4242 DECEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 382
ASEXCELLENTASthe Galaxy Note10+ is
(page 38), Samsung’s smartphones don’t
begin and end with its high-end models. Just
last month we saw the brilliant mid-range
Galaxy A70, and now it’s the turnof the even
cheaper Galaxy A50.
Like the A70, the A50 getsoff to agood
start by essentially copying the Galaxy S10’s
design. That means there’s virtually no bezel
to speak of,savefor avery small chin at the
bottom, and although the curved back panel is
made of plastic, it’s comfortable enoughto
avoid feeling toocheap.
Most excitinglyforahandset of this price,
the fingerprint reader is built intothe screen,
meaning that it doesn’t appear on the handset
itself.Just push your thumb against the
bottomof the screen, and the phone unlocks,
perhapsahair slower than witharegular one,
but it’s stillagreat feature at this price.
There’s more,too: expandable storage,a
headphone jack and dual SIM support,to
name butafew.There’s no waterproofing,
which isashame,nor any wireless charging
support, but at least the latter isto be
expected at this price.
LEDTO GLORY
The Super AMOLED screen certainly doesn’t
disappoint. It’sasizable 6.4in panel running at
2,340x1,080, aneven higher resolution than
that of the Galaxy Note10. Moreover,it
covers afull 100%of the sRGB colour gamut,
while peak brightness hits 560cd/m^2 ,and
contrast is perfect as well.
In short, it’s as good as you can expectfor
under £300, and the inclusionof afingerprint
sensor makes iteven better.
On the internals side,the Galaxy A50 is
poweredby a2.3GHz
Exynos 9610 processor,
with 4GBof RAM and
128GB of internal storage.
In da y-to-dayuse,this feels
buttery smooth, unlocking
quickly and jumping
between apps with ease.
It also blasted through
our benchmarks–relatively
speaking, anyway–with
Geekbench4scores of
2,387 in the single-coretest
and 6,504 in the multicore
test. It’s therefore more
powerful than the Google
Pixel 3a (Shopper378) and,
rather surprisingly,the
SAMSUNG GalaxyA50
★★★★★
£278•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
TheGalaxyA50isyetanotherlong-lastingSamsung
success,andit’sincrediblygoodvalue,too
ANDROID9.0 SMARTPHONE
Galaxy A70, which is
itself unusual in that
it forgoes an Exynos
chip in favour of the
Qualcomm Snapdragon
- Of its mid-range
rivals, only the Xiaomi
Pocophone F1 (Shopper
377)iss ignificantly
faster ,thanks to the
latter’s flagship-grade
Snapdragon 845.
Forgaming,
conversely,the Galaxy
A50 comes out slightly
behind mostof its
peers. With 22fps
in the GFXBench
Manhattan onscreen
test, it again beats the
Galaxy A70, but the
Pixel 3a, Nokia 8.1
and especially the
Pocophone F1 can
all run games more
smoothly.Still, the Galaxy A50 will cope
decently with most titles; it will only struggle
with the most intensive 3D games.
It also has an ace up its sleeve,int he form
of battery life. Lasting 21h 21m in our video
playbacktest, it leads thePocophone F1by
several hours, although the A70 gets its
own back here,too,with a25h 22m record
that we suspect will take phone
manufacturers some timeto beat.
RULE OFTHREE
The Galaxy A50 also treats usto not one,not
two,but three rear-facing cameras. The main
25-megapixel, f/1.7 camera
is supportedby an
ultra-wide eight-megapixel
affair andafive-megapixel,
f/2.2 depth sensor.
This makes itapretty
good matchforthe £329
Huawei P30 Lite’s
triple-camera array,
although while the
Galaxy A50’s outdoor
shots look pretty good
from adistance,when
you zoom in, it’s clear
that the Huawei P30 Lite
has the edge.
Which isn’tto saythe
Galaxy A50 is bad,by any
means. And, given
Huawei’s uncertain
Android future,you
maywell consider the
slight loss in fidelity a
price worth paying.
On low-light indoor
shots, the cameras are
more evenly matched,
with both providing
images filled with detail,
accuratecolours and
very little noise.
Forvideo,the Galaxy
A50 is capableof
shooting in 1080p at
30fps. If you want 4K
or 60fps (not both at
the same time,mind),
you’ll needto spend
extra on the Galaxy
A70. That said, the
video quality is pretty
good, and the image
stabilisation seems
solid enoughforshakyhands.
The front-facing selfie camera deserves a
little shout-out,too. It’s a25-megapixel affair
with an f/2.0 aperture.This might beoverkill
forSkype calls and selfies, however,and
even with beauty mode switchedoff
Samsung still insists on taking awayall
your wrinkles and giving youaweird, alien
glow in the Samsung camera app.
COST EFFECTIVE
However,ift hat’s all you can saythat’s
wrong with the Galaxy A50, then Samsung
is doing something very right. This only
extends the SouthKorean manufacturer’s
hot streakfortop-notch smartphones,
offering as it doesagreat screen and high
performanceforunder £300.
AlanMartin
Batterylife
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
Seepage84f orperformancedetails
PROCESSOROcta -core2GHzQualcommSnapdragon675•
SCREENSIZE6.7in•SCREENRESOLUTION2,40 0x1,080•
REARCAMERAS32megapixel s,8megapixels,5megapixels•
STORAGE128GB•WIRELESSDATA4G•NFCYes•
DIMENSI ONS164x77x7.9mm•WEIGHT183g•OPER ATING
SYSTEMAndroi d9.0•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILS
http://www.samsung.com•PARTCO DESM-A705FZWUBTU
SPECIFICATIONS
21h21m
