Samsung Galaxy A52s Review: A lot of hits and a few misses

Samsung Galaxy A52s is priced at Rs 35,999 in India and is an upgrade to Galaxy A52. The smartphone comes with 5G, a display with 120Hz refresh rate, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G SoC. But how worthy is the upgrade? Read our Samsung Galaxy A52s review to find out more.

Samsung Galaxy A52s review: Design and Display

We really liked the design and the look and feel of the Samsung Galaxy A52s. The handset sports a polycarbonate back panel that has a matte finish coupled with a plastic frame. The matte finish of the back panel didn’t take away from the premium looks of the device and at the same time, it was efficient enough to not get any fingerprints. Since the colour of the back of the smartphone we got for review was white, it sometimes looked like it was made of marble. The camera module of the device is placed on the back too and it houses four lenses and an LED flash. Besides that, there is Samsung branding in Silver colour present on it. 

The right edge of Samsung Galaxy A52s houses the Power and the Volume Rocker keys, while SIM tray and the secondary microphone are on the top. The speaker grill, Type-C port, microphone and the 3.5mm headphone jack are on the bottom edge of the device. Flip over and you’ll see the 6.5-inch display of the smartphone that is outlined with rather thick bezels and has an even thicker chin at the bottom. There is a selfie camera on the top of the screen and there is a tiny earpiece placed between the display and the frame of the phone. It is worth mentioning that Samsung Galaxy A52s comes with an IP67 rating and is hence, dust and water-resistant. 

Coming to the screen of the smartphone, it comes with a 6.5-inch full-HD+ Super AMOLED display that is protected with a layer of Gorilla Glass 5 and has a refresh rate of 120Hz. The colours projected on the display are accurate and stay consistent at different viewing angles. The images displayed are sharp, clear and the experience of watching videos was decent. It could have been better had the phone had support for HDR10. The sunlight readability of the device was good too and the screen did not catch our fingerprints during our time with the handset.

In a nutshell, we can easily say that Samsung Galaxy A52s has a beautiful design and a vibrant display – both of which impressed us. 

Samsung Galaxy A52s review: Performance and cameras

Before we begin speaking about the performance of the Samsung Galaxy A52s, let’s take a minute to discuss its specifications. The handset is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G SoC clubbed with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Other than this, the device can also hold a microSD card of up to 1TB. The smartphone runs Android 11 skinned with Samsung’s own One UI 3.1. The software on the phone is very customized and comes with a number of pre-installed apps including Byju’s, PhonePe, Josh, Koo, Moj, etc, and even some apps from Samsung’s own suite. The only upside here is that most of these can be uninstalled in case you decide not to keep them. Galaxy Store cannot be uninstalled, but then, it didn’t bother us with too many notifications so it was fine. 

Coming to the performance of Samsung Galaxy A52s, the smartphone performed most of the daily tasks well. We even used it for multitasking and opened multiple tabs of Chrome and apps together and switched between them, but the device handled most of it pretty well. We played a number of games on the handset and during our time with it, we didn’t face any major issues or lags. The device did heat up a bit when we played Asphalt 9: Legends, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. We do recommend going to the Game Launcher app and tweaking the settings to get the best experience out of the handset. 

The 4,500mAh battery of Samsung Galaxy A52s takes around an hour and a half to charge completely and it lasts more than a day with usage involving gaming, watching videos and an active Instagram account. 

Finally, let’s talk about the cameras of the smartphone. Samsung Galaxy A52s comes with a 64MP primary lens, a 12MP ultra-wide sensor, and a macro and a depth sensor with 5MP lenses. There is also a 32MP selfie camera on the device. Most images that we took during the day using the primary lens turned out to be great. The image quality was very clear and the colours were vibrant too. The good quality of images remained consistent indoors as well as outdoors. 

The ultra-wide sensor did an average job and obviously the quality of pictures wasn’t as great as it was in the ones taken by the primary sensor. There was a little distortion that we noticed in some shots too. The macro camera and the depth sensor both managed to click decent shots. We should point out that the pictures we took in low light didn’t turn out too great in terms of details and clarity. Enabling the Night Mode would help, but only to a certain extent. 

The selfie camera did a good job, but only in well-lit areas. 

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy A52s at Rs 29,300 (on Amazon) is a good buy and it comes with a beautiful design, a vibrant 120Hz display, IP rating, and a lasting battery. The cameras don’t really impress and the smartphone also lacks HDR10+ support, which could have enhanced the video experience on it. Also, the device competes with a lot of smartphones in the same range that offer more. If the pros of the smartphone look appealing to you, we recommend you to buy it during the ongoing sales where you’re likely to find a few discounts on it. 

Pros

• Vibrant display
• IP rating in this price range
• Lasting battery

Cons

• No HDR10+ support
• Inconsistent camera performance