My first initial look at the new Samsung Galaxy A50 is that I feel it is very much identical to its little brother – the Galaxy A30. I’m not wrong at all. Built on a same chasis, the A30 and A50 are actually twins. The obvious difference is that the A50 comes with a triple camera setup and its missing the fingerprint sensor at the back.
The A50 somehow feel a little bit slimmer than the A30 but it doesn’t seem like it. Maybe it’s just me. So enough of the comparison between the two. We shall now do in-depth with the Galaxy A50.
Design and Specification
The Galaxy A50 comes in a 6.4″ screen size with ~84.9% screen-to-body ratio and an AMOLED display. This has been a standard display by many Samsung phones because AMOLED displays are really beautiful to look at. Right at the top front of the display, lies the U shaped notch with a single selfie camera in it. Having a U shaped notch, it doesn’t intrude my vision while looking at the screen. Just a note, I dislike any phones with a huge notch.
Now around the back we can see the triple camera setup at the top left portion with the LED flash below it. As I said earlier, there isn’t any fingerprint sensor at the back of the phone but it is located beneath the front AMOLED display, similarly to Galaxy S10+.
On the right size, there’s the volume rocker and the power button while on the left is where the SIM/SD card slot is. Nothing much at the top while at the bottom is where you can find the USB type-C port, headphone jack and the bottom speaker. The phone colour that I receive for testing is Coral, I think. I think that because it glows in many different colours in different angle when you’re looking at it. All I can say is, it’s pretty to look at.
Now let’s take a look at the key specifications:
- SoC: Exynos 9610 Octa-core (4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
- GPU: Mali-G72 MP3
- OS: Android 9.0 (Pie) with Samsung One UI
- Memory: 4GB/6GB RAM with 64/128GB ROM
- Expansion: MicroSD card support up to 512GB
- Display: 6.4 Inch FHD+ AMOLED Display
- Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~403 ppi density)
- Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- Main Camera: 25MP + 5MP + 8MP Triple Rear Cameras With LED Flash
- Selfie Camera: 25MP Front Camera
- Connectivity: 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, Dual SIM
- Battery: 4000mAh
- Colours: Black, White, Blue, Coral
The SoC on the A50 is an octa core with 4 x 2.3 GHz at the highest clock and 4 x 1.7 GHz setup on the lowest clock. This is supported by Mali-G72 MP3 GPU and the set that I receive for testing comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space. This is a pretty good setup for a mid-range smartphone at this price range which I honestly think is worth your buck. We’ll get to the price later.
Performance and Usage
As usual, the only method that I use to check on a certain phones’ performance is to play games on it. Well, game anyway, singular. So as usual, I downloaded and installed my favourite game on the Galaxy A50 – PUBG Mobile. To me, if it can produce good, excellent and smooth graphic means it’s good overall in the performance department.
I wasn’t disappointed. If any of my readers here intending to purchase a new mid-range smartphone with a good specification that can also handle heavy graphics, I will make this Galaxy A50 a recommend. With 4,000mAh battery to power the device up, you can be sure to have longer game time with this phone.
PUBG gaming on the A50 is smooth, with the graphic settings set to maximum 60fps. And thanks to the AMOLED display, the overall graphics are absolutely beautiful. During the time I was playing the game on the A50, I didn’t notice any lag or stutter, which is good. It also doesn’t overheat, which is also good. But it couldn’t hurt to be a little bit louder in the speaker volume because it isn’t that loud for gaming. I need to use my headphone if I want to hear the sound properly. But then it’s loud for YouTube and playing some music on Spotify. Weird.
I also did an Antutu 3D Benchmark on the Galaxy A50. I wasn’t expecting any high scores because this is a mid-range device but I was quite happy with the gaming graphics. Still, proper graphic benchmarking has to be done as well.
The Antutu 3D Benchmark score for the A50 is 144320, which is pretty much the standard for mid-range smartphones. But I believe it can be better given that it comes with a good SoC and high capacity RAM. It doesn’t look that good in the Antutu result but it performs well while playing PUBG on the device. So, it is entirely up to the user to actually try it to know its potential. I did and I liked it.
You can use the phone for a whole day and a half thanks to its 4,000mAh battery. It has the same capacity as the A30 so in terms of daily usage, it is reliable and will last for as long as you need it to. On a single charge, it lasts for a good 33 hours by my count. I actually pulled the charging cable out at 7am one day and start using it for the whole day. It only goes down to below 5% at around 5pm the next day. And so it lasted more than a day in this endurance test. Also because I forgot the charge it at night on the first day.
So with that unintentional endurance test, you can be sure that you will have the A50 to accompany you for the whole day without it dying out on you. Now that is a good point to take in.
Now, the A50 doesn’t come with a rear fingerprint sensor but the sensor is located beneath the front AMOLED display. It is located at the mid bottom part to be exact. It somehow doesn’t detect your fingerprint as quick as the S10+. It took around 2 seconds before it unlocks the phone for you. And you have to place your assigned finger at the exact spot for it to be able to detect for scanning. Just my 2 cents on this.
Camera
I have folks waiting for the camera performance result for the A50 here. So here is where I’m giving the result and samples. Once again, the triple main camera setup is a 25 MP, f/1.7, 26mm (wide), 8 MP, f/2.2, 13mm (ultrawide) and 5 MP, f/2.2, depth sensor. While the front selfie camera is a 25 MP, f/2.0, 25mm (wide) lens.
Now lets take a look at some sample photos.
Indoor shots are fairly good. I got a good balance of colours without it being too strong or too washed out. Details are there and enough to consider it a good photo. Both wide and ultra wide angle camera works quite well but when the lights are really low, we can see some noise but it’s not that obvious.
On good bright lighting while being indoors, the colours stood out more. Details are really good and it will be an Instagram worthy photo. So both of the normal and ultra wide angle photos above turns out good for me. Keep in mind that there will be a slight warping in the corners of the photo when shooting using the ultra wide camera. That’s pretty normal.
As for food photography, you will surely have to turn on the auto scene optimizer so that it will automatically tune the focus, in this case – food. With that function selected, the photo quality is enhanced with AI to give you the fully optimized quality for that beautiful grammable photo.
The Galaxy A50 does wonders while being outdoors on low light too. We can still see good details in the photo without it being too washed out. But a slight over sharpen in the post-processing from the camera app shows a little flaw. But it’s still usable.
I didn’t get the chance to take tons of photos with the A50 but with these shots that I got, it still shows that ability and potential of the Galaxy A50. Photos turns out great in good lighting while still able to capture good shots in low light. I prefer to shoot with the ultra wide angle for both photo and video. I guess I like getting more things to be in the frame in one photo.
Speaking of videos, I do have a video that I took fully with the Galaxy A50 during a recent food review that I went to. Here is the said video for you to see how well it works.
Don’t lick the screen. It was a food review so it does contain a video of food. The A50’s ability to capture videos is commendable. It’s not bad at all, but it’s not that great either. It stood right in the middle, but slightly above average, which is still good for me.
A little hit and miss in the camera department doesn’t turn me off at all. I know the capabilities of the A50 with its cameras. I got many good shots with it and photo qualities are above average. So if you’re looking for a phone that is fun to use and to play around with photography, this is not a bad choice.
Conclusion
In my own opinion, the Samsung Galaxy A50 is a great choice when it comes to mid-range and mid budget device. You’d be surprise when you find out the price of this phone. You will get a good SoC, huge RAM and storage space, AMOLED display, good battery life, triple camera setup, Android 9 out-of-the-box and many more.
If you’re into gaming, I will not hesitate to recommend this to you if you have mid range budget. You will love the graphic quality while playing any games.
I like the colour effect of the phone while looking at different angles. It is identical to its little brother A30 but with more power and beauty. The Galaxy A50 is priced at RM1,199 and is available for purchase at the Samsung Online Store.
