Home Tech Reviews Samsung Galaxy A50s Review – Back to Square One

Samsung Galaxy A50s Review – Back to Square One

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In 2019, Samsung decided to deliver a mid-year refresh cycle for its mid-range Galaxy A series. For the early half of the year, the company released the Galaxy A50. With good specs for a reasonable P17,990 price, it felt like Samsung finally know what it takes to be a mid-range contender. Fast forward to today and we have the Galaxy A50s retailing for P18,990. It’s a slight bump in price but there’s also a slight bump in specs. But now that the A50 is down to P15,990 only, should you still even considering getting the new model? Let’s find out.

READ: Samsung Galaxy A50s vs OPPO A9 2020 – The Best Mid-Range Phone for $300?

Design

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Design-wise, the A50s still has that same all-polycarbonate body. But instead of having a plain color on the back, it now has this geometric pattern to make you feel like you own a new phone. It’s not as glaring as the Realme 5 series but it’s enough to make you notice it. Given you’re dealing with a plastic phone, the price bump doesn’t contribute to the overall feel when it’s in your hands. Using the A50s basically feels using the A50.

Display

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I won’t bother you when it comes to the display, as you’re still getting the same Super AMOLED experience that we’ve come to love from Samsung phones. That said, we can now proceed to the cameras. 

Camera

The A50 featured three cameras on the back, and it was such a delight to use given you have an ultrawide option on a Samsung mid-range phone. In the case of the A50s, it gets the 48MP Sony sensor treatment. This means photos should now have crisper quality. As for the rest, you still get that 8MP ultrawide and 5MP depth sensors.

With the new Sony optics, the A50s is more reliable than ever. Yes, you still get that saturated look and very bright output from the typical Samsung phone, but post-processing is getting better. You should have no problem getting great photos during broad daylight. Where you want to be aware when taking photos is during nighttime. Often the camera struggles to keep focus. You need to tap the subject that you’re trying to focus on several times. And you don’t want to use that ultrawide angle at night, too. Just take a look at photos. 

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Samsung did not forget to upgrade the selfie camera as it now uses a 32MP lens. And with that massive lens, self-portraits are a bit better. We love how skin tones stay natural and a decent amount of sharpness. As always, beauty mode will make your face softer and whiter. But of course, that’s a preference thing. 

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READ: Realme 5 Pro vs Redmi Note 8 Pro Specs Comparison – The Best Quad-Camera Phone Is?

Performance

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It’s typical Samsung when design gets prioritizes over performance. When the A50 launched, it came with decent Exynos 9610 chipset. It gets social media tasks done just fine but if you’re planning to game, you need to dial down the settings. With the latest Exynos 9611 chipset that’s based on the same 10nm node, expect a very slight performance upgrade. There’s no extra boost in clock speed but it performs slightly better than its predecessor. Don’t expect the smoothest animations as Samsung One UI still requires a lot of power to render properly. 

While we can forgive the shortcomings of Samsung’s Android skin, we can’t say the same for the under-screen fingerprint scanner. Yes, it’s futuristic and awesome to have, but it’s frustrating to use. Sometimes, we’d rather have face unlock for quicker access in spite of the security concern. 

Benchmark Scores
Antutu 153,675
Geekbench Single Core 1658
Geekbench Multi-Core 6012

Audio

With the single down-firing speaker, there’s no special about it. It’s still best to use the headphone jack for a much better experience. 

Battery

Samsung is sticking with the same 4000mAh battery and 15W charging, and if you’ve seen our A50 review, our feelings are the same here. 

Verdict

For a small price bump, you’re also getting a small spec bump. While there’s nothing wrong with the Galaxy A50s, we feel like this could’ve been the Galaxy A50 in the first place. Now that Realme 5 Pro and Redmi Note 8 Pro are on the market and have way cheaper price tags, this makes the A50s hard to recommend. Samsung is now back to square one when it comes to its mid-range smartphones.

READ: Realme 5 Pro Review – One of the Best Mid-Range Smartphone Cameras

Samsung Galaxy A50s specs, price, availability in the Philippines

  • Display: 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED
  • Design: Gorilla Glass and polycarbonate frame
  • CPU: Exynos 9610 octa-core processor
  • RAM: 6GB
  • Memory: 128GB expandable with microSD up to 500GB (est.)
  • Camera: 48 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1/2″, 0.8µm, PDAF
    8 MP, f/2.2, 13mm (ultrawide)
    5 MP, f/2.2, depth sensor
  • Selfie: 32MP front-facing, Face Unlock, AI features
  • Connectivity: 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi ac, GPS
  • Security: on-screen Fingerprint sensor
  • Battery: 4000 mAh with Fast Charging
  • OS: Android 9.0 Pie, OneUI
  • Colors: Prism Crush Black, Prism Crush White, Prism Crush Green, Prism Crush Violet2
  • Price: P18,990
  • Release date: Sept 2019 Philippines availability

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