Samsung Galaxy A23 5G Overview: Annoyingly Laggy

It’s not a good signal while you’ve thought of throwing your smartphone out the window. Not due to—nicely, *gestures at every thing*— however as a result of it’s simply so irritating to make use of. I went out to dinner lately, and a colleague—who was utilizing a six-year-old iPhone SE—identified how sluggish my brand-new telephone was. I used to be able to toss the factor. 

The offender was Samsung’s new Galaxy A23 5G, a $300 Android telephone. You could be considering that I’m being too harsh on an inexpensive telephone, which is truthful. These funds telephones need to make sacrifices someplace. However even sub-$200 telephones carry out higher than this one. You will have different choices on this value vary, and it’s best to discover them. 

What Works

What’s unhappy is that the Galaxy A23 5G has a number of issues going for it. At the beginning, Samsung guarantees to assist this telephone for 4 years for safety updates and it’ll get three OS upgrades (as much as Android 15). That’s much better than every other sub-$400 Android telephone, interval. You’ll be capable to get new options, have a tool freed from bugs, and never have to fret about safety flaws for a great size of time. 

It has a 6.6-inch LCD display with a 120-Hz refresh price, the latter of which isn’t frequent to see at this value. The display feels responsive, it’s fairly spacious (nice in the event you want massive telephones), and it will get vibrant sufficient to see clearly on sunny days. I don’t have any qualms right here. The following greatest function? The A23 5G has a 5,000-mAh battery, so it can final two full days on a single cost with common use. I didn’t hassle plugging it in each night time as a result of it normally hit round 50 %. It’s good not having to fret a few useless telephone!

There’s sub-6 5G assist throughout all main carriers, so that you received’t be caught on 4G LTE alone, plus this smartphone has different perks which are more and more lacking on high-end flagships. That features a headphone jack for anybody who nonetheless prefers to plug in, in addition to an NFC sensor so you may make tap-to-pay contactless funds at retailers that assist it. There’s even a microSD card slot, which you’ll need to use as a result of the telephone solely comes with 64 gigabytes of storage. 

What Doesn’t

{Photograph}: Samsung

My woes with the Galaxy A23 5G begin with its processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695. It’s odd as a result of the Moto G Stylus 5G 2022 I examined earlier this 12 months makes use of the identical chip and I didn’t have any efficiency points there. It’d come all the way down to the truth that the Motorola telephone has 8 gigabytes of RAM and this Samsung is caught with a paltry 4 gigs.

You received’t discover too many points while you’re simply utilizing a single app. I’ve been in a position to make use of this as my main system simply positive for greater than per week. I can ship emails, browse Twitter (welp), and reply to messages. It’s while you begin utilizing a number of apps concurrently that issues go awry. There are lengthy pauses as you watch for an app to completely open and cargo, but it surely’s the bodily act of switching apps that pissed off me probably the most.

I exploit the gesture navigation system on Android telephones. I instantly swap to it if the system I am testing depends on Android’s outdated three-button backside navigation system by default. I’ve by no means had an issue utilizing gestures to navigate a tool, besides on the A23 5G. For some cause, swiping up from the underside of an app wouldn’t all the time take me to the house display, not to mention swap to the prior app. Apps would usually get caught, and I’d need to maintain swiping up from the underside—with various ranges of anger—ready for the house display to seem.