Samsung Galaxy A52 Review: Samsung finally brings its 'A-Game' to the mid-range and it is worth the wait

The Samsung Galaxy A52 was launched in India toward the end of March. The Galaxy A52 has a starting price of Rs 26,999 (6GB/128GB Variant), making it the latest mid-ranger from the company. On paper, the Galaxy A52 brings several improvements over its predecessor, making it feel like a generational upgrade over the Galaxy A51.

But the competition in India’s sub-30K segment isn’t scarce, which means improvements over its predecessor alone won’t cut it. The Galaxy A52 will have to do much more to impress consumers and attempt to bridge the gap between the Galaxy A and S series. And in that aspect, the A52 fares surprisingly well, offering a whole lot at a reasonable price. So, without any further delays, let’s take an in-depth look at the Galaxy A52.

Design and Build

First off, let’s talk design and build. When you pick up the Galaxy A52, the first thing you'll notice is this is not a flagship, the polycarbonate back spells that out pretty clearly. However, the glossy finish from the A51 has been replaced by a smooth matte finish, which prevents any fingerprint smudges and looks pretty good. The A52 also possesses a metal frame with a glossy finish. The Galaxy A52 is available in Awesome Black, Blue (Our Model), White, and Violet colour options.

On the front, you get a hole-punch camera cutout, while the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 5. There are power and volume buttons on the right, a speaker grille and a headphone jack at the bottom, and a SIM card tray with two SIM slots and a microSD card slot on the top. And to top it all off, you even get an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance, which is game-changing at this price. The overall build quality of the Galaxy A52 is unapologetically plastic and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not a fan of the blue finish, but the matte black model looks sweet.

Display

In terms of display, the Galaxy A52 sports a 6.5-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. The screen doesn’t have an adaptive refresh rate and can only scale between 60Hz and 90Hz. You can also switch between Vivid and Natural modes, while brightness goes up to 800 nits.

The display gets fairly bright even under direct sunlight, while it also boasts excellent contrast level, good viewing angles, and vibrant colours. Samsung has also managed to incorporate an under-display fingerprint reader here, which is quite fast and responsive. The display here is arguably one of the best in its class and easily keeps pace with the competition.

Performance

For performance, the Galaxy A52 opts for a Snapdragon 720G SoC paired with up to 8GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 720G is a welcome change over last year’s Exynos 9611. There were no issues in games, with Call of Duty: Mobile and Raid: Shadow Legends running smoothly on ‘High’ settings. The chip is powerful enough to drive the 90Hz refresh rate without any lag issues. In Geekbench 5.0, the Galaxy A52 managed a 527 single-core score and a 1513 multi-core score.

But as good as the Snapdragon 720G is, the 5G competition and Samsung’s own Galaxy F62, easily outpace the A52. The chipset certainly doesn’t do justice to the 90Hz display and performance can be laggy at times, especially while swapping between tasks, like moving from an intensive game to a browser or when multiple tabs are opened simultaneously. However, the phone doesn’t heat up so easily. Lastly, you also get 128GB of storage, which is expandable up to 1TB.

Cameras

When it comes to cameras, the Galaxy A52 packs a quad-camera setup on the back. The main camera in the setup has been updated to a 64 MP sensor with f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilization. The primary sensor is paired with a 12 MP, f/2.2 ultrawide lens with a 123-degree field of view, a 5 MP macro unit, and a 5 MP depth sensor. On the front, the notch houses a 32 MP, f/2.2 selfie shooter. Additionally, you can record 4K videos at 30fps on both the front and rear cameras.

The primary camera captures 16 MP photos by default with the aid of 4-in-1 pixel binning. Additionally, you can also take photos in the full 64 MP resolution. Images taken in daylight have a wide dynamic range with lively colours and plenty of details. What I did notice was that the 64 MP images at times appeared to look more natural with even more detail and better-looking HDR. However, shutter time on the 64 MP mode takes a bit of time and you’ll have to keep the phone steady.

With the 64 MP sensor, you get a 2x optical zoom and up to 10x digital zoom, although zooming beyond 2x magnification brings up a fair bit of noise. However, the OIS on the main camera keeps the lens steady while getting up close to subjects. Cropping into a full 64 MP shot might be a better option though. The night mode on the A52 enhances exposure, reduces noise, and improves colour accuracy, making stills look sharp, so long as there’s no movement.

The Galaxy A52 also has a 12 MP ultrawide camera that does a good job in daylight, managing to retain consistency between the main camera more the most part. I have to say that the ultrawide camera here offers solid performance, unlike some of the competition. You can also use the night mode on the ultrawide camera with respectable results. The Galaxy A52 also has a 5 MP fixed-focus macro camera that lets you get up close and personal to subjects. With the right amount of light, the macro camera will deliver decent results, but it tends to be mediocre in most instances.

And lastly, there’s a 32 MP selfie camera upfront, which is definitely one of the best at this price. The Scene Optimizer and Auto HDR on the front camera help it capture images with nice details and fairly accurate skin colours given the right light. The 32 MP sensor also handles noise really well. Night mode is also available on the selfie camera, but isn’t very effective, opting for the flash might be a better option. Additionally, there’s a wide and narrow mode for selfies, with the former allowing you to get just a little more into the frame.

Moving on to video, and the Galaxy A52 can capture 4K video across all three lenses, including the main, ultrawide, and front cameras. The A52 continued to impress in video as well, with excellent detail, wide dynamic range, and natural colour reproduction in 4K resolution on the primary camera. 4K video on the ultrawide managed to maintain colour consistency with a fairly good amount of detail. 4K videos on the front camera also looked great. The OIS on the A52 only works on 1080p at 30fps though, while the ultrawide camera cannot capture video in 60fps. Unless you really need the stabilization, I’d recommend sticking to 4K video.

Overall, the cameras on the Galaxy A52 are pretty impressive at their respective price. However, the A52 also brings a ton of different camera features and modes from the flagship Galaxy S series. You get an in-built Fun Mode, Single Take, Pro Mode, Super Slow-Mo, Food Mode, and more.

Battery

Powering the Galaxy A52 is a 4,500 mAh battery, which Samsung claims can offer up to two days of battery life. However, those claims seem a bit exaggerated. While using the A52, we got a full day of use with 15 percent left over to take into the next day. My usage also involved one hour of gaming. It isn’t the best, but it gets the job done without much effort. The one caveat here is that although the phone supports 25W fast charging, Samsung only bundles a 15W adapter in the box, which makes charging the device pretty slow.

Software

The Galaxy A52 runs One UI 3.1 based on Android 11, which is just about as good as it gets in terms of Android skins. One UI 3.1 has no shortage of features and customization, although the interface is a little heavy on unwanted first-party apps. Like with all mid-range A series phones, the Galaxy A52 promises three years of guaranteed Android updates and four years of security patches. Apart from the pre-installed bloatware, you won’t have too many complaints about the software, One UI 3.1 is arguably one of the most feature-rich third-party skin and brings better integration with Google services than previous versions of the software.

Verdict

At a starting price of Rs 26,499, the Samsung A52 doesn’t come cheap, but it isn’t too expensive as well. It is traversing through mid-range and upper mid-range territory. And with these specs and features, I’d say it’s doing a pretty good job. The Galaxy A52 gets a reliable chipset, sizeable battery, versatile cameras, good software, and a vibrant display. The upgrades here are pretty sizeable over the previous generation. If you’ve had any doubts about the Galaxy A50 or Galaxy A51, I guarantee you that the Galaxy A52 will put them to rest.

Sure, you can get a better chipset on the Realme X7 Pro (Review) and a better main camera on the Pixel 4a (Review), but on balance, this is arguably one of the best phones under Rs 30,000. What you get with the Galaxy A52 is a great overall mid-range smartphone that performs well-above average in all areas; all areas apart from charging, I guess. And even then, the 25W charging support is quite good, it’s the 15W adapter that’s the problem. If you’re looking for a niche feature, then it might be better to look elsewhere, but if you want a complete overall package that can deliver on all fronts, then this is the best phone at this price.