Samsung’s New Galaxy A Line Up Offers Its Cheapest 5G Phone To Date

 For anyone who doesn’t want to drop a decent amount of cash for a flagship phone, Samsung just revealed a line of new affordable models for the US, including the company’s cheapest 5G smartphone to date.

First up is the $499 Galaxy A52 5G. The A52 packs a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 4,500mAh battery, a quartet of rear cameras headlined by a 64-megapixel sensor, and one of Qualcomm’s relatively fresh Snapdragon 750G chipsets. As we mentioned last time, the A52 5G is in some ways a more impressive device than the LTE-only Galaxy A72 Samsung announced at the same time, which explains why Samsung didn’t bother bringing that pricier model to the US this year. 

The next step down from there is the Galaxy A42 5G, which pairs the same 750G chipset as its sibling with a more restrained set of specs, 4GB of RAM instead of 6GB, a 13-megapixel front camera instead of the A52’s 32-megapixel one, and one fewer camera around back. The A42 has a 48-megapixel main rear shooter with an f/1.8 aperture, flanked by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide and a 2-megapixel sensor for capturing depth data. The A42 has a couple things going for it that the A52 doesn’t, it’s the only model Samsung announced that supports mmWave 5G, and it has a slightly larger 5,000mAh battery. 

And then there’s the A32 5G, which — at $280 — is the company’s first crack at making a truly inexpensive 5G device. Samsung managed to drive costs down by using one of MediaTek’s Dimensity 720 chipsets with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, along with a 6.5-inch HD+ LCD screen instead of a more visually appealing AMOLED panel (90Hz). Apart from that, the A32 uses the same battery and the same front and rear camera setups as the A42 does, just with one change: the A32 also packs a 5-megapixel macro camera.

Rounding out Samsung’s lineup are the A12 and A02s, which share the same 6.5-inch Infinity-V display. That’s about where the similarities end, though. The $180 A12 runs with a MediaTek P35 chipset, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, along with an 8-megapixel front camera and a rear quad camera system headlined by a 16-megapixel main sensor. Meanwhile, the $110 A02s is considerably bigger than last year’s model thanks to its whopper of a screen, but you’d do well to keep your expectations for the 13-megapixel main and 2-megapixel macros in check. Similar caution is probably warranted for the A02s’s performance too since it uses a three-year-old Snapdragon 450 chipset, but you could do much worse for price. 

The A42 5G will make its US debut first on April 8th, followed by the A52 5G, A32 5G and A12 on April 9th, and the A02s on April 29th. All phones will get three years of Android updates as well.