The market is crowded with inexpensive smartphones from manufacturers like Motorola and Nokia these days, but Samsung traditionally tries to keep things simple, frequently selling only one or two sub-£200 phones at any given moment.
Updates have just been released across the company’s A-series lineup, with the brand-new Galaxy A13 continuing to be one of Samsung’s most affordable smartphones now available on store shelves. This might be a good-value option to its mid-range competitors if money is a little tight.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A13: Important information
You can obtain a huge 6.6-inch IPS display, an Exynos 850 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage for very little money. Additionally, this, like the recently unveiled A33 5G and A53 5G, can be expanded by a further 1TB via a microSD card. On the interior, a sizable 5,000mAh completes the picture, and charging rates of up to 15W are enabled.
A quadruple camera array with a main 50MP (f/1.8) sensor, a 5MP (f/2.2) ultrawide, a 2MP depth sensor, and a 2MP macro sensor is located on the back of the phone. On the front, a V-shaped notch at the top of the screen houses an 8MP (f/2.2) selfie camera.
The A13 starts with Android 12 and Samsung’s One UI 4.1, just like the rest of the A-series devices, however it lacks an official IP rating and doesn’t enable 5G connectivity in the UK.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A13: Cost and Rivalry
The Galaxy A13 went on sale for £179 on March 25 in the UK and is available in Awesome Black, Awesome White, and Awesome Blue. Awesome.
You’ll probably agree it’s a terrific pricing, but it’s important to note that there are currently a ton of good phones in the sub-£200 price range. Furthermore, Samsung is arrogantly requesting £10 more than the Galaxy A12’s original price.
The Moto G31, a fantastic £170 smartphone with an OLED display and exceptional battery life, may pose the most threat at this price. Another option is the Nokia G21, which costs only £150 and offers a 90Hz IPS screen and a decent design despite not being quite as fantastic.
You’d probably be better off choosing the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 if you had an extra £21 (£200) to spend. With excellent cameras, outstanding performance, and a 90Hz OLED display with precise color reproduction, it’s a terrific illustration of how to make a phone on a tight budget.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A13 Design and essential components
The Galaxy A13’s design is quite subpar by today’s standards to start things off. The Galaxy A12 had an unusual blend of fake flagship looks with a distinctive two-tone design; in contrast, the Galaxy A13 is nothing like that and has a relatively subdued appearance.
It’s totally up to you whether or not you want a simple aesthetic, but I can’t help but believe that Samsung could have done more to make the Galaxy A13 stand out.
Again, the back of the phone is made entirely of plastic (no surprises there), but regrettably, it lacks the more upscale appearance and feel of the previous generation because it is only one color without any distinguishing textures. Sadly, this new design has the additional flaw of being somewhat of a fingerprint magnet, making it nearly impossible to maintain things smudge-free.
However, Samsung at least done a nice job of positioning the cameras on the rear. The phone’s macro camera and LED flash are positioned to the right of the 50MP main camera, which is vertically positioned in the top-left corner beside a 5MP ultrawide and depth-sensing sensor. They are all located separately, and there isn’t a distracting camera block in sight, making it a quite pleasant little setup.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A13’s functionality and endurance
A cheap phone will never have the most power, but regrettably, this is where the Galaxy A13 really falters. The US model (SM-A136U), which supports 5G, has a little older chipset than the UK variant (SM-A136U), which only supports 4G. This is similar to how the S22 series phones differ in terms of chipset componentry (SM-A135F).
In most cases, this isn’t much of a problem because the flagship Exynos 2200 shares a lot of architectural similarities with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. However, in this situation, the 2GHz Exynos 850 is drastically outperformed by the 2.2GHz Dimensity 700. The US model of the phones costs $250, or about £191, so there aren’t much price differences between them.
In essence, this means that UK consumers are being shortchanged when it comes to speeds in addition to being unable to purchase the 5G variant. I got a meager 156 for single-core processing on the Geekbench 5 test, and a dismal 587 for multicore. Multiple test runs came to the same outcome, contrary to my initial assumption that something must have gone wrong with the test; as you can see from the graph below, these results are far lower than those of the Galaxy A12.
The 5G model, on the other hand, is far faster and more competitive than its predecessors. A single-core result of about 467 and a multicore result of 1,100 are listed in publicly available Geekbench scores. The UK version would have taken twice as long. Ouch.
Real-world performance is a little better than these numbers imply, but if consistent speeds are what you’re expecting, you’ll still want to avoid the Galaxy A13 due to its lengthy boot times, jerky app transitions, and potentially bad gaming frame rates.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A13 software
The Galaxy A13 ships with Android 12, the most recent version of Google’s mobile operating system. However, Samsung has added its own One UI 4.1 veneer on top, so this isn’t a completely vanilla experience.
You’ll feel right at home if you’ve already used a Samsung smartphone. Samsung doesn’t frequently make significant changes, but this most recent update includes new personalized widget recommendations in addition to a refreshed privacy dashboard. If an app is using your microphone or camera, a green status indication now appears in the top-right corner, which is a lovely touch.
