Hey guys, Adam Lobo here from Adam Lobo TV, and in this post, I will be reviewing the Samsung Galaxy A42 5G after using it about a week, and I will give you a definite answer on whom is this RM1,599 phone for.
Now, since the review unit didn’t come with a box, let’s dive into the specs.
Specs
The Samsung Galaxy A42 5G comes with the Snapdragon 750 chipset, so yes, good news for all you Snapdragon lovers out there, then it has the Adreno 619 GPU, and in Malaysia, there is only the option of 8 gigs of RAM with 128 gigs of storage. It comes shipped with Android 10, with Samsung One UI version 2.5.
So the phone comes in two colours for you guys to choose from here in Malaysia, where the one that I am reviewing is called Prism Dot Grey and there is also the option of Prism Dot White.
Built Quality
Looking at the design and built, like the other A-series from Samsung, it had a slim built, which was quite surprising especially since it comes with a huge sized battery, which I will go into later.
At the back, it is made of plastic and I have to say that I love the unique looking prism dot design that Samsung went with, making it to really stand out compared to the rest of the A-Series, especially paired with the unique squared camera bump, where if you were to place the phone on a surface and type on it, it won’t wobble at all.
Then in front, it has a flat-screen display, with the Infinity U front camera notch and then there is the in-display fingerprint sensor, which unlocks fast as expected where the placement is slightly towards the bottom of the phone compared to the other Samsung Flagships.
As for the ports and buttons, looking down below, there is the headphones jack (oh thank God almighty!), the USB-C port and the mono firing speaker.
On the right, there is the volume rocker and the power button, then on the left, there is the SIM card and the microSD card slot, which can be expandable up to 1 Terabyte! Yeah!
Display
As for the screen, the phone has a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED HD+ display with a resolution of 1600 x 720 pixels, so here is where some MAY find this deal-breaker, but as a person like me who loves a high-resolution screen, I didn’t mind it at all when I used the phone daily as I have to be honest to say that I didn’t really even notice that it wasn’t a full 1080p, because I have to say that the Super AMOLED’s screen quality made it still look great, compared to a 720p IPS LCD Display.
So as expected, watching video content on the phone was perfect, colour accuracy was nice, while some mid-range smartphones tend to have an oversaturated image even with the previous releases of the A-Series, which Samsung has very much improved in this A42 variant.
Camera Specs Back / Front Image Quality
Looking at the camera’s specs:
- Main lens is a 48-megapixel f 1.8 aperture,
- an 8-megapixel f 2.2 ultrawide-angle lens,
- a 5-megapixel f 2.4 Macro camera lens, and
- a 5-megapixel F 2.4 depth camera
First, looking at the regular shots, colours were natural, and high in detail, the dynamic range on the phone was also great, where the image processing would make you think that the photos were taken on a flagship phone, which was nice.
As for Portrait Mode on the phone, it was also drastically improved with amazing quality and a great subject to background blur.
Then the ultrawide lens is yet again still my number 1 favourite compared to other smartphones that I have tested with a perfect focal length, with no barrel distortion on the edges.
And the outdoor night shots were nice and had a great balance of highlights and shadows, where most mid-range phones tend to overcompensate on the shadows to make it noisy but that was not the case here but keep in mind that the night mode is only available for the main lens and not the ultrawide angle lens.
Then the macro lens was a great option to take some really close-up shots, where the white balance could be a hit or miss especially if you have different light sources.
Then as for the front camera, it has a 20-megapixel f 2.2 wide lens.
Looking at the regular selfie mode, the image details were great with a nice balance of colour temperature and the Portrait Selfie was also great and had similar results to the rear camera as well.
Camera Video Back / Front Quality, Image Stabilisation
As for the video, it records up to 4k 30 frames per second for the rear camera.
The video quality and the dynamic range for the video was great, especially when I pointed the camera towards the exposed sky area, but it does help with the overall image to expose the skies properly. So that was nice to know but the image stabilization was decent at best, so Iād switch it to 1080p if you want a better stabilization.
Then as for the front, it records at the 1080p up to 30 frames per second where quality was also good and also great image stabilization.
Sound Quality
As for the phone’s sound quality, for a mid-range smartphone, I have to say that it sounded pretty decent, where it shines more on the mid to high-level frequency with a lower output volume at 85.7 dB.
Navigation
In terms of software, it comes shipped with Android 10, with Samsung One UI version 2.5, which I have gotten to love and appreciate especially with this new and improved version.
Having tested many different UIs as of late, this still has to be my top 2 favourites other than Oxygen OS and I never come to a point that I felt that I need to typically slap in a launcher of sorts where the navigation and the daily usage was still one of my personal favourites.
Battery Life
Now on to the phone’s battery, as mentioned earlier, I don’t know how Samsung has managed to come up with a slim format factor for the phone as it comes with 5000 milliamps of battery with 15 watts fast charging.
And based on my usage, from 100% till about 60% felt it was taking FOREVER to drain which was truly amazing as this could be due to its slightly lower resolution screen compared to a flagship which again, I didn’t mind that as I really appreciated the battery life, where I got about an average close to 7 hours daily with still about 30 to 40 per cent battery life which is indeed one of the biggest pluses of using this phone daily.
Gaming
In terms of gaming, I didn’t have any problems running games like Asphalt 9 and COD Mobile, there is a cool Game Booster mode that maximizes performance and keeps the temperature of the phone at bay, which was indeed not just a gimmick as it get little to no overheating issues during a long gameplay.
Conclusion
So, my conclusion and thought about the A42 is this – when Samsung released the FE version of the S20, I felt that THAT phone filled in the gap of being placed between a high mid-range to flagship phone from Samsung and for THIS A42 variant, it is more of being in between the mid-level mid-range between the high-level mid-range, if you get what I mean.
So who is the Samsung Galaxy A42 for? Well, if you want a phone which has a great camera, a nice UI and has an amazing battery without having any overheating issues, then this phone should be for you as I find it amazing how Samsung continues to give users a myriad of options that fit into the needs of many and I think it this A42 series fits in perfectly within the A-series as well to give you just another option for you to consider, especially with the price factor.