Samsung Galaxy A12 Hands-on Review
Samsung's latest budget smartphone under the A-series the Samsung Galaxy A12 features a 6.5-inch Infinity-V Display with 48-megapixel with Quad Camera and MediaTek MT6765 Helio chipset.
On paper, the Samsung Galaxy A12 looks good for its price-point, now here's my personal hands-on review of this new Samsung budget smartphone.
6.5-inch TFT HD+ display (1560 x 720 resolution), at 264ppi
2.3GHz MediaTek Helio P35 octa-core processor
3GB RAM / 32GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD
48MP, f/2.0 main + 5MP ultra-wide + 2MP macro + 2MP depth sensor rear cameras
8MP selfie camera
Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Dual SIM, dual standby
4G LTE
WiFi
Bluetooth
GPS
USB Type-C
5,000mAh battery, 15W fast charging
Colors: Blue, Black
205g
Design and Built
The Galaxy A12 comes in a plastic body that looks nice and feels nice to hold. It has streamlined design aesthetics with nice blue color and curved edges that make it comfortable to hold. It also comes in Black, White, and Red colors. Its quad camera is encased in a square casing with a bump, below is the Samsung brand.
It features a 6.5-inch PLS IPS Infinity-V Display, not an AMOLED screen but still looks nice and the colors are full. It has a punch hole selfie camera that is also used for face-unlock that works very well.
The power button that also doubles as a fingerprint sensor together with the volume control is placed on the right side. Tactile has nice feedback and is easy to press. On the left side is the SIM slot with a triple tray that supports two nano-SIM and one microSD card for extra storage.
The Type-C port, 3.5mm audio jack, microphone, and speaker grille are at the bottom, there's another microphone at the top part of the phone.
DisplayThe 6.5-inch PLS IPS Infinity-V screen with a resolution of 720 x 1600 with 264 pixels per inch looks sharp and with nice colors. It has an 82.1% screen-to-body ratio, the bezels are visible but not that thick except at the bottom part of the screen.
Unlike most Samsung devices, the Galaxy A12 does not offer color modes, still, it's a nice screen to enjoy watching videos of cats on YouTube or Tiktok, and playing games is also good with its peak brightness of 400+ nits.
PerformanceThe Galaxy A12 is powered by MediaTek Helio P35 mobile platform, It uses Cortex-A53 cores clocked up to 2.3GHz and IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU running up to 680MHz. It has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage (17.1GB user available).
On AnTuTu the Galaxy A12 got 92523 scores and on GeekBench 5 (multi-core) it got 916 and 166 on GeekBench 5 (single-core).
Using the Galaxy A12 as my main phone feels good, it's responsive but not smooth and fluid compared to other smartphones at its price-point. It feels like the 3GB RAM is not enough to run multiple apps and to make a quick transition between apps.
Games like Call of duty run well on this phone, but it only supports low graphics settings. Lag and frame drops are noticeable but it's still playable. Also given the limited storage capacity it's not really ideal to install games that require large storage.
Casual games like Stumble Guys: Multiplayer Royale runs smoothly and gameplay is great and enjoyable, so playing light games on this phone will be more fun.
I also experienced the occasional hiccup when using it as my daily device. So if you are looking for a high-performance or better gaming experience the Galaxy A12 may not be a great option.
CameraThe Galaxy A12 sports quad cameras on the back, with a 48-megapixel main sensor, supported by a 5-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 2-megapixel macro lens, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front, it got an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
There is nothing special about the main camera, but it can capture decent pictures with good details and sharpness and decent composition in well-lit places such as outdoors during daylight. It's more than enough to share on social media.
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Just like any budget phone, the Galaxy A12 camera suffers from poor performance when used in dim places with pictures that lack sharpness and lose some details, to remedy this it's a good idea to use the LED flash to capture better pictures. It's also capable of 1080 (30 fps) video recording.
See more sample pictures here
Again since we are still on community lockdown, I was not able to fully test the camera capability.
BatteryIts equipped with a 5,000mAh battery and comes with a 15W fast charger. On a daily basis, the Galaxy A12 can last for about a day of standard use, which includes web browsing, voice calls, watching some interesting videos on YouTube and my Favorite Korean TV shows on Netflix, and some casual gaming.
In terms of charging, the 15W adapter can charge the battery in about 3 hours from 11% to 100% which is a bit slow but still not bad considering the capacity of the battery. So it's a good idea to charge it during the night so that by the next day it's already full charge and ready to work for another day.
Pros
Stylish two-tone look
Great battery life
Good Camera
Cons
Poor performance
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy A12 is a good smartphone with a nice design and long battery life, sadly, this device lacks the processing power to run smoothly, and play popular online games. If you have a budget of 10K you might as well take a look at the new Redmi Note 10 that offers better performance, great cameras, and good battery life.
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