Samsung's Cheapest Galaxy Phones Reviewed: What $180 or Less Gets You

Speaker 1: You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on a phone when all you wanna do is make some calls, send some texts and maybe play a couple games among us. I spent three months with three of Samsung's galaxy iPhones, all of which come in at under $200. And I have to say they do a little bit of everything I need them to do, but they do come with a few trade offs. Speaker 1: We give a lot of attention to Samsung's galaxy S phones, which start at $700 [00:00:30] for the galaxy S 21 Fe. But you might not want to, or even can spend that much money just to have a phone. The galaxy a oh two S starts at $130 galaxy a oh three S at $160. And the galaxy a 12 at $180. All of them have a six and a half inch screen. That's a similar size to the galaxy S phones, but the resolution is locked to seven 20 P. They all have a small teardrop style notch for the front facing camera, and they have three or four rear cameras, [00:01:00] depending on the phone. All three phones run Android 11 with roadmaps and plans to get more software and security updates for a few years, which is particularly important. If you wanna hold onto the phone for a few years before going through what these phones can do, I just wanna set some expectations by going over what they don't do. Speaker 1: None of these phones support 5g. They do not have a high refresh rate display. They have a tiny 32 gigs worth of onboard storage. They do not wirelessly [00:01:30] charge, and they all come in a plastic body despite having multiple cameras on the back of these phones, the image quality ranges from being just okay. When I took photos of outdoor locations and donuts, while outside to pretty muddy. When I took photos of burritos and cocktails at an indoor restaurant, but these phones have great battery life, easily stretching to two days. Even when I would spend half the day watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, playing games, and taking video calls throughout all [00:02:00] three phones also have a he phone Jack, which gives you way more flex as to what headphones you can use for the phones. And thankfully they all have a microSD card slot, which you're going to need, because with only 32 gigs of space, you're gonna need a little bit more room to fit more photos. Speaker 1: Or if you want to even take any video at all. When I loaded in my last Android backup to the first of these phones for review, I barely had enough space to even take the already photos, unless I deleted some apps to make some room. So you might now be thinking, Mike [00:02:30] said, all three phones do a little bit of everything, right? So I should totally just get the cheapest of the phones, right? No, not necessarily. The a two S has the fewest frills of the three phones, which is to be expected because it's the cheapest. It has no fingerprint sensor on the phone. So to unlock it, you need to either use a code, a pattern, and a pin or no code at all. If you are not concerned about anyone accessing your phone easily, but the bigger problem with the a O two S is multitasking likely because the phone [00:03:00] only has two gigs of memory on board. Speaker 1: Whereas the other two phones have three gigs. The phone played my podcast fine, and I could browse the web on the phone. Okay. But when I started trying to do both or other combined tasks, the phone would often crash either the music or the web after a few you minutes, unless you need a phone that you don't really plan to use very much. It's hard for me to recommend the a O two S even at $130, it's perhaps a good burner [00:03:30] phone or a small step up from a flip phone for $30 more, the a oh three S is worth it on its own, just from the fingerprint or inclusion, just that lets you get into the phone way faster than having to enter in a pin or a pattern. The a oh three S is also the newest of the three phones. So it should be getting slightly longer software and security update support over the a oh two S and the a 12. Speaker 1: And the phone is three gigs of Ram up from the two gigs, a oh two [00:04:00] S which makes multitasking so much better. I do feel some lag when entering in exiting apps, but most other tasks I threw at it were just fine. I could even video chat while playing among us at the same time, the $180 a 12 adds a fourth camera to the back of the phone, which means that it does capture slightly more detail in its photos. However, that little bit of extra detail wasn't substantially better than what I could get off the a oh three S or the a oh two S [00:04:30] for all three of these phones you'll wanna make use of good lighting in order to get the most outta the images. Since the level of detail is a bit more crunchy than crisp, especially in lower lighting. I also found lag on the H 12 when rotating it between horizontal and vertical landscapes while watching videos and reading the news. Speaker 1: Overall, the H 12 could be a good fit for someone who really wants that fourth camera and plans to throw in a micro SD card slot to take advantage of the additional space for more photos and videos. [00:05:00] So the most important question to me with these phones is how good will you look on a video call? We took some footage the other day of what a video call would look like over zoom. Just to give you some idea of what the quality is like over that or duo or any other video calling app you use. Speaker 2: So this is video calling from the cheapest of the three Samsung phones, the galaxy a oh two S it's the hundred $30 one. And this is what a video call looks like from a step up galaxy, a oh three [00:05:30] S it's $160. And this is what it looks like from the galaxy. A 12, uh, this phone has a fourth camera on the back, but on the front, the camera that matters right now. It's just to say same, uh, front facing camera in a teardrop notch. Uh, hopefully it looks a little bit better, cause this is the phone that costs more than the other two at 180. Speaker 1: Yeah. In general, the front facing camera. Isn't great. When you can, you might wanna make use of better lighting or plugging in some headphones for some better [00:06:00] sound. Those tests were done using the, just the phone itself. So you can have an idea of what it be like to take a quick video call when holding your phone without wearing any headphones or having the time to set up any good lighting of the three phones I tested. I would recommend the galaxy a oh three S the most right now that will get the most years of software support and provide a good balance of power for the price. But if you really want the phone to last, as long as possible, I highly recommend factoring in the extra $30 to buy a micro SD card to expand a storage on [00:06:30] the phone. 32 gigs of space, just isn't enough for most people's photos and videos. If you wanna check out extra or details about the galaxy, a oh two S the galaxy, a three S or the galaxy, a 12 check out links in the description for more information, also click like and subscribe on C net's YouTube channel for more information and guides like these.