The Samsung Galaxy A12 is a low-cost smartphone with a lot to enjoy about it, including its fantastic battery life and creative and appealing appearance, but all of those positive features come with a significant drawback because of how slowly it performs on a daily basis.
Introduction
A very affordable smartphone that almost seems too good to be true is the Samsung Galaxy A12.
For £169, you get a phone with a standard quad camera, a sizable battery, and a sizable screen, all in a stylish design.
That seems alluring enough on paper, but how does it hold up in practice? However, the Galaxy A12 falls short of the standard set by the Motorola Moto G8 at this price bracket.
Design and display
Of course, this depends on individual taste, but in our opinion, the Samsung Galaxy A12 is among the more attractive plastic phones available.
The handset’s sides are covered in a matte-finish shell, while the upper portion of the back is covered in a diagonal pattern of shallow ridges. A beautiful two-tone effect is produced by the smooth bottom-most part, which does not distract from the appearance.
The hardware protrudes just enough to prevent the phone from sitting totally flat on a tabletop, but the four rear cameras are grouped in a square module that is less obvious than similar arrangements on some other phones.
It’s nice to see a headphone jack and microSD card slot included, and the bottom edge also has a downward-firing mono speaker.
The power button, which also serves as a fingerprint scanner, is embedded within the right side of the phone, making it simple to use without changing your hold.
Camera
The four cameras on the Galaxy A12 definitely look the part. A smartphone that takes photography seriously appears to include a 48-megapixel primary lens, along with a 5-megapixel ultrawide lens, a 2-megapixel macro lens, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor.
Let’s not forget that this is a device that costs less than £200. Anybody expecting results that would rival the Google Pixel 6 would be disappointed, but if they keep their expectations in check, they should be happy—at least in ideal lighting situations.
These days, portrait mode is practically universal and allows you to customize the depth of focus; Similar to Portrait Mode but with plates instead of faces; Macro Mode is for taking close-up pictures, but the results aren’t always great (see at the snail above); Pro Mode enables you to delve deeply into the camera’s settings and fiddle around as much as you like.
We anticipate that most people will use Portrait and Pro Mode out of those four options.
While these can look compelling on a phone screen, they don’t look quite as hot on a larger screen or after cropping or zooming. The Galaxy A12 also offers the ability to quickly switch between the regular camera and an ultrawide camera, which can capture dramatic-looking shots from a seemingly completely different perspective.
Performance
Good news thus far, then. Regrettably, Samsung has made the biggest concessions when it comes to
Performance.
Without a doubt, the Galaxy A12 is the slowest smartphone I have ever used. Every input takes almost a second to register, making it difficult and even quite annoying to do anything, from opening an app to taking a picture to composing a message. Was there a crash? It’s simply taking its time, that’s all.
The Galaxy A12 is so sluggish that no matter how many times the lag causes everything to pause, you can’t help but tap the screen again after convincing yourself that you surely didn’t touch it properly the first time. Yet you did it more often than not. I’ve never encountered a phone with this much latency.
Batteries The Galaxy A12’s battery life is without a doubt its most outstanding feature; the phone can easily last an entire day without even hinting at danger, even if you mix in some streaming or gaming. You might only need to charge it every two days if you use it wisely.
In practical use, playing Asphalt 8 for half an hour consumed 6% of the battery, an hour of Netflix streaming depleted 7%, and playing Threes for half an hour depleted another 2%. Only 15% of the battery life is equivalent to two hours of pleasure. Music barely made a mark; playing downloaded music for an hour only depleted the Galaxy A12’s battery by 1%, compared to an hour of online streaming that used up 2% of the battery.
The Galaxy A12’s recharging process isn’t as joyful, though. It took 1 hour 35 minutes to charge the phone from 0% to 50% using the equipment that was included in the box, and an astounding 3 hours 25 minutes to fully charge it.
Conclusion
In practically every respect, the Samsung Galaxy A12 is an excellent improvement over the Galaxy A11. The good 48MP main camera, fantastic battery life, and Samsung’s clean and appealing One UI software are what this cost-effective phone does offer. Although the weak periphery cameras and sluggish performance can be annoying, these are to be expected given the price range.
