Go big and capture your awesome with an amazing value from the Galaxy A03 Smartphone
By Dexter Francis De Vera
Today when every event or activity is practically done virtually which includes schooling and online meetings, a smartphone and internet connection have become essential. However, not everyone has the luxury to have a top-of-the-line smartphone that can do an array of stuff at the same time shoot nice photos. The good news is that Samsung Mobile started the new year by releasing affordable series aimed at the younger market—students and first-jobbers alike.
Samsung is empowering the novice user with the new Galaxy A03, a budget-friendly smartphone that allows one to photo capture those awesome moments while achieving productivity goals—whether in school or at work. Here’s what we think of the Galaxy A03 smartphone and what does it have to offer?
Design and Display
At a glance, one can see that this phone is an entry-level device, even if the person does not know much about electronic devices. After all, the Samsung Galaxy A03 has a body made of plastic in a matte finish. The good thing about the matte finish is that fingerprints and smudges are less likely to stick. Another good aspect is the plastic material, which has a subtle cross-hatched pattern and a small Samsung logo below for a more comfortable grip. It comes in three available basic colors: Blue for our review unit, Red and Black.
At the bottom holds the speaker grille, 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone, and a MicroUSB port. Both the volume rockers and power/sleep button are on the right side while the SIM tray is located on the left. The good thing with the SIM tray it has a dedicated slot for the MicroSD up to a capacity of 1TB. The front bezels are still thin enough but vaguely visible from the top and sides while a very thick bezel can be seen at the bottom. The Samsung Galaxy A03 comes with a 6.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1600×720—not bad at all for an entry-level phone, right? The display colors are vibrant and the text is crisp and sharp. The Galaxy A03 uses a notch screen model called Infinity-V, featuring a front camera in a “V” shaped notch. The front camera, aside from taking selfies, is also the only biometric key to unlock the phone via its face recognition feature.
The Camera
Housed in a square-shaped, rounded-corner camera module is a dual-lens with an LED flash beside it. There’s a slight protrusion of the camera module but you can still place the device on any flat surface. The main camera, ultra-wide camera, and depth sensors on the back offer enough functionality. Overall, pictures produced in auto mode look satisfactory. But one thing I noticed is that colors are more saturated. You can select from the camera app with the following shooting modes like portrait, photo, video, pro, panorama, food, night, Hyperlapse, and DecoPic to take photos and videos fun with live stickers. As for the video recording, it has two resolution options namely HD and FHD. However, you can only record videos at 30 frames per second and there is no video stabilization feature. I did not expect much from the camera on this phone but I’m okay with the pictures it took.
The Battery
A large 5,000 mAh battery is another noteworthy feature of the Galaxy A03 as you can get around 6 to 8 hours of usage. If you want to extend more of the battery you can turn on the power saving mode under the battery settings. Generally, a battery of this size lasts all day to run light to moderate tasks on a single charge. When used in an online meeting with the Zoom app for an hour, the battery was reduced from 73 percent to 68 percent only. Meanwhile, watching movies on the service streaming, battery power is used about 4 percent for 30 minutes. The phone does not get warm during video conferences and watching movies for the duration mentioned above. For charging, Samsung only supplied a 7.75W charger that takes around 1 hour 30 minutes for a full charge.
The Software and Performance
The Galaxy A03 comes with the OneUI Core interface based on Android 11, which is very user-friendly. If you’re used to Android devices, you won’t have any problems with OneUI. While using this phone, I didn’t experience any lag when I scrolled through apps, thanks to the Unisoc T606 chipset which provides enough performance for daily tasks. I had no problems texting, browsing social media, watching videos, or accessing websites with it. The quality of watching video content on the device is also excellent. For better sound quality, you may opt to use an earphone to turn on the Dolby Atmos feature settings. The Samsung Galaxy A03 offers various storage options with its main variant of 3GB RAM and 32 GB of storage. The other higher variants offer 4GB RAM with 64GB to 128GB of space capacity. If 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB is not enough, then MicroSD cards will come to the rescue. The Galaxy A03 has some useful pre-installed apps such as Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, Lazada, and TikTok. If you need to do some work with the device you also have Microsoft apps like Office, OneDrive, LinkedIn, and Outlook.
The Verdict
If there’s something I love about the Samsung Galaxy A03, it would probably be its long battery life, good display, expandable storage, and its aesthetics. The large battery power, although not yet equipped with fast charging, is sufficient for use during school activities online or attending online meetings. This brings another highlight—the phone’s price starting at P5,490 (for the 3+32GB) is already a good deal especially if you’re looking for an entry-level phone to just do undemanding tasks. If you want a Samsung phone as a gift to your kids who just wants to play simple games like Candy Crush or watch their favorite video on YouTube or Netflix, then the Samsung Galaxy A03 might be the one for you.
To know more, visit https://www.samsung.com/ph/
