Samsung today announced the launch of its latest mid-range smartphone, the Galaxy A50, for the Indian market. The smartphone comes with a price tag of Rs 19,990 for the 4GB/64 GB variant and it will be available for purchase from online and offline channels starting from March 02, 2019. The other variant with 6GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage is priced at Rs 22,990.
With this, Samsung has finally introduced an appealing device in this segment, which is now dominated by the Chinese players. The smartphone comes with a new Prism-style finish at the back panel along with a triple camera setup and not to forget, the in-display fingerprint sensor. However, does it have all the arsenals to bring the competition to their knees? We spent some time with the device and this is what we think of it.
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Design and Display
Samsung has finally adopted the latest technologies for its mid-budget and mid-range segments. We have seen Samsung’s recent launches that come with a refreshed design language and new technologies. And same can be said for its Galaxy A50. With this, Samsung has once again introduced new features like the in-display fingerprint sensor and new Prism-style finish at the back panel.
The Prism reflects different colours when the light falls on it. The phone is available in Black, Blue and White colour options. We got the black colour option for review and it is certainly a head turner in our opinion. The phone offers a sleek design with just 7.7mm thickness. It sure feels sturdy and solid once you hold in your hand, however, the problem of smudges is quite prevalent in this smartphone; but so is in all glossy-finished smartphones these days.
Giving a brief about the ports placements, the front features Infinity-U display with minimal bezels around edges, though there is some present at the bottom of the screen. The right side features volume controls and power on/off button, while the left features SIM tray that houses two SIM slots and a dedicated microSD card slot. The base of the device features a Headphone jack, USB Type-C port and speaker grille. The back panel houses triple-camera setup at the top-left corner and the fingerprint sensor now comes under the display. That said, it is safe to say that Samsung Galaxy A50 is one of the most polished smartphones from the South Korean giant in recent times.
Coming to the display, the Samsung Galaxy A50 features a 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Display with a screen Resolution 2340 x 1080 pixels. Samsung is known for using some good AMOLED panels in its devices and this one is no exception. The screen delivers some good viewing angles and the colours seem to be punchy enough to watch some animated series. We will talk in details about the display in our upcoming review.
Hardware and Software
On the hardware front, the Samsung Galaxy A50 features an octa-core Exynos 9610 Processor clocked at 2.3GHz along with Mali-G72 GPU. The phone is available in 4GB and 6GB of RAM coupled with 64GB of internal storage. The memory can be further expanded up to 512GB via microSD card slot. The company has used the Exynos 7 series processor, which it introduced last year in March. The Chipset is not as powerful as the Exynos 9810 chipset, but it does support some good camera and hardware performance. Though we are yet to test it out the performance of the device, it would surely give a stiff competition to the likes of Vivo V11 Pro, Nokia 8.1 and more.
Coming to the software part, the Samsung Galaxy A50 runs on Android 9.0 Pie and it comes loaded with the company’s latest OneUI. The user interface seems to be smooth in our initial testing and it comes loaded with different gestures and motions like the smart pop-up view in which the the App can be expanded up in pop-up view when you receive a notification. You can also tone down motion effects on the screen and more. On the downside, we felt that the default icon pack is way too large than our liking. You can change by going to the Settings menu.
Camera
Coming to the camera capabilities, the Samsung Galaxy A50 features a triple-camera setup, which comes with a combination of 25-megapixel primary lens with f/1.7 aperture, a 5-megapixel depth sensor with f/2.2 Aperture and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens with f/2.2 aperture. For the front, the phone is equipped with a 25-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture.
Starting with the camera UI first, the company has made some changes with the Pie update. You get different modes at the bottom, just above the shutter, while the Settings, flash, aspect ratio and filters are on the top. The company is providing you Panorama, Pro, Live Focus, Photo and Video. In our brief testing, we found out that the camera does a good job in capturing details under broad daylight condition. It was fast to lock focus on the subject and the results were decent as well. However, we are yet to test the camera capabilities under different lighting situations, so we will reserve our judgement for now.
Battery and Connectivity
On the battery front, the Samsung Galaxy A50 is juiced up by a 4000mAh battery and it comes with bundled 15W fast charger. The battery is yet to be tested out in its full glory, so we suggest you wait for our upcoming full review of the phone. Connectivity options include Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5, GPS + GLONASS, NFC, USB Type-C.