It is a half baked review, IMO. The author says that despite having 45 W charging, the phone takes 75 mins to charge. Samsung really slows down it’s charging speeds post 80%, so testing from 0 to 100 is not a good criterion at all.
Plus, he forgets to mention that Samsung skips on a microSD card for A56 which was present on A55. Though in Samsung’s favor, they are offering 6 OS upgrades and I doubt any other OEM except Google matches it.
Not to be on Samsung’s side, but maybe they slowed the end charge to avoid any battery overcharge issues?
I think even some Chinese OEMs throttle somewhat post 80% (and/or give user the option to limit charging upto that point only). I have a spare entry level Samsung phone. It supports 25 W charging though it gets very slow post 80%. It’s not a big deal because the battery capacity is good and with an efficient chipset and 60Hz display, it does way better than my main Realme phone which I need to charge almost twice daily.
everyone does. It’s how the lithium battery charging cycle works.
$500 for an A series is insane. You can get a refurbished S24 for $100 less with a way better processor.
Remember when it was a joke that the iPhone cost that much? “It’s $500, you have no choice of carrier, the battery doesn’t hold a charge, and the reception isn’t very…”
Do they really have no microSD card slot or is it one of those that you can use 2 sim or 1 sim + 1 microSD?
No card slot according to GSM Arena
Samsung dropped SD Card support a while back, and it’s fucking stupid. The EU should find a way to go after them.
Friend bought one and brought him a high capacity sd I wasn’t using, to my surprise it genuinely didn’t have a slot for it.
They removed sdcard slot support in A36 and A56 series phone.
My personal experience with Samsung phones is that they are rubbish, slow, full of bloat you can’t remove. Maybe the high end are good, but the A-series have no business being so bad for the price.
The bloat! It used to be apps but now it is baked in with knox, samsung services, ugh
I have been thinking about getting a S24 Ultra purrly for its AI less flagship position with stylus but I cannot pull the trigger on a samsung device.
How about a Sony Xperia phone?
I loved them, I had the Z flagships for a few years. Their naming convention absolutely sucks but given camera is a priority for me they are top of the list but they are a little overpriced to be honest.
I am looking at getting a Sony Xperia Z 1 V second hand, still a grand though
My SO has had several and really liked them until they broke or got lost (the phones’ quality really aren’t to blame here). I’ve offered the Sony Xperia 10 VI to my dad last Christmas and it doesn’t come with much bloat at all, I would call it good.
But if you want a completely bloat-free phone, you can’t beat Google Pixel flashed with GrapheneOS.
My SO has had several and really liked them until they broke or got lost (the phones’ quality really aren’t to blame here). I’ve offered the Sony Xperia 10 VI to my dad last Christmas and it doesn’t come with much bloat at all, I would call it good.
But if you want a completely bloat-free phone, you can’t beat Google Pixel flashed with GrapheneOS.
This is my plan for my P9PXL. I’m weaning myself off of Google’s services, but I need to find something comparable to Keep. I use Keep for a lot of random notes and ideas, and so far nothing I’ve found comes close (Nextcloud Notes included).
All phone cameras suck without heavy postprocessing. Pixel binning and the tiny sensors with fixed aperture means unless you have a good software processing the picture is gonna be bad. They use composite capture which constructs the final picture out of many pictures taken almost simultaneously with different sensitivities. Unless the camera software is tailor made for the hardware, it will look awful. It’s also why different phones with the exact same camera hardware take radically different pictures.
Oh yeah, for sure. There’s no reason for that partition to be wiped out though.
I use a few of the google apps via the sandbox google-play services on GrapheneOS and it works fine (Maps, Android-Auto, Camera, Playstore).
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They’ve gotten a bit better with this lately I think. Although it has certainly gotten slower over the years, my A52 4G is definitely still usable despite being released over 4yr ago as a mid-range phone.
A bit better maybe, but still the worst phones you can possibly buy, in my humble opinion.
I had a Samsung A50 for some time. Worst phone I’ve ever see in my life. Terrible build quality, the thing came apart all by itself, and it’s my work phone that I really use at a minimum. And the worst is how slooooow this phone as always been.
Last year I got it “upgraded” to a A35 5G, it’s a little faster, but the build quality still seems to be rubbish and the bloatware is through the roof !
I hate the mandatory “updates” which is only a prompt to install “suggested” apps. Even when deselecting everything, it still starts downloading TEMU. Fuck that.
Yes ! I’ve got the exact same experience, it was mad ! Pop-up to update a bunch of baggage apps I would never ever want, I dismiss it for it to appear again exactly one week later. I untick everything and press next. It installed the stuff anyway ! This should be illegal.
My A52s is still going strong
Too much bloatware.
My $350AU (~$200US) Motorola G84 has been near perfect for the price. Only the camera sucks a bit, and Facebook Messenger notifications are unreliable; but it shits all over the A20.A30 I had before. Of course, Motorola is a gamble itself though - for example with this phone, you can’t use the camera if you’re connected to 5G on some networks, and they won’t fix it.
the A series as a whole has been nothing but a disappointment from my observations. The a50, 51 and 52 have all sucked, the a11 and a12 series were subpar at best and the a20/21 series might as well not existed.
after the third continuous series of disappointment I stopped following the series though so maybe it’s better.
