The Samsung Galaxy A50 is budget phone with a big and colorful screen, solid performance and a sleek design
OUR VERDICT
The Galaxy A50's camera won't dazzle you, but it is still an excellent value with a class-leading display and solid performance.
FOR
Best display for the price
Design reminiscent of flagships
Low price
Solid performance
AGAINST
Camera falls short of Pixel 3a
Battery life is underwhelming
Feels a little cheap
The Samsung Galaxy S50 is something you don't see often from the company: a very good cheap phone. In fact, the triple-camera, 6.4-inch, $349/£309 Galaxy A50 is one of the best Android phones for the money.
The Galaxy A50 is remarkably competitive for its price, with those headline features as well as strong performance from Samsung's in-house developed processor. And it actually looks pretty sharp for a bargain, too.
Once upon a time, we would have named it our go-to sub-$400 phone in a heartbeat. But today, Samsung has the unfortunate task of following up Google's Pixel 3a. How does the Galaxy A50 compare? Quite well.
Price and availability
After initially releasing on Verizon, Sprint and US Cellular, you can now buy an unlocked version of the Galaxy A50 for the same price of $349. One of the best unlocked phones, this A50 model works on all networks that allow customers to bring their own phones. Best Buy is offering the unlocked A50, and if you activate the device on Verizon, AT&T or Sprint when you purchase it from the retailer, you can save $50.
The Galaxy A50 is powered by the Exynos 9610 chipset, which hasn’t been seen on any Galaxy phone yet. Built on a 10nm fabrication process, the chipset uses an octa-core big.LITTLE architecture. The four Cortex A73 cores clocked at 2.3GHz are powerful enough for almost anything you throw at the phone while the four Cortex A53 efficiency cores clocked at 1.6GHz ensure that the phone sips power when not performing an intensive activity. There’s a Mali G72 MP3 GPU handling the graphics end of the business.
The phone ships with 4GB or 6GB of RAM depending on the variant you opt for. Both variants have 64GB of storage which is definitely a bit odd.
The Samsung Galaxy A50’s battery performance is right in line with what you would expect from a phone with a 4,000mAh battery. The phone lasts a full of day with moderate use and has enough charge left over to last half of the next day too. Even with heavy gaming use, the phone sips power and you should be able to get a full day of use easily. In our testing with a mixed-use case of gaming, social media use and music streaming, the phone consistently managed over six hours of screen on time. The phone supports 15-watt fast charging.
Network performance was exemplary on the Galaxy A50 and the phone managed to hold a signal even in a low network environment. Calls sounded loud and clear at both ends.
Performance
The Exynos 9610 ensures that day-to-day usability is top notch on the Galaxy A50. Be it navigation around the interface, animations, gestures or just about any app you throw at the phone, it maintains a steady clip. Samsung did an amazing job optimizing the software for the hardware and using the phone feels great. Out of the box, the interface’s animations are a bit overbearing, but turning them off is easy (and highly recommended).
The GPU section is powered by a Mali G72 MP3 which we found satisfactory. The most obvious test was to put it through the most popular smartphone game around. The phone maintains a steady frame rate in PUBG with the settings at Ultra mode. I noticed no slowdowns, the draw distance was great. The phone got just moderately warm even with extended gaming. Without a doubt, the Galaxy A50 offers one of the best PUBG experiences in this category of phones.
We put the phone through a few benchmarks.
Galaxy A50
Software
Android 10 (Shipped with Pie)
Samsung One UI
Some bloatware
Unlike the Galaxy M series smartphones, the Galaxy A50 runs Android Pie out of the box. Not just that, the phone has a One UI-based interface which is almost exactly the same as what you get on the Galaxy S10 as well.
The software is straightforward and easy to use, with oodles of options to tweak it to your preference. From options for displaying content on the always on display to turning off animations altogether, you can also switch between button and gesture-based navigation. Should you choose to, there is an option to wake Bixby using the power button.
During initial set up, the phone lets you install a wide range of Samsung apps, which is a much better way of onboarding users than bloating up the phone’s software. However, while the Galaxy A50 doesn’t really come preloaded with a lot of apps, it doesn’t mean it’s completely guilt free. The My Galaxy app pushes quite a few notifications daily. Apps like Daily Hunt and the Microsoft app suite cannot be uninstalled.
Samsung has since issued updates that brought the phone to the December 2019 security build. Other features include improved stability, the ability to take scrolling screenshots. .
As of April 1 2020, Samsung has started rolling out the Android 10 update to the Galaxy A50. Part of the A505FDDU4BTC4 update, it not only brings the latest version of Android but also the latest security patches. Elsewhere, the software skin has been updated to OneUI 2.0, which has a range of quality-of-life improvements like a reworked and improved camera interface and numerous fixes across the UI. The changelog details additional stability enhancements as well.
Camera
25MP primary camera
8MP wide-angle
5MP depth sensor
25MP front-facing camera
Samsung stepped up its game as far as cameras are concerned. I’m particularly enthused over the use of wide-angle lenses since they allow for much more versatility with photography. The camera arrangement on the Galaxy A50 uses a combination of a 25MP primary camera combined with an 8MP wide-angle lens as well as a 5MP depth sensor. The front facing camera also has a 25MP sensor.
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