Samsung Galaxy A42 Review: 5G Cheap, But Could Do Better

At the beginning of September, the Korean brand Samsung presented in outline its first 5G-compatible mid-range smartphone: the Galaxy A42 5G. All of its technical specifications were released in the weeks following its announcement. Before being officially available on November 25 for 379 dollars.

After first deploying the new mobile phone standard on its high-end offering, the industry leader here seeks to make it accessible on more affordable smartphones. Like Realme and its X50 5G, which is positioned as one of its main competitors at the moment with the OnePlus Nord.

Samsung Galaxy A42 5G Data Sheet :

An Original Back… But Not Convincing

In terms of design, the Samsung Galaxy A42 5G stands out from the rest with one striking element: it’s back. Its rear facade features a gradient of gray made up of four shades, from the darkest to the lightest starting from the top. In the idea, why not. In fact, the result is not exceptional, at least with the color of the smartphone provided to us.

In prismatic black or white, this risk-taking could pay off. Let’s try all the same to salute this touch of originality which tries here to offer an aesthetic line that goes off the beaten track. Still, on the back, the terminal houses a square module with rounded edges, in which four photosensors are placed. The dark gray on the back is also visible on it: the finding is not very flattering.

Made up of plastic, the back cover doesn’t really exude high-end, or even mid-range, and catches a lot of fingerprints. After a few manipulations, they abound. For its part, the front is more classic: moderately thick borders (except for the chin), flat screen, and notch in the shape of a drop of water (as on the Galaxy A41), which I find a bit too large for my taste.

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On the right side, the volume buttons overhang the power button (which falls well under the thumb). The slot for the dual SIM and the microSD card (storage expansion up to 1 TB) are invited on the left edge while the lower edge accommodates a 3.5 mm jack, the USB-C output, and the only unique speaker grille.

164.4mm long, 75.8mm wide, and 8.6mm thick, the Galaxy A42 5G is a big enough smartphone when placed in the palm of your hand. Despite its plastic back, the weight still reaches 193 grams (the 5000 mAh battery plays a role here). The technical sheet available on the official website does not mention any waterproofing or Gorilla Glass protection glass. Be careful, therefore, of water, shocks, and scratches.

Finally, note the presence of a fingerprint sensor directly under the screen, but placed a little too low for my taste.

A Very Pleasant Everyday Screen :

For its Galaxy A42 5G, Samsung has opted for a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED panel (against 6.1 inches on the Galaxy A41) with a definition of 1600 x 720 pixels (HD +) and a resolution of 265 pixels per inch. We would necessarily have preferred Full HD + at least, but we will still have to be content with OLED display technology that brings with it infinite contrasts.

At maximum brightness, its 518 cd/m² is below the average for OLED screens – generally 650 cd/m² – although I have not encountered any readability problems on a daily basis.

In bright mode, its temperature is 7012 K and therefore tends slightly towards blue. In standard mode, 6700K approximates the ideal temperature of 6500K, based on calculations by our probe and Portrait Displays Calman Ultimate software.

If you want to keep the vivid mode and get as close as possible to a perfect balance, just add a little red. The phone also offers excellent color plurality, since the RGB color space is 202% covered, while the larger and therefore, more difficult-to-manage DCI-P3 is 136% covered. This is an excellent score for a smartphone in this range.

The average Delta E on the DCI-P3 is 5.22, a result far from the benchmark which is the number 3. In other words, the color fidelity is not complete. respected. This is felt a lot in red and green. Finally, we regret the refresh rate of 60 Hz, when its rivals Realme X50 5G and OnePlus Nord offer one of 120 Hz (but with an LCD panel) and 90 Hz, respectively.

The Galaxy A42 5G would have deserved a slightly higher frequency to bring a little more fluidity.

The Efficiency Of One UI 2.5 :

The Galaxy A42 5G comes with the One UI 2.5 software interface, running Android 10, and will benefit from One UI 3.0 (based on Android 11) during the month of April or May 2021. One UI has already proven it’s worth time and time again. And it offers one of the most popular interfaces among consumers.

The native dark mode is very effective thanks to the AMOLED panel which turns off the pixels to offer a pure and deep black, while the customization of the interface is extremely thorough in order to build a software experience according to your preferences. Gesture navigation (two to choose from) is obviously required, while the notifications panel is as usual very comprehensive.

When you turn on your Galaxy A42 5G for the very first time, you will come across several preinstalled applications: Samsung Pay, Spotify, the Google suite (Chrome, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Drive, YouTube Music, Photos, Duo) or even LinkedIn, all of which you can uninstall. On the other hand, Game Launcher and Netflix cannot be permanently removed from the phone.

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By default, the device uses Samsung Internet as the navigation application. You can however switch to Google Chrome via settings. These are a bit of a mess with a large number of tabs and sub-tabs. Fortunately, the search bar provides easy access to specific features.

The main software flaw in Samsung’s mid-range smartphones, the under-screen fingerprint sensor is certainly effective, but once again deserves more speed when unlocking. You can always turn to 2D facial recognition, which is very responsive if not very secure compared to 3D systems.

You will have no problem watching HD content on SVOD platforms like Netflix and Disney + since the device supports Widevine DRM at the L1 level (the highest). The camera app is prone to a few issues, which we cover just below.

Camera :

Samsung hasn’t gone halfway for its Galaxy A42 5G with a total of four rear sensors, one more than the Galaxy A41. Before, only one camera was installed. Is this photographic paraphernalia legitimate and convincing? Reply.

• 48-megapixel main sensor (f/1.8).
• Ultra wide-angle 8 megapixels (f/2.2).
• 5-megapixel depth sensor (f/2.4).
• 5-megapixel macro sensor (f/2.4).
• 20-megapixel front camera (f/2.2).

First, let’s try to focus on the application itself. The latter is subject to some rather unpleasant slowdowns on a daily basis. I happened to press the “Video”, “Single take” or “More” tab several times to access a particular mode or additional options. The first try did not bring me to said options. Annoying.

Also, be careful not to “strafe” a subject by pressing your shutter button several times consecutively: the phone is not able to take on this task. Once a photo is captured, it sometimes takes a while to display in the circle at the bottom left of the interface. The 48-megapixel mode is found in the 3: 4 tab and not in “More” for no apparent reason. An ergonomic problem in my opinion.

Highlight: the application even crashed while writing these few lines.

Let’s get down to business: the main sensor. The photos below were taken without Scene Optimizer, but with HDR mode enabled. Overall, the device offers a good score when conditions are right, with overall dynamics management under control.

I appreciate its colorimetric treatment, which turns out to be relatively faithful to reality although the photos are sometimes a bit contrasting. Samsung is known to push the saturation level of its phones: the Galaxy A42 is entitled to it but is not abused either. The level of detail is quite correct.

The phone doesn’t benefit from any optical zoom: it’s x2 digital zoom will do, but beyond that, expect poor-quality shots.

The ultra-wide-angle of the Galaxy A42 5G, unfortunately, suffers from several small flaws, without being dramatic.

First, some optical distortions are visible to the naked eye.

Second, the captured images lose sharpness. A slight blur on the corners also comes to the party depending on the scene.

But for this price range, the result is not bad.

At night, the mobile device does well, especially when the light conditions are favorable thanks to street lamps. A few small luminous halos appear here and there, without spoiling the image. In photo 3, the lack of lights makes it more difficult for him. As you can see, the foreground remains hidden in the dark.

The 48-megapixel mode results in pretty images relatively faithful to reality in terms of colorimetry. But I would always ask myself the question of the legitimacy of such a sensor: in the end, do we use it that often? I think I have my answer.

The portrait mode is neither excellent nor mediocre: it benefits from a happy medium which brings an effect most of the time well placed. However, we will notice small errors that are easy to avoid, such as a lock of my colleague Omar’s hair in photo n°1. The blur could also have been more precise in his sweater (left shoulder) and his fingers. But overall, it will meet your expectations.

In the selfie, the portrait mode is convincing with an easy subject, much less when the situation becomes more complex. My somewhat twirling locks of hair in photo #2 have been completely blurred by the software. My curls hadn’t asked for anything.

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With this chip designed for gaming, we had to rush to Fortnite to see what it really was in the stomach. The title of Epic Games is a very greedy 3D game that may take a bite out of some mid-range phones. As for the Galaxy A42 5G, the findings are mixed.

Comfortable Autonomy :

With its large 5000 mAh battery, the Galaxy A42 5G has plenty to come in terms of autonomy. Samsung does not hesitate to highlight this point, and rightly so. It took me 24 hours to drop from 97 to 4% with intensive use: 5 hours of YouTube, 1h30 of Netflix, 50 minutes of Fortnite (including an update), greedy benchmarks, Internet browsing, Messenger, and photos post-processing software.

A 20-minute Fornite session lost me “only” 5%, a very decent result. In short, with mixed and classic use, the phone will accompany you without any problem for a day and a half, or even two days if you use it sparingly. On this point, the Korean giant has done a good job.

When it comes to charging, don’t be fooled by the words “15W fast charge” written on the official product sheet. Since it took a bit more than 2 hours to climb from 4 to 100%. That’s a long time, a 5000 mAh battery requires. Allow 30 minutes to reach 30% and 23 additional minutes to exceed 50%, which is almost an hour. The 4th to 80% is completed in 1h27.

The other little nasty surprise is the cable, which turns out to be very short compared to the average: 73.5 centimeters, by my calculations. It was impossible for me to put the phone on my living room table despite my power strip nearby. Nothing too bad, but let’s note it all the same.

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5G Cheap :

As its name suggests, the Galaxy A42 is compatible with the new standard of mobile telephony, which I named 5G. He can therefore take advantage of the offers deployed by the European operators Orange, Bouygues Telecom, SFR, and Free,

This Samsung model is compatible with the following 5G frequency bands: n1 (2100 MHz), n3 (1800 MHz), n5 (850 MHz), n7 (2600 MHz), n8 (900 MHz), n28 (700 MHz), n40 (2300 MHz), n41 (2500 MHz) and n78 (3500 MHz). The latter is also the one used (with n28 and n1, shared with 4G).

The Galaxy A42 benefits from a dual SIM if you want to use it as a professional terminal, but also a MicroSD card to extend the storage up to 1 TB. Always practical, the NFC chip paves the way for contactless payments and dematerialized transport tickets. Add to it compatibility with Wi-Fi 5 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 5.0, and geolocation by GPS, Glonass, Beidou, and Galileo satellites.

The telephone experience is convincing. External noise pollution is quickly picked up and then erased and your voice, although a bit compressed, remains quite intelligible. In short, this smartphone perfectly fulfills what it was originally designed for. I finally noticed no clumsiness with GPS.

Samsung Galaxy A42 5G Price And Availability :

The Samsung Galaxy A42 5G is available on the brand’s official website at the recommended price of 379 dollars in Prism Gray, Prism Black, and Prism White colors. There is only one internal storage option available: 128 GB, for 4 GB of RAM. The mobile device is being sold for a few dozen dollars less on several merchant sites.