the samsung galaxy a12 now admittedly it's been a while since i explored the
budget side of the smartphone market and i don't know if that makes me sound like a bit
of a snob but there was some reasons why i started buying flagship phones
that being said the samsung galaxy a12 has impressed me and somewhat underwhelmed me
so let's take a deep dive into the galaxy a12 in this review and unboxing
and see if it's the budget smartphone you should be spending your money on in 2021 stay tuned
what's up guys welcome back to tech it easy so the samsung galaxy a12 it's been a bit of a roller
coaster but a kind of fun one so let's start with the unboxing a couple of things that jumped out
at me straight away there is a wall plug charger included in the box yay then something else which
i thought had kind of gone extinct now wired yes wired 3.5 millimeter jack earphones i mean wow
but they also kind of suck but i guess it's nice they included them they do have a microphone on
them which is nice and if i think back several years from now they are tons better than what
you used to get with smartphones now wall plugs and chargers aside the galaxy a12 itself really
impressed me immediately i was shocked just how big it was and then the camera arrangement on the
back looked like something seen on a more flagship phone and we will do a camera test for the samsung
galaxy a12 later on in the video of course the galaxy a12 is going for around 150 pounds and i
actually got this one for 140 pounds on amazon so naturally the back of the phone is plastic
i'd love to see glass but i certainly wouldn't expect it at this price point and i have to admit
i do like the rugged feel to it so a few other things about the phone itself before we move on
the back has this nice textured grippy back which gives it a nice rugged feel as i mentioned i am a
fan of that the volume button is on the right side along with the power button which also
doubles as a fingerprint scanner something that i do think is a big selling point for this phone as
fingerprint scanners were something that was sort of reserved for more flagship mid-range phones
it's not an under display fingerprint scanner but again i wouldn't really expect it to be on
a phone at this price point i think it's really nice that they included a fingerprint scanner
at all really nice to see being brought down to the budget smartphone lineup now quickly moving
back to the a12 camera setup it is a pretty huge camera bump but surprisingly when i use it on a
surface it's actually not rocking around too much so not really too bad there but i guess the icing
on the cake here is the audio jack something else i thought had long since gone and i guess it's
quite a nice touch from samsung there lastly we do have a front-facing camera in that sort of v-shape
a little distracting but you quickly get used to it then it does have a mighty large chin which to
be honest i wasn't really a fan of it does make the phone a lot larger than it necessarily needs
to be all in all though excellent design for such a cheap phone any other thing i'd mention is that
it's really quite weighty so you really don't want to be dropping this on your face in the evening or
anytime for that matter so ever since i saw it i've been itching to do a camera test with the
galaxy a12 and i was really excited but then i got shot down i feel like the quad camera setup on the
galaxy a12 was just a bit for show don't get me wrong the camera specs do sound good we have a 5
megapixel ultra wide camera a 2 megapixel macro lens 48 megapixel main camera and a 2 megapixel
depth camera they all sound good on paper but when you actually get down to testing them i don't know
what you think but i'm not particularly blown away by them even the 48 megapixel didn't look
that great colors looked very washed out and there is this horrible sharpening on the images which
really doesn't do it any justice macro lens is a nice touch so in the right situation you can get
a nice shot but nothing that will blow you away again now i do sound kind of negative here and for
the most part i am but really when you think about it the utility that you get out of these cameras
isn't too bad for a budget phone and i know i keep repeating myself by saying for a budget phone
but it is actually at quite a low price point and for what you get as a package it's really
not that bad at all just having a macro lens and a wide angle lens and a normal lens to choose from
really does give you some nice options with this phone so it's gonna be perfect for snapchat and
anything like that or just documenting your daily life now unfortunately things don't get
much better when we get down to the video there's absolutely no stabilization when it comes to video
recording which makes videos look absolutely horrible if you're on the move that being said
1080p 30fps that's not bad at all some would say that that is quite bad but i would say it's
not half bad for a phone at this price point but again the video quality isn't going to blow you
away much like the photography so my advice on the camera phone is try and stretch your budget a bit
again if you're looking for something that's more geared to a creative setup possibly even something
like the pixel 4a and potentially go down that route for much better video and picture quality
now let's get back to the display so here we have a 1.65 inch full rectangle lcd display
with rounded corners with a resolution of 720 by 1600 or hd plus if you like now the screen
actually looks good and it feels good especially when you're looking at it indoors but when you get
outside it's not quite doing it for me and that is made worse by the viewing angles i did pick
up that you really have to be staring directly at this thing to get a good all-round experience
again and i will say it again you do have to take in the a12s price point into consideration here
i actually think despite its drawbacks it's a really nice screen to have on a budget
phone again tons better than what budget phones would have shipped with three to four years ago
all in all it will be a nice screen for watching movies and videos so long as you're not outdoors
on a sunny day then you might actually struggle with it now the thing that really drove me away
from the budget side of the smartphone market was their ui and how choppy they felt more often than
not they'd get really laggy and really slow very quickly and the galaxy a12s kind of changed my
mind on that it's running on one ui 3.1 using a mediatek mt6765 helio p35 to drive the phone
and to be honest it's really not all that bad i haven't really noticed any lagging it certainly
doesn't feel slow and that will be thanks to the three gigabytes of onboard ram that you get with
this model and i should mention the 32 gigabytes internal storage which can be expanded up to
gigabytes via microsd card there is also a four gigabyte model with 64 gigabytes of storage
if you need a little bit more space and even a six gigabyte version with 128 gigabytes of storage
for a lot of you if you are looking for a budget phone though i do think that the three gigabytes
of ram will be enough for you if you're just looking for a phone i think it's safe to say
that the galaxy a12 goes past the point of basic functions but it's not say a galaxy note 10 plus
now whilst we're talking about the ui and just before we finish up i want to quickly talk about
gaming so to test this i downloaded asphalt 9 wish to be fair is a pretty graphic intensive game
for a mobile device and i have to say it actually ran a lot better than i thought it
would it's certainly nothing in comparison to say my note 10 plus again and nor would
i expect it to be but the game does run fine every now and then there was a slight glitch
and i have to admit the loading times were quite long but really if the phone can handle this game
i'm pretty sure it's gonna handle a lot of other mobile games too that being said when it comes
to things like fortnite mobile and other similar games i think you may struggle if you're sort of
a serious competitive player so bear that in mind when you're picking your phone
lastly the media so when watching videos as i mentioned earlier on the display it's actually
quite pleasant but what i haven't talked about yet is the speakers so they are rear-facing speakers
but they actually get quite loud they don't quite have the bass to them that i've heard in other
phones but they're certainly going to be fine for most use cases so when you're watching your
favorite youtuber and if you don't have one yet you can always subscribe to me you're going to be
able to hear them quite nicely probably recommend people if they can get their hands on one stay
tuned and let's talk about it some more so guys that was the samsung galaxy a12 as always let me
know in the comment section what you thought of it i know in my review i sounded fairly negative but
really honestly it has actually impressed me and i think for anyone looking for a phone
at this price point it's a great buy just before you go please do leave a like
and subscribe to the channel if you're new around here and hopefully i'll see you in the next one
you