Samsung Galaxy A52 review

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Intro

The Samsung Galaxy A52 serves as the successor of the Galaxy A51 and pricier than the A51 because of the 5G functionality. It is similar to its predecessor, but features an upgraded 64 MP main camera, an increased-capacity 4500 mAh battery, and IP67 water and dust resistance.

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Specs

• OS/Software: Android 11, One UI 3.1.
• Rear Camera: 64 MP + 12 MP + 5 MP + 5 MP
• Front Camera: 32 MP
• Display: 6.5 inches |1080x2400px resolution
• Chipset: Qualcomm SM7225 Snapdragon 750G 5G (8 nm)
• Memory: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM
• Battery: 4500mAh; Fast charging 25W, non-removable.

Pros

• Excellent 120Hz display
• Huge performance uplift
• Priced just right
• IP rating
• Solidly built

Cons

• Middling performance
• Slightly cheap design

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Design

It has an Infinity-O display with a cutout for the selfie camera and slim bezels just like the A51. Unlike A51, A52 has matte color options rather than glossy gradient finishes. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 while the frame and back panel is made of plastic. Samsung upgraded the A52 5G with official dust and water protection thanks to the IP67 rating.

Samsung has kept the 3.5mm headphone jack on this smartphone, which you’ll find on the bottom edge of the device that sits alongside the USB-C port, and you’ll find a volume rocker alongside the power button on the right hand edge of the phone. There’s also a punch-hole camera in the screen, so there isn’t a big bezel at the top to house this tech.

The Galaxy A52 5G is designed to have a solid build without the bells and whistles you’ll find on flagship smartphones. For that reason, you may feel the build of the handset is a touch cheap with its plastic rear and aluminum frame. It is available with Awesome Black, Awesome White, Awesome Violet, Awesome Blue options. Both variants have IP67 water and dust resistance.

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Display

This device boasts of a 6.5 inch Super AMOLED Full HD screen, with a 120Hz refresh rate and 800 nits max brightness. Looking for a smartphone to watch video on, you’re unlikely to be disappointed in this display. The exact resolution is 1080 x 2400 – which equals a pixel density of 407 pixels per inch – so you will likely find this satisfactory. There’s also an in-screen fingerprint scanner, which we found to generally work well.

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Camera

The Samsung Galaxy A52s features a quad-camera set-up, which compromises of a 64Mp main lens, a 12Mp ultra wide lens, a 5Mp macro lens and a 5Mp depth lens. The latter two feel like they’re there just to make up the numbers, though. There is a powerful 64MP main sensor with optical image stabilization and an aperture of f/1.8. That’s only one of four elements on the rear shooter too.

There’s also a 12MP ultra-wide camera, a 5MP depth scanner and a 5MP macro camera. The most impressive part of the camera is its main shooter, which we found delivered images with lots of detail, and lighting wasn’t often an issue when shooting with the main rear camera either. Images were quite saturated, but this is typical of Samsung’s smartphone cameras.

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Performance

The Galaxy A52 5G is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750 processor, which is an octa-core chipset clocked at 2.2GHz with an embedded Adreno 619 GPU for graphics processing duties. The UK model also has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, which can be expanded via microSD.

As for performance output, the Galaxy A52 5G is a significant step-up over its predecessor. In the Geekbench 5 single-core CPU benchmark, the Galaxy A52 5G almost doubled the performance of last year’s Galaxy A51, and it’s roughly 50% faster in multi-core processing as well. In real-world use, performance is absolutely fine. You can multi-task with ease, watching videos while browsing the internet with no stutter or lagging.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Software

The Galaxy A52 5G comes running Samsung’s own One UI 3.1 software that is based on Android 11. That means you get all the latest from Android, and we’d expect Samsung to keep this up to date for at least a few years after launch. In fact, Samsung has said it will get three years of upgrades as well as regular security patches as well.

Samsung Galaxy A52 review: Battery

The Samsung Galaxy A52s has a 4500mAh battery. The company claims the smartphone will offer a two-day battery life. In practice, we found it lasted much closer to a single day of full usage, but if you’re not using the phone a lot each day you may find it’ll last you two days.
There’s also no wireless charging on the Galaxy A52 5G, so you’ll be using a wired charger when you run out of power.

Price and Availability

Samsung’s Galaxy A52 5G is on sale now in the US, UK and Australia after being revealed in March 2021, and it went on sale during April of the same year. You can buy it from $499 / £399 or AU$799 SIM free, with a variety of deals available on contract.

ALSO READ: Samsung Galaxy A53 Review

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G is a solid mid-ranger with a few predictable shortcomings. Samsung adopted its typical design language for the phone, which is a love it or hate it type thing. The Galaxy A52 5G packs a whopping 6.5-inch 120Hz panel that looks really good. All-day battery is available from the 4,500mAh power supply, and the 64MP main camera does a reasonably good job for this price range.