Introduction
The Samsung Galaxy A03s is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy A02s, one of the company’s most affordable smartphones.
Due to its low pricing, the A02s was an average phone that stood out. The A03s adds a fingerprint scanner for a little premium. not much else, though.
Spending a little less on essentially the same overall package or a little more on a lot better one are both options.
Key Elements
- Large battery: 5000mAh internal cell provides long endurance
- Big Screen: For the price, the 6.5-inch display is substantial.
- Expandable Storage: The MicroSD card slot allows for additional storage.
Create and a screen
6.5-inch, 1600 x 720-pixel display on a ridged plastic chassis
malfunctioning a fingerprint scanner
Don’t fix something that isn’t broken. Even though the Samsung Galaxy A03s has a more restrained single-tone color palette than the A02s does, the A03s looks nearly identical to the A02s.
The lightly ridged plastic chassis has a nice feel and appearance, and it does a great job of hiding unsightly fingerprints.
As a result, the phone may lie flat on a tabletop. The triple array of camera sensors is placed within a dark rectangular module that, critically for some users, sits nearly perfectly flush with the chassis.
Along the right edge of the phone, the power button sits next to the volume controls and doubles as a fingerprint reader. But it’s so unreliable that I quickly stopped trying to use it because of it.
This is problematic because the fingerprint scanner—the primary feature that sets the Galaxy A03s apart from the A02s—raises the price by £20. The selfie camera is also used for the face unlock feature, however it is just as unreliable as the fingerprint scanner.
You’ll be better off skipping the biometrics entirely and using a PIN or pattern to unlock the A03s so you don’t feel such intense irritation every time you try to do so.
The 6.5-inch, 1600 x 720 PLS LCD screen used by the Galaxy A03s is the same as that of its predecessor. It is large and sharp enough to satisfy the needs of the majority of people, with an aspect ratio of 20:9 and a pixel density of 270ppi. Once more, maximum brightness is a problem in direct sunshine.
The selfie camera is incorporated into a teardrop-shaped notch at the top of the screen, which is surrounded by a very thick bezel.
Some potential customers may like the presence of a headphone jack and dual SIM card capability. It’s a great bonus to have the MicroSD card slot. On the bottom edge of the phone, next to the USB-C charging port, is a downward-firing mono speaker.
Camera
The triple back cameras on the Galaxy A03s are supported by a core 13-megapixel sensor. The combination is completed by a 2-megapixel depth sensor and 2-megapixel macro lens.
If any of that sounds similar to you, it’s possible that’s because the camera array on the more affordable A02s is exactly the same.
The results were just about adequate for a £120 phone, although you would expect more from the slightly more expensive Galaxy A03s.
Under ideal lighting, this camera can take pictures that look good on a phone screen, but if you zoom in even little, all of the clarity disappears in favor of soft edges and a noisy, hazy haze.
Due to the lack of a Night mode, HDR results in low or even average light circumstances are constantly bad. As a result, some subjects can be lost in the shadows and others can be lost in the light.
As the Macro mode is neither extremely practical nor impressive, the absence of a Night mode is especially irritating.
Both Portrait mode, which blurs the background of photos to make your subject stand out, and Pro Mode, which lets you dig into the technical details of the camera, are entertaining additions. Time-lapse videography is made simple with Hyperlapse. But each of those advantages comes with a significant drawback: the Galaxy A03s’ images aren’t very good.
Moreover, I would gladly forgo Pro, Portrait, Hyperlapse, and Macro modes in favor of Night and HDR that truly works.
Moreover, there is no picture stabilization for video, and the 5-megapixel selfie camera uses a simple sensor.
Similar to the A02s, it appears like Samsung added a triple camera to the Galaxy A03s not because it performs well, but rather because it appears to.
Performance
The Samsung Galaxy A03s gives the Samsung Galaxy A12 a significant run for its money, despite my recent claim that the Samsung Galaxy A12 is the slowest phone I’ve ever used. Lag is one thing, but the Galaxy A03s is another.
The MediaTek Helio P35 processor powers it. The Motorola G8 Power Mini, which was unimpressive in 2020, used the same hardware.
Even the simplest actions, like opening an app, unlocking the Galaxy A03s, or typing, take a second or more to register. After that, you just need to wait a tiny bit more for the phone to finally start working.
Finding directions or researching something online are examples of common multi-step processes that appear to move slowly, and having multiple apps open at once just makes this problem worse.
Even when you only have the barest of expectations for the Galaxy A03s, using it is a tremendous chore. Anyone who is used to a quick-responding, multi-tasking phone should avoid it at all costs.
The Galaxy A03s performs demanding games surprisingly well, similar to the A12 and the A02s, which feature the Snapdragon 450 CPU and are similarly sluggish.
In light of what you’ve just read, Asphalt 8 isn’t nearly as juddery as you might worry. Although it’s not exactly buttery smooth, it’s still more than satisfactory.
Streaming movies and TV shows is flawless, albeit the phone might get uncomfortably warm after an hour.
Although the Galaxy A03s also comes with 4GB of RAM, the model tested for this review only has 3GB of RAM.
The Galaxy A03s now has Android 12 installed, which is cloaked in Samsung’s OneUI user interface. Although it’s a very unobtrusive skin, it compels you to install a number of Samsung internet browser and TikTok apps that you may or may not find useful.
Battery Life
Battery Life The Galaxy A03s excels only in terms of battery life. It can easily run for two days or longer on a single charge, albeit it takes a lot of work to power it back up.
Unfortunately, the Galaxy A03s was unable to complete the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test, one of TR’s primary battery life benchmarks, although real-world usage produced impressive results.
The Galaxy A03s’ battery life was reduced by 13% after an hour of Netflix streaming, 7% more after a half-hour of Asphalt 8 gaming, and 2% more after a half-hour of Threes gaming.
Its battery was depleted by 5% after an hour of internet music streaming and by 4% after an hour of playing downloaded music.
However the 5000mAh battery has a drawback. Since the phone lacks fast-charging capabilities, charging the Galaxy A03s again demands a lot of patience. The phone needed a whopping 4 hours and 8 minutes to fully charge after taking 1 hour and 45 minutes to charge it from 0% to 50%.
If you’re ever unexpectedly caught off guard, it will be an issue.
Conclusion: Great tiny details
In comparison to high-end smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy A03s now offers solid Wi-Fi, which may not be very fast, but at least it functions consistently. Because of the predecessor’s serious deficiencies in this area, we feel the need to expressly address it. The browsing performance is now comparable to that of the low-price category, albeit you shouldn’t anticipate to be able to access the Internet without any lags.
The A03s excels in a number of small tasks in the market for extremely cheap phones, including: To use two SIM cards and a microSD card concurrently, there is a specialized card reader as well as NFC for mobile payments and other applications. A tolerable location accuracy or decent speech quality during calls are by no means givens, nor is DRM-L1 certification. The smartphone doesn’t operate all that differently from handsets with comparable prices, but at least it lasts a long time.
