Friends+Design
- Looks slick, and reflects off the same iridescent rainbow-like effects at the back as the Samsung Galaxy A50 when caught against light, only this one, comes with a prism-like pattern that Samsung calls a “3D prism design” - it's a head-turner no doubt
- And while the Samsung Galaxy A50s bears a polycarbonate body, it doesn’t look cheap and sports a very premium “glassy” look overall
- On the front is a sharp, modern panel with slim-bezels, and a U-shaped notch design (similar to Galaxy A50)
- Facial recognition to unlock your phone works well
- The fingerprint sensor that sits beneath the display, is a tad bit slow
- The phone is a smudge-magnet, relatively easy to scratch, and also slippery (so you will want to use a case)
Display
- Beautiful 6.4-inch Full HD+ Infinity-U Super AMOLED display with a high 91.6% screen-to-body ratio, and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection
- The screen looks sharp and bright, and being an AMOLED display, you will get deep black and vivid colors - sunlight legibility is also pretty good
Software
- Samsung's One UI is now one of the better, more clean and streamlined Android UIs around, and is well optimised for modern large displays (like this one)
- Samsung has also added a Game Booster tool to the A50s to offer a better gaming experience
- Other features include an intuitive gesture-based navigation system, and an option to wake up Bixby using the power button
Performance
- Solid mid-range performance with the robust Samsung Exynos 9611 SoC (similar to Snapdragon 660 and Exynos 9610) - the experience is pleasant and smooth throughout including with games like PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9
- Good thermal management too - the phone doesn't warm up quickly despite extended game play
- This is however not the best performing phone in this price bracket - you will get better CPUs and stronger performance from Xiaomi and Realme phones
Camera
- Decent set of triple rear cameras for the price bracket - a 48MP primary camera with an f/2.0 aperture; a second 5MP depth camera with f/2.2 aperture, and a third 8MP ultra-wide lens
- The quality of the pictures from the primary camera is quite good during daylight and outdoors - the A50s handles high-contrast scenes well and adds the right amount of detail and vibrance
- Night mode works reasonably ok for low-light situations and doesn’t add unnatural exposure to the scene
- Portrait mode ("Live focus") works well too especially when capturing outdoor daylight scenes
- Decent video recording performance with a dedicated 'super steady' mode which allows you to shoot decent “action” videos
- Decent 32MP selfie camera - in daylight outdoor lighting, selfies clicked turn out quite clear (not so much is low-light though)
- Overall, this is a fairly good camera setup for this price bracket (though not quite up to the level of the category leaders)
- The camera app is a little bit slow to launch and there is a small shutter lag when capturing photos
- As is right now the case with most mid-range phones, the wide-angle camera’s photos look fairly distorted, and details are soft
- Low light performance could have been better, across the board
Audio
- Volume levels of the speaker are a bit on the low side and could have been better - it's a little difficult to hear audio outdoors in a noisy environment
Battery
- Very good battery life with a 4000mAh battery - you will get about 1.5 days of use
- Although the “15 W” charger is supposed to be a fast charger, it’s not particularly fast - it takes over 3 hours for A50s to go from 0% to 100%
Verdict
- On the whole, the A50s, while a pretty decent phone by itself, will find the competition much more intense (than what its predecessor A50 faced) - unless you are a Samsung loyalist, you will want to look at the competition especially from the likes of Realme and Xiaomi
