Samsung Galaxy A52

galaxy a52 has a new design it's got a plastic back and frame but it's high quality so it doesn't feel cheap the non-reflective finish on the back is soft and silky to the touch and the color is solid candy violet samsung is calling it awesome violet

the galaxy a52 has gorilla glass 5 on the front and ip67 dust and water

resistant which is really nice to see especially on a mid-ranger on the front there are some pretty thick bezels which give away the phone's price segmentand a small hole punch centered close to the top of the frame lower down there is an under display fingerprint reader which is consistent and reliable though a bit sluggish for today's standards

the screen itself is a 6.5 inch amoled panel with a full hd resolution and a 90 hertz refresh rate this year marks the first time high refresh rate

screens are included in the a series and all of the new phones in the lineup

include it 90 hertz is an entry level high refresh rate especially with 120 hertz becoming more common but you'll still get a smoother experience while scrolling

samsung doesn't seem to include an adaptive refresh rate option so the

phone will stick to 90 hertz most of the time most apps run at this higher refresh rate but we were most curious about games with the help of performance optimization and samsung's game launcher

we got some titles like alto's odyssey to take advantage of the panel

so for lighter titles you'll definitely be able to enjoy the 90 hertz

the screen is brighter than ones in the past and we got a very good 794 nits of max brightness on our tests colors are also excellent on this phone

and you get to choose from the default vivid mode

or natural mode the latter can be considered perfectly color accurate too

samsung has also included something called eye comfort shield

which adapts the colors during the day and reduces blue light in the evenings unfortunately the panel lacks hdr certification though it does have widevine l1 support so netflix can properly make use of the

full hd panel watching videos on this phone is even nicer thanks to the stereo speaker setup

it uses a bottom firing regular speaker and the earpiece as a second channel

it's not the loudest speaker out there by any means but it scored a good

loudness score on our tests

the phone also has a dolby atmosimplementation which optimizes certain

sounds depending on the media you're

enjoying like the sound of footsteps in a game

the phone also includes a 3.5 millimeter

headphone jack if you're not a fan of bluetooth

with the 4 500 milliamp hour battery the

phone scored a respectable 105 hour endurance rating on our tests

with the 90 hertz refresh rate switched

on with it in the 60 hertz mode endurance increased 108 hours

which isn't that much of a difference so

you're better off sticking to the higher

refresh rate

the one exception would be videos which

don't take advantage of high refresh

rates anyway

the phone ships with a 15 watt charger

in the box that can get it from flat to

34

in half an hour that's not too bad but

the a52 also supports 25 watt pd

charging which gets it from zero to 52

percent in half an hour instead

the only downside here is that you'll

have to buy the higher watt charger

separately

the phone sports a snapdragon 720 g

chipset in either four

six or eight gigs of ram more

importantly it flies through

day-to-day tasks smoothly and offers

more than enough performance for all but

the most demanding of users

the galaxy a52 is launching with android

11 and one ui 3.1 on top

samsung is promising three major os

updates and four years of security

patches

which speaks volumes about the potential

longevity of the phone

when ui 3.1 isn't vastly different from

one ui 3.0 or even 2.5

there are some design changes like the

default lock screen shortcuts which are

now monochrome as well as some

functional ones

like a well-being widget on the lock

screen which keeps track of how much

time you spend on your phone

the notification shade now covers the

entire screen even if there is no

notification card to be found

and the quick toggles can be edited

directly from here instead of going into

the menu

more useful is the notification history

which is great for those times you've

accidentally dismissed a notification

too quickly

and can't find what it was about one ui

also adopts android 11's bubbles and

lets you turn

incoming message notifications into

conversations that you can then minimize

to a bubble

samsung's music share is also present

here which is great to see

it allows you to play music through the

bluetooth accessories connected to a

friend's samsung phone

permission handling has also changed in

one ui three and now you get a new

prompt for permissions every time an app

requests it

the settings menu has also had a design

change recent searches are shown as

bubbles instead of a list

and you can now search for settings by

using hashtags which saves you from

hunting endlessly throughout the menu

even the dialer has some cosmetic

changes and you get to pick from two

layouts for the in-call screen

other than that you'll find samsung's

classic edge panels bixby

and the game launcher the only thing not

included is dex

but even with it absent you can still

use the link to windows feature

for better pc integration

as a whole the camera ui is the same as

in other galaxy phones but samsung has

also included a new fun mode

it's a collaboration with snapchat that

puts some ar filters for both photos and

videos in the native camera app

naturally it requires an active network

connection to work and unfortunately you

won't be able to save your favorite

filters

since snapchat periodically changes them

now as far as the cameras themselves are

concerned the galaxy a52 has a 64

megapixel quad bayer main snapper with

ois

a 12 megapixel ultrawide camera a 5

megapixel macro cam and a 5 megapixel

depth sensor

this is pretty standard for most modern

mid-rangers

during the day photos are decent enough

though unremarkable

detail is plenty the dynamic range here

is wide enough and colors are

lively without being oversaturated

there's higher levels of noise and noise

suppression artifacts though

which is unusual for samsung the phone