Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Flagship features for less

Our Verdict

The Milky way A52 5G impresses with its 120Hz display and 64MP camera, just it's not quite the all-time mid-range phone.

For

120Hz display
Versatile principal photographic camera
Unique and fun design
Long-lasting bombardment

Against

Other cameras below average
Easily scratched display

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

The Galaxy A52 5G impresses with its 120Hz display and 64MP camera, but it'south not quite the best mid-range phone.

Pros

+
120Hz display
+
Versatile main photographic camera
+
Unique and fun blueprint
+
Long-lasting bombardment

Cons

-
Other cameras below average
-
Hands scratched display

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G specs

Starting price: $499/£400
Brandish: 6.v-inch FHD AMOLED (1080 x 2400)
Refresh charge per unit: 60Hz/120Hz
Chipset: Snapdragon 750G
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128GB
Expandable storage: microSD up to 1Tb
Rear cameras: 64MP main (f/one.8), 12MP ultrawide (f/ii.2), 5MP macro (f/2.2), 5MP depth sensor (f/2.two)
Forepart camera: 32MP (f/2.2)
Operating system: Android 11 with One UI 3.0
Battery: 4,500 mAh
Battery life (Hrs: Mins): 12:19 (60Hz), 10:xix (120Hz)
Charging: up to 25W wired
Size: six.three x ii.9 10 0.3 inches (159.9 ten 75.1 x 8.4mm)
Weight: half dozen.7 ounces (189 grams)
Water/dust resistance: IP67

The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G offers but enough premium features for fiddling enough coin to make users call back twice about ownership a flagship phone. Priced at $499/£400, it'southward designed for the boilerplate user who cares mainly well-nigh photography, streaming, gaming and battery life. With this phone, you get a 120Hz brandish, four rear cameras and 5G connectivity in a colorful design — all for less than $500.

The Milky way A52 5G delivers enough flagship-level features that may tempt you to purchase this telephone rather than the more expensive Samsung Galaxy S21 or Galaxy S20 FE. But as we found during testing for our Samsung Milky way A52 5G review, this handset isn't as strong every bit other midrange phones in its price range.

Editor's note (Jan. 2022): The A52'southward successor, the Samsung Galaxy A53, could be on its way in the next few months.

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Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Price and release date

The Galaxy A52 5G began shipping in the U.S. back in April later previously going on sale in the UK. The Galaxy A52 5G costs $499/€429, and comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. This is the same price every bit the Google Pixel 4a 5G, $100 more than than the bones iPhone SE (which lacks 5G connectivity), and $200 more than the OnePlus Nord N10 5G.

The latest rival for the A52 5G is the Google Pixel 5a. At $449 information technology costs a little less than the Samsung, and while it misses out on some features like the 120Hz refresh rate or multiple rear cameras, the Pixel 5a offers stellar photography and a bright colorful display that may plough your head.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Design

Samsung has given its new batch of mid-range Galaxy A phones — which include the A32, A52, A52 5G and A72 — another colorful, playful design. I don't think it looks quite as stylish every bit the Galaxy S21 serial, simply there is still a lot I like about it.

I specially love the color options, especially my demo model's Crawly Blue (yep, that's its actual name), though the Awesome Purple, White and Blackness all have their charms. The unmarried-slice back, which virtually-seamlessly flows upward into the camera module looks neat, and gives the Galaxy A52 5G its own fully formed identity, rather than information technology beingness a knock-off Galaxy S or Galaxy Note device.

The Galaxy A52 5G features a plastic back, but at least it doesn't feel cheap, cheers to a nice semi-matte texture that keeps the fingerprints at bay. From the front, the A52 5G looks like all mod Samsung phones, with its central punch-hole photographic camera. The top and bottom bezels are a niggling thicker than the boilerplate phone, but otherwise the Galaxy A52 5G looks merely as smart as a Galaxy S21.

The metal edges share the same color as the back. Samsung has again placed the volume and ability buttons on the right side of the phone, leaving the left totally bare.

In terms of durability, the Galaxy A52 5G has a IP67 water/grit resistance rating, which means information technology can survive thirty minutes nether about three feet (1 meter) of water, and won't permit in any dust.

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Display

The Galaxy A52 5G's display is one of its strongest features. You get a bright and colorful six.5-inch screen with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate — a rare feature in a telephone that doesn't carry a flagship's lofty price.

The downside with the Galaxy A52's display is that the refresh rate is static, with options for 120Hz or 60Hz only. A dynamic system, like what you get with the S21 family unit, ways a phone can save bombardment life while offering its max refresh rate when it'southward needed. In dissimilarity, the A52 52's approach requires you lot to pick between a loftier refresh rate and a lower battery life or vice versa. At least the refresh rate is faster than the Pixel 4a 5G, which maxes out at 90Hz.

While watching the trailer for Rick and Morty'south fifth season, it was immediately obvious that the A52 is an fantabulous phone for streaming fans. The big panel rendered the anarchic animation clearly, with the bear witness'south vivid and varied colors showing up vividly on the bright AMOLED panel.

How bright? We measured the Galaxy A52 5G at 708 nits with adaptive brightness turned on. That's brighter than both the Pixel 4a 5G (638 nites) and iPhone SE (625 nits).

Ready the Galaxy A52 5G to bright mode, and y'all'll get a lot of saturated colors — 201.35% of the sRGB color spectrum to be exact. Colors are much more accurate when set to Natural mode, which recreates 128.1% of the sRGB spectrum. To put that number in context, the iPhone SE hits 111.2% while the Pixel 4a 5G gives you 140.6%. In natural mode, the Galaxy A52 5G's screen is more than authentic than the Pixel 4a 5G's — Samsung's telephone has a Delta-E rating of 0.22 compared to 0.30 for the Pixel — simply the iPhone SE (a 0.20 rating) is more than authentic than both. (Numbers closer to aught are more accurate.)

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Immovability

Unfortunately, the Galaxy A52 5G's display picked up some scratches during my testing. The phone didn't come from Samsung with the scuffs, and I only laid it down on a mousepad and duvet when not testing it, in addition to wiping information technology down periodically with a micro-fiber fabric. I didn't fifty-fifty put the phone in my pocket earlier noticing the scratches.

When we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy A20 concluding year, that phone also picked upward scratches without whatsoever obvious cause, although on its plastic back rather than the screen. The A52 5G uses sturdy Gorilla Drinking glass v on its brandish, so we're baffled as to why this trouble has struck once more except on the other side of the phone.

We've reached out to Samsung for comment, only for now we propose you utilise a screen protector if you buy this telephone.

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Sound

Samsung has included a headphone jack on the A52 5G, which is nifty for anyone nonetheless clutching onto their wired headphones. That as well helps emphasize the stereo speaker organization on the A52 5G, which is quite skillful.

Listening to black midi'south "John L," the strings, guitar and vocals of the self-described "infernal din" came across clearly, even in the vocal's quieter moments. Even equally the discordant melody rose in intensity (and I increased the volume), the mix remained well-balanced. Considering the price of the phone, the Galaxy A52 5G has some impressive lungs.

Stereo speakers are sometimes found on phones in this cost range; the Pixel 4a 5G has them, for instance. In comparison, the quality of sound broadcast from both phones' speakers is most the aforementioned, merely the mix is different. The Pixel is much more treble-forward, which is great if you're listening to spoken word content or the average piece of music. Notwithstanding, listeners with a love for thumping bass or a flatter tone will like the A52's system more.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Cameras

You lot get a generous iv sensors on the dorsum of the Galaxy A52 5G, but some are more than useful than others. The main camera is 64MP, only past default it takes pictures at 12MP to go on the images file sizes smaller. The other main sensors are a 12MP ultrawide shooter and a 5MP macro photographic camera, with the final sensor being a 5MP depth camera for adding depth-of-field furnishings to portrait mode shots.

I tested the Galaxy A52 5G's cameras against the Pixel 4a 5G's dual rear cameras, which feature a 12MP main sensor and a 16MP ultrawide sensor.

For the chief photographic camera exam, I chose this view of Highgate No 1 Swimming at Hampstead Heath in London. While I appreciate the more than honest coloring of the Pixel 4a 5G's photo, the brighter colors from the A52 5G, aided past its much larger sensor, make for a far more attractive image.

I took the same photo with the A52'due south camera set to its full 64MP resolution, and other than lighting changes caused past clouds passing overhead, there's not much departure across the fact you lot can zoom in much farther. Without a defended telephoto camera on the A52 5G, existence able to take large images similar this volition let you take acceptable zoomed-in shots, although they won't hold upwardly side by side to a proper optical zoom lens.

I tried out these sensors in dark mode besides, with a portrait-oriented shot of Tufnell Park's Boston Artillery pub. Google'southward Nighttime Sight mode is one of the all-time low-light photo modes in the business, and so it's no wonder I prefer it more here. The A52's image is brighter, which could sometimes be of use, but it'southward far less saturated than the Pixel's shot.

Now nosotros come to the ultrawide camera, which I tested by shooting down the north side of Parliament Hill, back at Hampstead Heath. This is probably the worst comparison of all for the A52. Its minor sensor produced a dim shot compared to the Pixel 4a 5G.

I also tested the Galaxy A52 5G'south macro camera, a feature the Pixel 4a 5G doesn't have. This close-up of the dialing pad in a London telephone box, is better than I thought it would exist, particularly with reproducing the many different colors in the weathered metallic. Where this photograph falls downwardly is its limited focal range, causing the "5" button to await blurry.

I don't specially similar the portrait fashion photos taken by either phone hither, every bit both shots announced oversaturated. However, the depth sensor-assisted A52 5G delivers a more natural-looking mistiness than the software-just Pixel 4a 5G.

Here we see a portrait image taken with the two phones' front-facing cameras. Neither telephone was able to accurately capture all my pilus flying about in the wind, just generally both phones provided good quality software bokehs. The Pixel 4a 5G is my favorite hither, as its trend toward more saturated images makes my skin and the heaven in the background wait much nicer.

Overall, the Milky way A52 5G's cameras make information technology more versatile than the Pixel 4a 5G, but Samsung'due south photographic camera phone is a step behind in terms of overall photo quality. The Pixel 4a 5G remains one of the all-time camera phones available for less than $500.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Functioning

With a mid-range Snapdragon 750G chipset and 6GB RAM, the Galaxy A52 5G should offer the ability y'all need to accomplish everyday tasks.

On the Geekbench 5 benchmark, the Galaxy A52 5G got an average score of 637 in the single-core examination, and one,866 in the multi-core one. That beats the Pixel 4a 5G's scores of 598 and 1,614. This is to be expected since the 750G and 765G chips both debuted in 2020, but Samsung has released its telephone much afterward, giving the company more than time to optimize the chipset. The A52 5G still gets crushed past the iPhone SE, though, which managed scores of 1,337 and iii,226 with the help of Apple tree's even so-mighty A13 Bionic chipset.

On the 3DMark Sling Shot Unlimited test, which measures graphical power, the A52 5G managed two,875 points, which is lower than the Pixel 4a 5G's ii,959 points. This can maybe be explained by the Google phone using a slightly better Adreno 620 GPU than the Samsung'south Adreno 619.

Trying out Call of Duty Mobile and Brawl Stars revealed the A52 5G does a decent task of playing mobile games. Both titles had a few jagged edges, likely a result of the beneath-boilerplate GPU performance and the screen's FHD resolution, merely I withal had a blast with both titles, thanks to smooth overall operation from the 750G fleck and the 120Hz refresh rate display.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Battery life and charging

You lot have 4,500 mAh of bombardment chapters in the A52 5G, a generous amount of room for a phone of this price. In testing how much YouTube I could lookout, I constitute that 5 hours of video streaming over Wi-Fi (my standard Sunday afternoon) drained the battery from 100% to 68%. Safe to say, the A52 should terminal every bit long every bit yous'd expect from a battery of this size.

Our battery examination backs that up. Nosotros set phones to surf the spider web continuously over cellular and the Milky way A52 5G held out for 12 hours and 19 minutes, placing it loftier on the best phone battery life listing. That result came when the phone'southward refresh rate was set to 60Hz, though; plow on the 120Hz refresh charge per unit, and the endurance drops to x hours and nineteen minutes. All the same, even that time is better than the boilerplate smartphone'south.

Samsung offers support for 25W fast wired charging on the A52, and throws in a charger in the A52's box also, an accessory y'all no longer get with its flagship phones. The catch is that the included charger is simply a 15W model; you lot'll have to buy a divide 25W brick if you want max speeds.

With the bundled charger, the A52 5G filled from empty to 31% in thirty minutes when we tested charging in our lab. It took around ninety minutes to charge the phone to full. This puts information technology firmly in the centre of the pack when comparing it to rivals. The Pixel 4a 5G has a maximum accuse speed of 18W, merely since an 18W charger comes with the phone, information technology charges faster than the basic A52 5G parcel does, upward to 46% full in xxx minutes.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review: Software

Samsung is one of the nearly notorious manufacturers for stuffing its phones with pre-installed apps. These are peachy if you're already well integrated into the Samsung ecosystem, but otherwise they just take up storage space along with slots in your app drawer and dwelling house screens that could otherwise be left clean. At least you can delete them if they bother you too much.

The look of Samsung'due south I UI 3.0 built on height of Android 11 doesn't entreatment to me much. As a fan of simplistic Android skins like OnePlus' OxygenOS or the stock Android of the Google Pixel phones, the sheer quantity of colorful custom icons strikes me as a patchwork eyesore. The silver lining I suppose is that One UI looks distinct. You won't e'er mistake this Samsung for another make of phone.

The one Samsung-unique feature I practice like is the phone's Edge Panels. These let you place diverse apps and tools within a set of menus that slide from the side of the display. Information technology'south a cantankerous between the normal Android quick settings menu (which you can withal access equally normal from the notification shade) and an iPhone-style Control Center with its mix of practical and personalized options. Edge Panels are something that a power user would love to spend fourth dimension with tweaking to their exact needs.

Samsung Milky way A52 5G review: Verdict

There are also some things I really like nigh the Galaxy A52 5G, including its playful design, the 120Hz refresh rate and its versatile principal 64MP camera. And the performance and bombardment life are very solid for the price. However, a couple of things frustrated me nearly this phone, including the easily scratched display. And while Samsung offers more cameras than the Pixel 4a 5G, Google's telephone tends to accept better pics overall. While we've not put it caput to head with the Pixel 5a yet, we'd imagine this statement holds true there besides.

The Google Pixel 4a 5G remains the ameliorate choice for the money, assuming you want 5G in your Android handset. Stepping down to the Nord N10 5G is probably only worth it if yous're on a very tight budget. If you're very interested in the A52 5G'southward loftier refresh rate or its main camera, though, those are proficient enough reasons to become for this over the more well-rounded competition.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff writer based in London, roofing news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and whatever else people demand advice on. Following on from his MA in Mag Journalism at the Academy of Sheffield, he'due south likewise written for WIRED U.1000., The Register and Creative Bloq. When not at work, he's likely thinking about how to brew the perfect cup of specialty coffee.