent price. This phone is a good option for those still not comfortable with other brands such as Xiaomi or Realme which can offer more features for the price. Still with this 128Gb variant, it costs almost the same as the POCO F3 with almost the same features with the F3s main advantage is of course its flagship chipset the snapdragon 870 while the A52 main advantage is its brand.
