Galaxy A50 (4GB RAM)

Description

Design

• Looks absolutely slick with a modern, Infinity U-notch display, and a beautiful iridescent back panel, that reflects light in interesting ways
• The rear panel curves slightly to meet the metal rim and there are no sharp edges anywhere – as far as comfort goes, the Galaxy A50 is quite easy to use and doesn’t feel too heavy or thick – it fits nicely in one hand, and isn’t slippery
• Packs an in-display fingerprint sensor, that works reasonably fine (though it can often take about two seconds to unlock – and so is not quite as efficient as a standard fingerprint sensor)
• There’s also some very handy and quick face recognition – you can choose to activate the front camera as soon as you raise the phone – it’s fluid and you don’t have to wait for visual confirmation that it has worked
• The rear panel is quite glossy, and so it gets completely smudged pretty much the moment you touch it – it will also have a tendency to pick scratches – so using the bundled plastic case is pretty much essential

Display

• The main attraction of the Galaxy A50 is its gorgeous 6.4-inch full-HD+ Super AMOLED screen, with the scoop-shaped Infinity-U notch – it is crisp, bright and vibrant – blacks are deep and colours really pop, but without being oversaturated – everything looks great, right from the UI to videos and games
• The always-on display feature is nice to have too

Software

• Packs One UI, Samsung’s modern flagship UI, with a number of design improvements over Samsung’s old Experience UI (which is there on the Galaxy M-series siblings)
• One UI reduces information density throughout, and is optimized for large displays
• There are of course tons of customization options like text size, icon size, gesture shortcuts, gesture navigation, lock-screen widgets, message bubbles, etc
• Google’s Digital Wellbeing feature for Android 9 is also supported so you can see detailed app usage statistics, have the Galaxy A50 prompt you when it’s time to wind down for the night, and impose time constraints on individual apps to help yourself focus
• Bloatware, spammy notifications, and ads within some Samsung apps are still part of the package though – and you will have to disable some of these individually to have a cleaner experience with the phone

Performance

• Solid mid-range performance with the powerful Samsung Exynos 9610 SoC (similar to Snapdragon 660) – the experience is pleasant and smooth throughout including with games like PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9

Camera

• Good, three rear camera setup at the back – the primary camera has a 25-megapixel sensor and f/1.7 aperture; the secondary camera is for wide shots and has an 8-megapixel sensor with a 123-degree field of view and f/2.2 aperture; and the third one is a standard 5-megapixel depth sensor
• There are also lots of add-ons like Live Focus mode for portraits, a 480fps 720p slow-motion video mode, Hyper-Lapse mode for timelapse videos, AR emojis, and intelligent scene optimisation
• Overall image quality is good, especially in daylight – photos come out looking nice with quite a lot of detail
• The wide-angle camera gives you a lot of flexibility and it’s actually quite surprising how much more you can fit into a frame when standing in exactly the same spot (but quality is definitely lower and there’s major distortion that isn’t just limited to the edges of the frame)
• You can change the type of background blur in portrait shots from the standard bokeh to assorted filter effects, and there’s even a fake dolly-zoom effect that you can make GIFs out of – edge detection is quite good too
• Video recording is good too – with none of the focus hunting or wobbling that affects lower-end phone cameras – in the daytime, motion is crisp and details are good – the wide-angle camera gives everything a fish-eye effect and video is slightly darker but still smooth
• Decent single front-facing camera too, with a 25-megpixel sensor and f/2.0 aperture – though edge detection of the Live Focus mode here isn’t great
• Low light performance of the rear and front cameras could have been better

Audio

• The phone’s single speaker can get very loud – though at those volumes, clarity does suffer
• The included earphones are not too great – you will probably want to use your own pair

Battery

• Very good battery life with a 4000mAh battery – you can easily stretch to a day and a half with normal use
• Support for fast charging – the included charger charges from 0 to 30 percent in 30 minutes

Verdict

• With the re-imaged A-series, Samsung is really showing that it knows how to bring the fight back, and seen on it’s own, the Galaxy A50 is a solid mid-range device
• Having said that, the competition is intense these days, and one the hardest ones to fight against will be Xiaomi’s Poco F1 with its top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor – that’s obviously the better choice of phone if you’re a gamer or want the smoothest possible experience – though it doesn’t have three rear cameras or a modern tiny-notch, all-screen design
• Competition will also be hard from the new Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC, 48-megapixel primary camera, Gorilla Glass 5, and other impressive specifications – presenting a much stronger value-for-your-buck package
• Lastly, there will also be competition from the company’s own Galaxy M30, which is a notch below in cameras and performance – but does pack an even larger battery, and is much cheaper