Introduction
After successfully making a reputation in flagship tier smartphones Samsung is now aiming to dominate the mid-tier affordable smartphone market. In just a few months or so we have witnessed the launch of around seven new A-series smartphones and around six new M-series smartphones. Combining these two we get a total of 15 devices. Samsung is just flooding the market with new affordable devices and this strategy seems to be working since as per Samsung’s report the company sold over 2 million units in just over the first 40 days.
Today we’ll be reviewing the latest addition to A-series that is the Galaxy A20. This device has a similar configuration to Galaxy M20 and Redmi note 7. Since this is an A-series smartphone you’ll get a better and a premium design, upgraded screen, and improved Fast charging.
Price in India, Variant, Availability
The galaxy A20 has only one base model having 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. It is available in four color variants named Black, Deep blue, Gold and Red. This phone will cost INR 11,490 on most of the online portals like Flipkart, Amazon and Samsung store. However, this can be bought from the PayTM Mall for just INR 10,915 after PayTM cashback.
Currently, there is also an additional 5% discount on Flipkart if you checkout using Axis Bank Buzz Credit Card.
Box Contents
The Galaxy A20 comes in a beautiful package with an elegant picture of Galaxy A20 printed on the top. The cover of the package just slides out and reveals the content inside the box. The first thing that we get is a cardboard section inside which the User Manual and other documentation are present under that there is the beautiful Galaxy A20 handset itself and all the other accessories rest beneath the phone.
In the box, you’ll get a Handset, Travel Adapter, USB Cable, Basic headphones Ejection Pin, and Quick Start Guide.
Here is a quick overview of what you’ll be getting inside the box:
– Samsung Galaxy A20
– 15W Turbocharger adapter
– USB Type-C cable
– Standard Samsung Earphones
– SIM ejector tool
– Manuals and documentation
Specs at a glance
Before we share our thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy A20, let’s have a look at the specifications.
– Display: 6.4-inch, 720×1560 pixels, AMOLED, Infinity-V cutout
– Processor : 1.6 GHz octa-core Exynos 7884
– RAM & ROM: 3GB RAM, 32GB storage ( expandable up to 512GB )
– Rear camera:13MP (F1.9) + 5MP (F2.2)
– Selfie camera: 8MP (F/2.0 )
– Battery: 4000mAh with 15W Fast charging
– Software: Android 9(Pie) based One UI
– Price: starts from INR 12,490
With specs being cleared, let’s jump right into our detailed review.
Design and Build Quality
The Samsung Galaxy A20 also follows the same design trends as other A-series smartphone by Samsung. One of the few big differences between Galaxy M20 and Galaxy A20 is that M20 has a 6.3-inch TFT Screen whereas the Galaxy A20 has a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Screen.
The front of the device looks beautiful this device flaunts its 6.4-inch bezel-less display graciously the screen is the most attractive part of the device. Waterdrop notch at the top
If nothing much it helps in making the phone look more modern and beautiful.
On the top, we get a secondary microphone that is used for noise cancelation. And at the bottom, we have the speaker, USB Type-C port and the 3.5mm headphone jack.
At the back, we have a nice vertical dual camera setup having a 12MP main camera and another 5MP depth sensor. The dual camera pops out of the frame a bit which makes the phone wobble a lot when placed on a flat surface. Apart from that, there is a fingerprint scanner too on the back but its located a bit higher than usual which makes it sometimes harder to reach. The back is made of plastic but it looks like glass. The phone looks premium but doesn’t quite feel like it.
Using a protective case is highly recommended as the phone is made up of plastic it attracts fingerprint marks and smudges. Protective Case also helps in reducing the wobble problem mentioned earlier.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy A20 has a great 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display which is also one of the biggest highlights of this phone. The amazing screen is paired with a teardrop notch which makes it look minimalistic and adds to the beauty. The screen resolution is a mere 1560 x 720 px which is not great but not bad either. The screen is Super AMOLED and produces colors with great accuracy, offers excellent contrast, is very good but since the resolution is low the screen lacks details but it is still good for watching movies and playing games. Although a full HD display would have been just amazing but the 720p display is not bad either just for the sake of comparison iPhone 7 also has a 720p screen.
In terms of quality, this phone is great for media consumption and daily usage. The screen is bright enough that you won’t have any problems when using the phone on sunny days.
Samsung provides four different colors presets for the display (Basic being our personal favorite).
There is also a system-wide dark mode option in One UI that changes the whole UI to dark making it suitable for dim lighting conditions. Since the screen is AMOLED, the dark mode can help save a significant amount of battery.
Performance
We just discussed the Display and looks of the phone in the above sections now let’s review the most important aspect of a smartphone that is its performance.
The Samsung Galaxy A20 is powered by the Octa-core Exynos 7884 SoC, combined with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard memory. Exynos 7884 Processor is a mid-range processor and it delivers a mediocre performance that can handle daily tasks easily but it struggles when handling heavy processes. The gaming experience is pretty good for most of the games out there but it fails to run high-end heavy games. To our surprise, this phone was only able to run PUBG smoothly at low settings, for medium and high settings the fps dropped so low that it was not playable anymore. Although all other heavy games like Asphalt 8, Asphalt 9 and Need For Speed ran pretty smooth without any lags or fps drops.
This phone is definitely not made for high performance and doesn’t feel very snappy but for a basic user, this phone got more than enough. Multitasking capabilities are good thanks to good RAM management software. And it’s a pretty good phone to be used as a daily driver.
Software
The Galaxy A20 runs on Android 9.0 based One UI out-of-the-box. The One UI is designed by Samsung and it is a light and sublime version of Samsung’s old Experience UI. The Galaxy A20 offers a great software experience, there are a lot of customization option and useful features that come with One UI like the dark mode which makes the whole UI adjust according to low light conditions so that eye strain is minimum. The One UI is very easy to use and the icons are big. Apart from that One UI also features full-screen gestures which can be used to easily navigate thought the phone for example upward swipe from the left would open the multitasking menu, Swiping from the right would perform back action, Swiping from the bottom takes to the home screen and many more.
One UI can be counted as one of the strengths of this device. The software has very smooth animations, it’s easy to navigate and it’s very well optimized. The performance is meant to be for normal day to day usage and not for heavy tasks. Also as One UI is a light version of Samsung’s Experience UI, it contains significantly less bloatware and it helps in conserving the battery.
Cameras
The camera performance on this device turned out to be pretty good considering the price.
The Galaxy A20 has a vertical dual camera setup at the back consisting of a 13MP f/1.9 main camera and a 5MP f/2.2 secondary wide-angle lens, both working together takes great wide-angle photos with good details and good color accuracy. The galaxy A20 does take benefit of all the research that Samsung has done in the past to improve its camera software. In outdoor conditions, the camera can take amazing photos with fast autofocus, but in low light condition auto-focus fails and the noise starts to appear in photos but the software is smart enough to reduce some noise and make the image usable.
On the front, we have an 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera that is housed inside the teardrop notch it can take good photos in good lighting condition but fails to perform in mid-low lighting condition. Video taken from the front camera is okay-ish even in good lighting conditions.
Overall, the camera performance was not as good as expected but it’s acceptable at this price range.
Battery And Connectivity
The Galaxy A20 is powered by a 4000mAh Li-ion battery which can give up to an average of one and a half days of battery life. A great battery paired with an energy-efficient Processor helps to improve the battery life even more. Samsung’s One UI is fairly clean too means it has less bloatware and hence fewer background processes running this also improves the battery life by a bit. To top the massive 4000mAh battery Galaxy A20 also supports Fast charging which is a very handy feature.
On a continuous average usage that involves browsing social media and watching shows and a few hours of gaming this phone can last up to 6-7 hours or in other words the screen on time is around 6-7 hours which is pretty good considering the price.
We think that battery life is pretty solid and when combined with a power-efficient chipset and a light OS like One UI this device is very power efficient.
For connectivity, the Galaxy A20 supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.2.Unfortunately, there is no support for 5GHz wifi but since 90% of India is still using 2.4GHz band Wi-fi this should not bother you much. For audio output, we have a bottom-firing speaker and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The speaker output is loud and crystal clear.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
– AMOLED Display
– Versatile Cameras
– Smooth UI and great animations
– Easy to use
– Balanced performance
– Great Battery Life
– 15W Fast Charging
Cons:
– Same old design
– Display resolution is less
– Not suitable for heavy gaming
Samsung is fairly new to the budget smartphone segment but it has done a pretty good job so far. The Samsung Galaxy A20 has found its sweet spot it has a good balance of performance and looks. With a slightly better camera and a better processor, this device would have given strong competition to Redmi Note 7.
This device comes with some additional things as well which adds important value that we cant disregard like great service support from Samsung.
Overall we think that this device is great it looks premium and stylish the colors are popping and eye-catching and performance is decent. This is definitely not made for heavy gaming purpose but instead, it’s made to be consistent and last long. The cameras are superb we wish it had a bit more details but that is just a software issue and can be fixed with hopefully future updates. We were very impressed by the wide-angle lens it increases the field of view by a huge amount and is very useful when taking huge group photos.
If you’re looking for an alternative then do check out Redmi Note 7 which has a better processor and gaming experience is smooth, the camera captures more details too on Redmi Note 7.
