Introduction
A few weeks ago, we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy A30, which is a pretty decent mid-range device with a top-class Super AMOLED display. This time around, we have the A50, which is the bigger brother of it. Without further ado, this is the Samsung Galaxy A50 review!
Unboxing
In terms of unboxing experience, the Galaxy A50 is quite similar to its younger brother. The box consists:
- Samsung Galaxy A50
- TPU case
- SIM ejector tool
- Quick start guide
- Fast charging wall brick
- USB-C cable
- Earphones
Design
The phone shares the same design language as the Galaxy A30, which has the glass-sandwich design. Like the A30, the back one is a glasstic, also known as acrylic glass. It has nice sleek curves on the back for improved handling. Our white review unit has a nice rainbow effect under the light reflection, kind of giving us the unicorn feel.
The front still has the same 6.4-inch Infinity-U display with a thick chin below. The earpiece is pretty tiny, and if you set a good wallpaper, you’ll probably making the phone looks notchless.
The bottom of the phone houses the 3.5mm audio jack, USB-C port, microphone, and mono speaker. Since its younger brother has the USB-C port, no reason for the A50 to not have it. There’s no fingerprint sensor at the back of the phone, this is because Samsung has opted for the in-display fingerprint sensor. Unlike the S10 and S10+, the A50 uses the optical in-display fingerprint sensor. Based on my experience, the fingerprint sensor works terribly, it went wrong all the time and the unlocking speed is pretty slow. Sometimes I’ll just unlock using a PIN code.
Display
The Galaxy A50 sports the same 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-U display as the A30. As usual, it shows deep blacks, nice and vivid colors, making it a phone with a good viewing experience.
Performance
Powering the phone is the company’s own 10nm Exynos 9610 processor with 6GB RAM and 128GB expandable storage. Performance wise, the phone did really well and even bested the Snapdragon 660 SoC. Playing PUBG Mobile in HDR graphics and ultra frame rate isn’t a problem as everything runs smoothly.
Software
There’s nothing much different when it comes to the software experience. The phone runs on Samsung One UI on top of Android 9.0 Pie. Features like Night mode (dark theme) and Bixby are still there, and so does the cartoonish app icons.
Camera
The camera is another story for the Galaxy A50, it now has triple-camera setup on the back — 25MP f/1.7 + 8MP (123-degree) + 5MP depth sensor. Selfie wise, there’s a 25MP f/2.0 front-facing camera.
Image quality generally is better than the Galaxy A30, though most images still appear to be oversharpening in broad daylight. I guess this is the way Samsung post-process the images. It still has great dynamic range and there’s now an auto HDR feature too. The 8MP ultra-wide angle camera takes great photos, but try to avoid low-light photos as most details will be washed out.
Battery
Like the Galaxy A30, the A50 also packs a 4,000mAh battery that supports 15W fast charging. Getting through a day with this phone isn’t a problem, and the battery life should be better or similar to the A30 due to a more powerful yet efficient chipset.
Final Words
Retailing at RM1,199, the Galaxy A50 is obviously better than the A30, but that’s RM400 price tag different. We believe the Samsung made this phone targeted to take down its Chinese rivals at the same price range. At the end of the day, it all depends on what you need. The A50 has a top-class display, good battery life, good performance, and obviously a better software experience than its Chinese rivals. The camera might not be outperforming its rivals, but it’s good enough. What really made me frustrated with this phone is the slow and inaccurate in-display fingerprint sensor, and also there’s no haptic feedback when pressing the navigation buttons or typing.
Yay
- Top-class Super AMOLED display
- Good performance
- Good battery life
Nay
- Slow and inaccurate in-display fingerprint sensor
- No haptic feedback