Samsung Galaxy A12 Review: A Budget Option with Good Battery Life

Samsung Galaxy A12 is the entry-level Samsung phone in their A-series lineup. It comes as an update to the A11 which was launched in 2020.

Samsung Galaxy A12 price in Nepal is Rs. 18,999 (4/64) and Rs. 19,999 (4/128). For the price, Samsung brings a new design, a 48MP camera, and a 5000mAh battery.

But does it justify the price tag? Find out in this review of Samsung Galaxy A12.

Samsung Galaxy A12 Review

Pleasing Design

• 164 x 75.8 x 8.9 mm
• 205 g
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

Samsung Galaxy A12 is a chunky phone that measures 8.9mm thick. It has a unibody design with plastic rear and a plastic frame.

The new design has a two-tone finish on the rear as the top half gets a pattern while the lower third is kept clean. Then there’s a square-shaped camera module which makes it look similar to the likes of Redmi 9C and Realme C11.

On the front, it’s using the waterdrop notch design. Furthermore, the side bezels and chin are quite thin for a budget smartphone. It also gets a triple slot sim tray that can hold two sim cards and a micro SD at a time.

Overall build quality of A12 is really good. The phone feels solid and it is manageable in a single hand as well.

PLS TFT Display

• 6.5 inches PLS TFT
• 720 x 1600 Resolution
• 82.1% screen-to-body ratio
• 60Hz panel

A12 rocks a 6.5 inch 720×1600 (HD+) TFT panel. It’s a 60Hz TFT Panel so you won’t be getting deep blacks and saturated color reproduction.

A 720p panel is sharp enough for this price but the color reproduction is not that great. The TFT panel used on the A12 definitely leaves something to be desired.

As for the brightness, the TFT panel is plenty bright indoors but it is a bit underwhelming outdoors. Overall, it’s an average LCD panel that gets the job done.

Camera

• • Rear Camera: 48 MP, f/2.0, 26mm (wide), AF
    • 5 MP, f/2.2, 123˚ (ultrawide)
    • 2 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
    • 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
    • Video: 1080p@30fps
  • Front Camera: 8 MP, f/2.2
    • Video: 1080p@30fps

Samsung Galaxy A12 comes with a triple camera setup on the back. It has a 48MP main sensor, a 5MP depth sensor, a 2MP depth sensor, and a 2MP macro sensor.

They are using the 48MP Samsung ISOCELL GM2 sensor made by Samsung itself.

48 MP MAIN SENSOR

The 48MP main sensor on the Samsung A12 can take good pictures in daylight. The normal photos have a good amount of detail but the dynamic range is not great. Photos do have a hint of saturation but it’s nowhere near what we have come to expect from Samsung.

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As for the 48MP photos, it doesn’t have a good dynamic range and the contrast is also not good. I prefer normal photos to 48MP photos.

As we move on to low light situations, we can notice noise in the images. The images lose out lots of detail and the dynamic range falls short. To make it worse, A12 doesn’t come with a dedicated Night Mode.

ULTRAWIDE ANGLE CAMERA

Samsung A12 comes with a 5MP ultrawide angle sensor.

The 5MP sensor doesn’t provide rich details which makes the ultrawide photos look flat even in daylight. To be fair, I would not expect anything great from an ultrawide angle sensor at this price tag.

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It has a nice FOV of 123 degrees but you can notice slight distortion on the ultrawide angle photos which is not that bad.

PORTRAIT AND MACRO MODE

Samsung Galaxy A12 has a 2MP depth sensor and a 2MP macro sensor. Talking about the portrait photos, they come out decent with good edge detection and good enough background blur. Overall, the portrait mode is average on the A12.

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As for the macro photos, they lack detail and do not look appealing. I would not use the macro photos from Samsung A12 on social media platforms.

FRONT CAMERA

Now on to the front camera, the 8MP sensor takes some good photos under good lighting. Photos will have good detail in well-lit conditions but indoor selfies do not turn out great.

Else, HDR helps to control the backlight but the background may turn out washed out in tough conditions.

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The portrait mode on the front camera is also surprisingly good. It works well most of the time and has good edge detection. But, the background will get blown out if there’s too much backlight.

Video

Samsung A12 can capture videos up to 1080p 30 fps. The video quality is not as impressive as the videos look soft and lack details. On top of that, there’s no video stabilization.

You can capture videos with the Ultra wide-angle sensor too.

Performance

• Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm)
• Octa-core (4×2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
• PowerVR GE8320
• 64GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 4GB RAM , eMMC 5.1

Samsung Galaxy A12 gets an old Helio P35 chipset. It is paired with 4GB RAM and 64/128GB internal storage.

A12’s performance is nothing to boast about. The Helio P35 can run basic tasks such as web surfing and app browsing with slight hiccups. The animations while navigating between apps and settings page are not as smooth as I would like.

About games, you can play PUBG on smooth and medium graphics settings but you won’t get smooth gameplay. At best you can do some light gaming on this device.

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Samsung A12 is definitely not a performance-oriented phone and it’s hard to recommend if you’re looking for a budget phone with good performance. For, its starting price of Rs. 18,999, Samsung A12 should have had a better chipset.

Battery and Charging

• Non-removable Li-Po 5000 mAh battery
• Fast charging 15W
• USB Type-C 2.0

The 5000mAh battery on the A12 can provide more than a day of usage. I was getting around 9-10 hours of screen on time on average during my review period.

To juice it up, the included 15W charger takes more than 3 hours to charge it from 0 to 100.

Software

• Android 10
• OneUI Core 2.5

Samsung Galaxy A12 runs on OneUI Core 2.5 on top of Android 10.

While the experience remains the same as other Samsung phones, it doesn’t get premium features that are provided on the likes of Samsung A72. However, I like the fact that Samsung has now settled for Google News when you swipe right on the home screen.

Should You Buy Samsung Galaxy A12?

Samsung Galaxy A12 is a budget phone from Samsung with good design and a good battery backup.

Its triple camera setup is also pretty good for the price but the old Helio P35 makes the A12 weak in terms of performance. If you are a casual user, you can definitely go for this smartphone. But if you’re looking for a performance-oriented phone on a budget, you should look elsewhere.

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I hope you like our review of the Samsung Galaxy A12. If you have any questions regarding this device, then drop them in the comments below.