When Samsung announced its latest A-series lineup last month, there was plenty of excitement and even more questions. Readers wondered if we’d see some of the less expensive models the company mentioned at its global launch in the near future. After a few weeks of waiting, we finally have our answer. The Samsung Galaxy A42 5G, A32 5G, A12, and A12 will join the already-announced A52 5G in the US market.
Affordable 5G
We already learned a lot about the Galaxy A52 5G last month, but as a brief refresher, the A52 5G is essentially the Samsung A-series flagship. Think of it like the Google Pixel 4a 5G. It has a 90Hz, 6.5-inch AMOLED display along with Dolby stereo speakers. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset and looks to have a camera setup that may give last year’s Galaxy A71 5G a run for its money.
The Samsung A42 5G is one of Samsung’s least expensive 5G offerings to date. It has a 6.6-inch AMOLED display with a 60Hz refresh rate and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset. There’s 4GB of RAM on board along with 128GB of storage; you can add an additional 1TB of external storage with a microSD card.
A triple camera stack with 48MP primary, 8MP ultra-wide, and 2MP depth sensors are on the back of the A42 5G. On the front, you’ll find a a 13MP selfie shooter.
The A32 5G is Samsung’s entry-level 5G phone, with a 6.5-inch, 90Hz LCD. A MediaTek Dimensity 720 chipset powers the phone, along with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Again, you can add an additional 1TB of storage with a microSD card.
The camera setup on the A32 5G is the same as you’ll find on the A42 5G with one exception—it has an additional 5MP macro sensor. Both phones have a 5,000mAh battery, support 15W fast charging, and only work on sub-6GHz networks.
2 New LTE Models
In addition to two new 5G phones, Samsung also announced two entry-level LTE phones, the Galaxy A02s and A12.
A 1.8GHz octa-core processor powers the A02s, while the A12 comes with a 2.3GHz + 1.8GHz octa-core chipset. There’s 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM on the A02s; the A12 gets a bump to 3GB of RAM. Both have microSD slots that support up to an additional 1TB of storage.
On the back of the A02s, you’ll find 13MP primary, 2MP depth, and 2MP macro lenses. The selfie shooter clocks in at 5MP.
The A12 gets a slight bump to 16MP primary, 5MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth sensors. There’s also an 8MP selfie camera.
Both models sport 6.5-inch, 60Hz LCDs, and 5,000mAh batteries with15W fast charging. They’re also the only two Galaxy A phones for 2021 that ship with Android 10 instead of the current version of Android.
Pricing and Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A42 will be the first to hit the market, starting at $399.99, on April 8. The Galaxy A52 5G, A32 5G, and A12 will go on sale the following day and sell for $499.99, $279.99, and $179.99 respectively. Expect to see the Galaxy A02s hit store shelves on April 29 and sell for $109.99. All models come with two months of YouTube Premium and six months of Sirius XM.
