Samsung Galaxy A03s Smartphone Review
Keep your expectations low with this budget smartphone and it could be just what you need
Melanie Pinola
Most phones today cost $500 or more. It's a nice change of pace if you just want a phone that can make calls, send texts and take pictures to send to friends and family.
If you don't expect much from your phone, the Samsung Galaxy A03 6.5 inch might have everything you need and you can get it at the lowest price. It retails for $160 and you can get it for $50 from prepaid cell phone providers like Boost Mobile. Fifty dollars!
So what is the catch? The Galaxy A03s is at the bottom of the CR smartphone ranking. Other phones beat it in terms of camera image quality (rear screen, video and selfie), and CR testers say it's slow. I've noticed this in the few days I've been using the Galaxy A03 - it's the slowest phone I've used in a while and it takes a second or two to achieve things like accessing the keyboard screen or switching between them. Also, this phone does not support 5G.
On the plus side, the phone has a long battery life, which lasted 39 hours on a single charge in our lab. And despite its low price and plastic construction, the Samsung Galaxy A03s passed our rigorous durability tests.
Samsung Galaxy A03 (2022)
Leading property
Battery: A large 5000 mAh battery lasts almost two days. However, this phone does not have fast charging.
Expandable memory: The Samsung Galaxy A03s only has 32 gigabytes of internal memory, which is small by today's standards, but you can add more memory via the microSD card slot. This is a feature that many expensive phones have abandoned.
Headphone jack: Do you prefer wired headphones to wireless ones? It is one of the few phones available today with a headphone jack.
How does the Samsung Galaxy A03s work?
This is the most affordable phone in the Samsung Galaxy line, so expect some compromises. The 6.5-inch display is an LCD display, not the sharper, higher-quality OLED displays found on more expensive phones. I had a hard time watching video outdoors in direct sunlight, though indoors the screen was good and CR testers gave it reasonable marks.
The Samsung Galaxy A03s also only has 3 gigabytes of storage, while other phones have 6GB or more. Low RAM and outdated processors introduced in 2018 are responsible for the relatively poor performance of the phone. If you're used to the instant response of your phone's touchscreen, you may notice this phone's lag. Maybe it's not a problem - it's up to you. However, you will need some patience when calling up the menu.
I play some games on the Galaxy A03 as video games often drain the device. The phone works well with 2D puzzles and 3D strategy games, but crashes a few times when trying to run the resource-intensive game Genshin Impact.
According to our testers, the phone's camera is "very good." On the back there is a 13-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel depth sensor (which helps the main camera blur the background to create a bokeh effect) and a 5-megapixel front camera. The quick photos I took look good enough to share in group chats or on social media, but the colors are a little washed out. For example, I snap a soft toy with masking tape or a plastic trash can and it comes out light blue. When you zoom in on a photo, the edges look blurry, so this isn't a phone for professional photographers or people who might need to print enlarged. There's also no image stabilization, so video can be shaky.
I found the fingerprint sensor that is on the power button on the right side of the phone to be unreliable. When I try to unlock the phone with my thumb, the Galaxy A03s often tells me that it can't find a matching fingerprint and tries again. After several attempts to try different angles, the phone locked the fingerprint option and forced me to enter a passcode, which defeated the whole purpose.
The plastic body has some flex, which makes me wonder if the Galaxy A03 could be a contender for one of those YouTube videos of someone breaking a phone in half with their bare hands. (I haven't tested it yet.) Even though it's a budget device, you can put it in a hard case.
Who is the Samsung Galaxy A03s for?
For all its flaws, the Galaxy A03 would make a great entry-level phone for a teenager, or perhaps someone who travels a lot and particularly values battery life.
If you're willing to sacrifice top performance to save money, the Galaxy A03 might be for you. It has all the basics and was the best phone in our review.
How Consumer Reports tests smartphones
In our review of almost 50 smartphones, new models are added regularly throughout the year as they are released by manufacturers. Like all products we've tested, CR buys the phone at retail to make sure we get the same device as you.
Our experts perform a series of tests to evaluate aspects such as the phone's responsiveness to touch, battery life, screen color accuracy and sharpness, camera image quality in different lighting conditions, and whether it has a water resistance rating. , if the device can withstand a good press. . . We even subjected the phone to the glass test, where we drop the phone 100 times to test its durability.
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Consumer Reports is an independent, not-for-profit organization that works with consumers to create a fairer, safer and healthier world. CR does not endorse any products or services and does not accept advertising. Copyright © 2022, Consumer Reports, Inc.
