Galaxy A12 in pretty much every way but there’s just one tiny problem.
Now let’s get started!
Samsung is firing on all cylinders this year with the recent launch of the A series devices,
pretty much releasing the entire A series in one go. I’ve reviewed a few of them and the latest
I got my hands on the Samsung Galaxy A13 which looks nice as far as design goes.
This design reminds me more of the Galaxy A32 from last year thanks to
it's camera arrangement which we could also say is similar to the S22 Ultra, but I’m giving credit
to the A32 for this design inspiration.
The Samsung Galaxy A13 is an upgrade from the A12 in every way as far as I can tell. I’m
talking improvements in not just design but also display and performance thanks to the Exynos 850
which is not a new processor. It’s the same processor as the Galaxy A21s from 2020,
and for the A13 this is a good upgrade from the Helio P35 its predecessor. We’ll talk more about
the processor and performance later. This is the A13 4G,
different from the A13 5G which packs the more powerful Density 700.
I wish we got that one but it is what it is. The Samsung Galaxy A13 comes at the price
of 95,000 Naira for the 64GB option, that’s just about $170 if I’ve done the conversion correctly.
There’s also a 128GB option which costs more, but both have 4GB of RAM.
Now to the box content, we have the essential accessories except earphones.
Thankfully we get a charger, actually a 15 watts charger, so it gets fast charging. There’s no
screen protector or protective casing here. We still have the headphone jack on the Galaxy A13
and all ports and buttons are in the conventional position. The fingerprint scanner is side mounted
as we’ve become accustomed to budget devices. It works well to unlock the device without issues.
There’s just a bottom-firing mono speaker which sounds good
and doesn’t get distorted at high volumes. Time to take a look at that interesting design
on the Samsung Galaxy A13. While it comes in the same color options as its bigger siblings,
its design is more inspired by the older A32 with its camera bump. In my opinion,
this is a much-welcome design improvement coming from the A12 which had a square camera bump.
It’s a glossy finish on the rear so smudges should be expected. The Galaxy A13 takes a
more rounded design approach on the edges. The A12 was boxier and I’d say slimmer phone
The design on the A13 is more unibody, there’s no frame separating the rear from the display.
Speaking of display we also see a major upgrade here. The Samsung Galaxy A13
display is protected with Gorilla Glass 5. I don’t think there’s any device at this price
point with this level of gorilla glass protection, correct me if I’m wrong. But that’s not all on the
display upgrades, it is also a 1080p display, an upgrade from the 720p display of its predecessor.
It is a 6.6 inches PLS TFT display with the infinity-v design, actually the same display
quality as the higher A23. Got to give credit to Samsung for this one. While it’s not AMOLED,
it’s a much-desired upgrade from what we had on the A12, and I don’t think any manufacturer
provides AMOLED at this price point. Of all the display upgrades there are
one lacking which would’ve probably sealed this as the best value offering.
It’s sadly a 60hz display, which is not bad if you’re coming from a 60hz device, but we
have the likes of the Tecno Spark 8C, and Infinix Hot 10T which costs less and have 90hz refresh rates.
But we could also say those do not offer the FullHD display and
Gorilla glass 5 protection or even software reliability the Samsung Galaxy A13 provides
so I think we can overlook that... Can we? The software on the A13 is Android 12 and
Samsung’s latest One UI 4.1 core version. As of now, I think only Samsung has a device at
this price point on Android 12. You’ll get the essential One UI experience on the A13
except for some features like Smart View, Secure Folder, and edge panel.
These are features reserved for the higher devices with the full version of One UI.
We do get RAM Plus here with the option to choose between 2 or 4GB for RAM extension.
RAM plus is the device using the available internal memory to support the
base RAM. So that’s 4GB of base RAM and 4GB of virtual RAM for the Samsung Galaxy A13.
on the RAM. You’ll need to have enough internal storage space available for it to work though,
so best use an SD card if you’re getting the 64GB option of the A13.
The Exynos 850 powering the Samsung Galaxy A13 as I mentioned earlier is a pretty good upgrade
from the Helio P35 in pretty much every way. It’s a more efficient 8nm processor with much better
performance. While not as powerful as what the competition is offering at a similar price point,
the Snapdragon 680-powered Redmi 10c for reference is still a solid one especially
considering that it is powering a very budget device. The A21s which had the Exynos 850 was
the best-selling Android phone of 2020 so only time will tell if the A13 will be as good.
Performance wise I’ve had no complaints whatsoever. For this price point, you might
want to keep your expectations low when it comes to gaming. The Galaxy A13 will be able to run some
high graphics games like Call of duty at medium settings run fine, for the most part, but
still keep your expectations low, you definitely can’t expect the best gaming experience at this
price point. It has the Mali G52 as its GPU. Battery life on the A13 is impressive
and you can expect at least a day of use as its 5000mAh battery is optimized pretty well.
It supports 15 watts charging and thankfully it comes with the 15 watts charger in the box.
In the camera department not much has changed except for its main sensor which is now 50MP.
It remains a quad rear combination of a 5mp Ultra-wide, 2MP macro, and depth sensors. The
selfie camera remains unchanged at 8mp. It takes good pictures for its price and
I’d say that compared to its predecessor it looks to have improved in quality. Photos are good looking
for their price and as long as you have the right lighting conditions you will get great results.
It doesn’t have night mode so I won’t recommend using this in low light.
Selfies look great, not the sharpest but I’ll say quite good for an 8mp selfie camera.
On the video, it can shoot up to 1080p 30 frames per second
from both selfies and rear cameras.
okay so this is a video on the selfie camera of the Samsung Galaxy A13, it's an 8-megapixel
the selfie camera and I'm currently filming in 1080p 30 frames per second. Let me know what the video
is like, and then the microphone quality as well... looks good from the viewfinder though.
The Samsung Galaxy A13 is a really good upgrade from the A12 of last year and I can recommend this
as a solid device with a lovely design, great build quality, great display for its price, and also great software support as this should easily get 2 to 3 years of major OS upgrades.
However, for its price, it has to contend with the Redmi 10C which costs less and is powered
by the more powerful Snapdragon 680. Or even the A22 which is likely to drop in price in the
Launch of GSM, HSPA, and LTE networks announced on March 4, 2022
Status Available. March 23, 2022, for release
BODY
165.1 x 76.4 x 8.8 millimetres (6.5 x 3.01 x 0.35 in)
Size 195 g (6.88 oz)
Construction Gorilla Glass 5 front, plastic frame, and SIM
Dual SIM or a single SIM (Nano-SIM) (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
DISPLAY Size 6.6 inches, 104.9 cm2 (83.2% screen-to-body ratio), Display Type PLS LCD
20:9 aspect ratio, 1080 x 2408 resolution, and 400 ppi density
Protection
Android 12. Corning Gorilla Glass 5 PLATFORM OS, One UI 4.1\sChipset 850 Exynos (8nm)
MicroSDXC memory card slot Octa-core CPU (4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) GPU Mali-G52 (dedicated slot)
Internal storage options include 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 128GB 6GB of RAM.
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