The race for the title of best budget phone in 2023 is heating up from the very early stages of the year, with Samsung’s Galaxy A14 5G formally (and surprisingly discreetly) unveiled today en route to a US release via AT&T as soon as next week.
Despite the international existence of a Galaxy A04 model, this is likely to remain the humblest member of the A family its industry-leading manufacturer will bring to American shores this year, so it’s definitely nice to hear that AT&T subscribers are looking at a modest monthly expense of $2 (after bill credits) starting January 13.
The handset’s full retail price of $200 is arguably not bad either, especially when you consider that the Galaxy A13 5G made its commercial debut stateside a little over a year ago at $249.99. Compared to said 6.5-inch predecessor, the 6.6-inch Galaxy A14 5G is naturally just a tad larger and, far more importantly, significantly sharper.
Yes, bargain hunters, Samsung is upgrading the undeniably underwhelming HD+ screen resolution to a far more acceptable FHD+ mark designating a pixel count of roughly 2400 x 1080. The official A14 5G spec sheet includes no refresh rate mention, mind you, but all rumors (and common sense) point in the 90Hz direction, so there’s no real reason to be particularly worried of a downgrade to 60Hz.
The only other notable improvement over the A13 5G sees the A14 5G adopt a 13MP front-facing camera in addition to the same old 50 + 2 + 2MP triple rear shooter system, with the 5,000mAh battery and up to 6GB RAM count paired with as much as 128 gigs of internal storage space just a few of the key details that have apparently gone unchanged.
Of course, the aforementioned ultra-affordable AT&T model almost certainly packs 4 gigs of memory and 64GB local digital hoarding room, making us wonder if it’s really, truly cheap enough.
One undoubtedly important thing the Galaxy A14 5G has going for it in a head-to-head battle against the slightly costlier OnePlus Nord N20 5G or Moto G Stylus (2022) is Samsung’s absolutely unrivaled software support, starting with pre-installed Android 13 and presumably continuing with at least two guaranteed (and timely) major OS updates.
