This is the Samsung Galaxy A52 *S* 5G… though you probably wouldn’t be able
to guess at first glance. It brings the same looks as the non-S model,
but on the inside, it has a brand-new chipset.
How much of a difference does that make though, and is this device much better?
I’m Will for GSMArena, and let’s find out in our Galaxy A52S 5G review.
Just like Samsung’s other recent Galaxy A Series phones, the A52S 5G
has that signature soft matte finish, and comes in black, as well as a variety of pastel colors.
The build is made of plastic, but these Galaxy phones embrace that, rather than
trying to look like glass. The back feels nice and grippy, and hides fingerprints quite well.
And plastic doesn’t always mean cheap. You get IP67 rated dust and water resistance here,
which most other midrangers don’t provide.
Like I mentioned before, the main feature that the S model
offers over the regular A52 5G is a new chipset.
This is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G,
a high performance midrange chip built upon a 6nm process. It’s a nice upgrade from the
Snapdragon 750G on the other model, which we felt was slightly underpowered for the price.
Performance is great here- CPU wise, it’s even comparable to flagship grade phones,
like the Poco X3 pro with its Snapdragon 860. Graphics performance is not quite as impressive,
but it’s very respectable for this price range, and a marked improvement over that of the A52 5G.
So while the other model provided decent performance, if you’re looking to perform more
graphics intensive tasks like gaming, the S model delivers a nicer experience.
Of course swapping the chipset can bring other changes beyond gaming performance-
such as with the battery life. Not so much the case here though.
The A52S 5G has the same 4500mAh battery as the other model, and was able to score a
nearly identical endurance rating of 113 hours in our proprietary tests- a solid performance.
Unlike the A52 5G, the S model comes with a 25 watt charger in the box in some markets,
instead of a 15 watt one.
With it we were able to charge the A52S 5G from 0 to 53 percent in half an hour.
And if you use that charger to top up the other model, the speed is about the same.
Another aspect of a phone that can be affected by a chipset change is the camera quality, because of
different processing. But in general, Samsung has delivered the same performance this time around.
We have the same cameras here: a 64MP, quad bayer main cam,
a 12MP ultrawide, a 5MP macro cam, and a depth sensor.
During the day, 16MP photos from the main cam come out quite decent.
They have enough detail, accurate colors, and wide dynamic range for the class thanks to autoHDR.
Portraits taken with the main cam and depth sensor look good as far as quality goes.
The subject detection is decent, but can get tripped up by busier backgrounds.
12MP photos from the ultrawide cam are great for the class. There’s a good level of detail and the
photos are sharper than you’d expect from this sort of camera, at this price. The distortion
correction is proficient too. The color rendition doesn’t quite match that of the main cam though.
5MP closeup photos from the macro cam are good, if you have enough light. There’s plenty of detail,
and although there’s no autofocus, the focus plane is pretty forgiving.
At night, the main cam does a pretty good job, providing plenty of detail,
along with well handled light sources and pretty low noise.
Night mode isn’t a major improvement, but restores some blown highlights.
The ultrawide cam does a decent job at night for this sort of camera.
The exposure is ok and you get some detail, and dynamic range isn’t half bad.
The ultrawide supports night mode, and it improves exposure,
and boosts the shadows. It does appear to add a lot of extra sharpening though.
Selfies are taken with a 32MP front facing cam, but they come out in 8MP. The quality is solid,
with plenty of detail and decent noise performance.
Videos can be captured with the main cam in up to 4K resolution at 30fps,
and it’s excellent, with plenty of detail and natural looking processing.
Colors are spot on, and dynamic range is reasonably wide.
4K clips captured by the ultrawide cam are quite nice too.
They are a bit noisier though, and the color rendition doesn’t match that of the main cam.
There is electronic stabilization available on both cameras, but it only works in 1080p
resolution. It does a pretty good job of smoothing out bigger bumps and jitters.
Alright, let’s move on to the rest of the features on the A52S 5G,
which are essentially the same as on the A52 5G- starting with the display.
It’s a 6.5 inch super AMOLED with a 1080p resolution,
gorilla glass 5 protection, and a super fast 120Hz refresh rate.
The fast refresh rate makes swiping and scrolling quite smooth to the eye
compared to phones with a standard refresh. It isn’t adaptive to save energy though-
in the 120Hz mode, it stays fixed even when you are not touching the screen.
Like the A42 5G, this panel is quite nice quality wise, with deep OLED blacks,
and HDR 10 plus support. Color accuracy isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close.
Max brightness is very similar between the two models as well. We achieved around 380 nits
maximum with the brightness slider, and it boosts to 800 nits in auto mode, when out in bright sun.
For your biometrics, there is an under display fingerprint reader. It’s very fast and accurate.
On the audio front, you get a traditional headphone jack, as well as stereo speakers,
with the second speaker doubling as the earpiece. The speakers earned a good score
on our loudness charts, and quality is good too, with well-presented mids, and ok highs.
You get 128 or 256 GB of storage onboard the device, which is expandable through microSD.
And finally, the user interface of the A52S 5G is Samsung’s latest OneUI 3.1,
based on Android 11. It offers the same clean user experience
and Samsung features that you’d get on pretty much all of their recent devices.
And on top of that, you get the promise of plenty of software support down the road-
3 major OS updates and 4 years of security patches.
So, that’s the Samsung Galaxy A52S 5G. You get all of the great features we loved in
the previous A52 5G, and on top of that, there’s a faster and more powerful chipset.
Now if you’re not a gamer, you might be thinking, I don’t need that new chipset,
and the rest of the features really haven’t changed- so why pay more for the S version?
But hold your horses- Samsung has actually managed to offer this one at the same price.
And since there’s no sacrifice here feature wise OR price wise, the A52S 5G is worth
recommending over the older model. Thanks for watching and see you on the next one.