Samsung A52 Impressions: The Perfect All-Round Mid-ranger?

Samsung’s A-series phones are mid-range phones with slightly more premium features than their M-series counterpart. Last year, the A51 from the A-series was the best-selling Android phone.

Enter 2021, they have launched A51’s successor in the form of Samsung A52. So, can it surpass the A51? Let me tell you about it in my impressions of the Samsung Galaxy A52.

Samsung A52 First Impressions

Impressive Design

• 159.9 x 75.1 x 8.4 mm
• 189 g Nano-SIM, dual stand-by
• IP67 dust/water resistant
• Plastic back, aluminum frame

A52 is just a smaller A72 that shares the same design language. Everything remains the same from the camera bump to the finish of the rear panel. Talking about the rear panel, the new matte finish feels premium even though the panel is made out of plastic. Then there’s the IP67 dust/water resistance which is very rare in this segment.

While it looks aesthetically pleasing, the phone is lightweight and pretty thin. On top of that, the pastel color choices are very attractive.

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What’s not attractive is the in-display fingerprint sensor. It sounds impressive on paper, but Samsung hasn’t improved much in this department. With this exception, Samsung has pretty much nailed the design of the A52.

Good Display Gets Better

• 6.5 inches Super AMOLED
• 1080 x 2400 pixels
• 90Hz, 800 nits (peak brightness)

High refresh rate display on mid-range phones is not a new thing. The A52 gets a 6.5-inch FHD Super AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate.

The display quality of Samsung’s AMOLED panel is definitely class-leading but the competition like Redmi Note 10 Pro also boasts an AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. Also, it doesn’t have variable refresh rate tech that Samsung has been adopting on its flagship phones.

Nevertheless, A52’s panel feels smooth and the color reproduction is also top-notch.

Performance Upgrade

• Qualcomm SM7125 Snapdragon 720G (8 nm)
• Octa-core (2×2.3 GHz Kryo 465 Gold & 6×1.8 GHz Kryo 465 Silver)
• Adreno 618
• 128GB 8GB RAM

Samsung employed its underwhelming Exynos chipset on the A51 last year. But, A52 gets the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset. It is a noticeably big upgrade compared to the Exynos chipset and it’s similar to the Snapdragon 732G chipset that is used on the Redmi Note 10 Pro/Pro Max.

So far, the general performance of the A52 feels great. It breezes through normal tasks such as app opening, app switching, multi-tasking, and navigating UI. The 90hz smoothness and UI optimization also play a major hand.

As for gaming, I’ve tried the COD Mobile and the results are pretty good.  It is able to play COD at High graphics and Max frame rate settings. However, I was playing on Low graphics and Max fps settings and the gameplay is smooth.

I will be doing more gaming tests on the A52 for the full review.

Camera Upgrades

• Rear Camera: 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.7X”, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS
  • 12 MP, f/2.2, 123˚ (ultrawide), 1.12µm
  • 5 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
  • 5 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
  • Video: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/120fps; gyro-EIS

• Front Camera: 32 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide), 1/2.8″, 0.8µm
  • Video: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps

Compared to the A51, Samsung A52 features a similar quad-camera setup with an upgraded 64MP sensor.

Along with the upgraded main sensor, Samsung has included OIS on its main sensor that can capture up to 4K 30fps videos. It can also do 4K 30 videos from the front camera but the front camera lacks a stabilization option.

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Images from the main camera are well detailed with slightly boosted colors. The colors do not look as saturated as was the case with previous Samsung phones. The 12MP ultrawide angle also shares a similar color profile with slightly colder colors. The ultrawide images definitely look impressive so far.

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Then there’s a 5MP depth sensor and a 5MP macro sensor. The macro photos are not super impressive but I don’t think there’s a better macro camera than the A52’s in this segment.

Moving on to the 32MP front camera, the selfies have good sharpness and selfies turn out impressive in good lighting conditions.

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I’ll talk about the camera quality in detail including videos in my full review.

Battery Life

• Non-removable Li-Po 4500 mAh Battery
• Fast charging 25W
• USB Type-C 2.0

In terms of endurance, A52 gets a slightly smaller battery than the A72. The 4500mAh battery is claimed to provide 2 days of battery life.

According to my current usage, I think the A52 can provide more than a day of battery life. For charging, it supports 25W charging but it only gets a 15W charger in the box.

OS & Others

• Android 11
• One UI 3.1
• Stereo Speaker

Samsung A52 runs on the One UI 3.1 on top of Android 11. And, if you read my reviews then you already know that I absolutely adore the One UI.

And, I’ve been loving the One UI even more as it now has Google Feed integration in the home screen. However, my review unit comes with some extra bloatware like the Yandex search engine and 2GIS. Thankfully, it won’t be present in the retail unit.

Moreover, Samsung has also promised 3 generations of OS updates and 4 years of security updates. And, Samsung has been doing a great job of pushing regular updates.

Another noticeable feature is the dual stereo speaker setup. There’s a main speaker on the bottom and the earpiece works as the extra speaker.

Follow Up

I can fully recommend the Samsung Galaxy A52 even without the full review. It’s a complete mid-range device that can do it all and it definitely surpasses the A51.

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It has got the looks and it has competing hardware interms of sheer performance. On top of that, the improved cameras already look impressive. Maybe they could have made it better with a 120Hz screen but are you complaining? It doesn’t look so as the A52 is mostly out of stock in Nepal.

This is just an impressions article about a few days of using the A52. I’ll revisit what I talked about here in my full review.

In the meantime, you can watch our full review of the Samsung Galaxy A72.