Samsung Galaxy A20 Review: Pros and Cons

Samsung Galaxy A20 is another addition to the best budget phones of the year. Take a look at Samsung Galaxy A20 review to find out the detailed breakdown of its specs.

Samsung Galaxy A20 is another 2019 budget phone from Samsung. It is the second cheapest model from A series after the Galaxy A10. However, when looking at the specs, Galaxy A20 has a lot to offer.

The highlight first comes from the display. With a 6.4 inch Super AMOLED HD infinity display, it’s enough to make a customer fall in love at first sight.

Looking further, the phone runs on Samsung Exynos 7884 chipset with GPU Mali-G71. It has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage.

The camera is also the part that’s hard not to notice. Yes, because it’s a dual-camera, a combo of 13 MP main camera and 5 MP wide-angle lens. As for the battery, it’s 4000 mAh, which is a lot of capacity there. Here’s the breakdown for Samsung Galaxy A20 review.

Key Specs

Samsung Galaxy A20 key specifications:

• Display: 6.4 inch Super AMOLED
• Processor: Samsung Exynos 7884, 1.6 GHz Octa-core
• Storage: 32 GB, MicroSD slot
• RAM: 3 GB
• Camera: 13 MP + 5 MP rear camera, 8 MP front camera
• OS: Android 9.0 Pie
• Battery: 4000 mAh, Non-removable
• Feature: Face recognition, fingerprint reader

Design

Samsung Galaxy A20 comes in a unibody design with non-removable back. The back cover comprises plastic with a glossy finish. At the first time holding it, the build quality feels decent.

The phone is lightweight and indeed lacking on that premium feel. The height at 6 inches can be too big for some. Personally, I find it a perfect size and a standard size for many phones nowadays.

Build quality aside; I like minimal design, especially the camera. The designers at Samsung did an excellent job of grouping the two cameras in a black square frame while leaving out the flash outside it. It makes the camera area far from cramped and too protruding.

The fingerprint sensor in the back is also smaller than many other models. For people with a small hand, the location of the fingerprint sensor might feel too far up. It’s located in the middle, just above the Samsung logo. Other than that, the rest of the back case is just empty.

On the right side, we have the Power and Volume keys. The tray for the SIM card and SD card is located on the left side. The top only hosts a little hole for the microphone, adding a more minimal look to the entire design.

Meanwhile, it’s a bit cramped on the bottom. There’s the standard 3.5 mm headphone jack, to everyone’s delight. Next to it is the USB-C type port. Speakers and microphone occupy the rightmost part.

Overall, Samsung Galaxy A20’s design is above average compared to its competitors. It’s sleek, beautiful, and doesn’t look anywhere near cheap.

Display

Moving to display, this is the part where Samsung Galaxy A20 excels. The Super AMOLED, 6.4-inch screen, is crisp and bright. Browsing between screen was such a treat as colors come out bold and vibrant.

The display comes with a resolution of 720 x 1560 pixels and 268 dpi in pixel density. On full screen, you can watch videos on 19.5:9 aspect ratio (maximum 720p, so it’s not Full HD yet).

The viewing angle is broad enough. Brightness is super; you can see the display clearly under the sun with only 80% of brightness.

The AMOLED display also looks impressive, especially when changing the theme into full night mode. The black color comes out deep and adds a luxurious touch to the overall look.

Galaxy A20 screen takes up almost the entire part of the front body, leaving only a small notch for the front camera and the thin bezel at the bottom.

Samsung calls it “Infinity Display” for this edge to edge viewing experience. It’s not truly infinite, as there are also thin bezels on the right side and the left side.

The accurate number for screen to body ratio is 84.79%. Although not the greatest on the market, with the retail price of $249, I can’t really complain.

The viewing experience is pleasant most of the time. The notch might be a small distraction, but it’s something easily disguised with the right theme/wallpaper.

Camera

Let’s take a look at Galaxy A20 camera performance. The dual back camera is 13 MP and 5 MP. This setup makes it possible to take a picture with a wide-angle and bokeh effect.

The camera results are crisp under optimal lighting. The colors are accurate, great details, and the wide-angle mode helps to capture more objects into one picture.

For the bokeh effect, there’s Live Focus mode which shows the blurred background effect as you take the picture. There’s also the Portrait mode, which is like Live Focus but for faces.

Video recording allows you to take 1080p videos. The result is excellent in terms of colors, but the video can be shaky. It’s understandable though; we can’t expect video stabilization at this price.

Low light pictures come with surprisingly only minimal noise. This is the best one can get at a phone with less than a $250 price tag.

However, this only applies to pictures taken with the primary 13 Megapixels camera. When switching to a wide-angle, the camera struggles to capture a stable non-blurry result.

As for the front camera, you get the typical Samsung phone selfie camera with filters and beauty mode.

The 8 MP camera takes decent selfies, but occasionally it still struggles on a bright background, resulting in washed-out pictures. Just like with the back camera, as long as you have optimal lighting, you will be able to take some beautiful selfies.

Storage

Samsung Galaxy A20 is only available in 32 GB version. The number may seem big, but actually, it’s only 21 GB that’s available for users. It’s because the operating system and pre-installed apps taking quite a huge chunk of the internal storage.

Adding an SD card is inevitable at one point, and with a 13 MP camera, taking pictures alone can costs you a lot of storage space.

The solution is expandable storage. Fortunately, Samsung provides a microSD card slot for this model. Expandable storage is one of the strong points of Galaxy A20.

You practically have nothing to worry about when it comes to storage. Samsung lets you add a microSD card with up to 512 GB in capacity. That’s not a small number.

Performance

• 

• 

Samsung’s choice of a processor on Galaxy A20 is 1.6 GHz Cortex-A73 and 1.35 GHz Cortex-A53 with GPU Mali running the graphic processing. This lineup is what comprises the Samsung Exynos 7884 system chip.

For Galaxy A20, this is underwhelming. Performance is considered average, especially compared to many other brands on at this price point such as Moto G7.

It means users with intentions to use their phone for video and picture editing, for example, they have to think twice before purchasing.

Avid gamers may also look into other options. Heavy games not only causes lags but also makes the phone’s back cover really hot.

As for the RAM, we have 3 GB of RAM here. It’s adequate capacity for this price. Not too little, and understandably is also not a lot of capacity.

However, average users won’t have any problem using this phone. Swiping between apps feels seamless and easy. The phone is intuitive, and handle multitasks really well.

No particular problem with essential communication activity, such as calling and texting. This phone could handle 3D games you occasionally play once in a while without a problem.

Galaxy A20 processor also has more than enough to handle hours of Facebook and other social media browsing, which honestly, that’s what people do most of the time with their phone these days. For most potential customers out there, Samsung Galaxy A20 is simply a device that gets the job done.

After the hardware, let’s take a look at its software. Samsung uses the latest version of Android, Android 9.0 Pie as the operating system of Galaxy A20.

Android Pie promises more performance and battery-saving features. On top of that, Samsung repackages the user interface with their own One UI, which has garnered many positive reviews from users.

Samsung One UI offers a simple, intuitive, yet fully functional viewing experience. I think One UI is another clear cut advantage of Samsung Galaxy A20. Even when compared to other models in the same price range, One UI excels by a lot.

One UI is not only easy to use, but it’s also even fun to swipe and explore. The beautiful design is the result of years of development, which Samsung has an advantage as one of the veteran brands on the market.

As for the security, you would love the combo of fingerprints technology and face recognition. Unlocking your phone with fingerprints takes less than a second.

The face recognition is not as quick but still snappy. However, take note that face recognition is less secure as your phone still can be unlocked by people who look identical to you.

But this problem isn’t limited to A20 only since face recognition technology, in general, is an ongoing development. Even flagship phones such as the latest Galaxy S Series still have this problem.

Other features some users might like are Dolby Sound, which offers a more pleasant experience when watching movies on the phone. This phone has proximity sensors, accelerometer, and is hearing aid compatible.

Connectivity

• 

• 

Samsung Galaxy A20 supports 4G LTE alongside the standard Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and NFC. There isn’t any issue with callings. The sound comes out loud and clears with each call.

Browsing the internet and watching videos on YouTube is fast. The Wi-Fi supports both Wi-Fi Direct and the hotspot. To conclude, Samsung Galaxy A20 is a reliable device for your everyday communication needs.

The location service with GPS is quite accurate. It only took seconds to find the current location on the map. People who regularly use NFC for payment would love the NFC availability on this phone.

Another bonus on this phone is Bluetooth 5.0. Equipped with the latest version of Bluetooth, Galaxy A20 lets you connect to two devices at once.

Data transfer is also faster as the speed doubled from the previous version at 2 Mbps. Bluetooth 5.0 also covers more distance. Two devices can communicate within 800 feet range. This is a lot than the usual 10 m coverage.

Battery

A 4000 mAh battery sounds like a significant number. One would assume a longer time between charging with such capacity. It’s a different story with Galaxy A20.

The AMOLED display itself needs a lot of power to run. Therefore, a day is what the battery can handle at most with heavy usage. However, the A20 battery is still impressive.

First of all, it comes with fast charging support. I can go from 0% to full in less than two hours, charging to 35% in the first 30 minutes.

Second, Samsung also claims up to 28.8 hours of talktime with Galaxy A20. Meanwhile, if you let the phone on standby, the battery can last to up to 17 days.

Wrap-up

I can argue that Samsung Galaxy A20 is the best budget phone from Samsung in 2019. There’s nothing you can really complain about it, especially considering the spec relative to the price.

The AMOLED display is a pleasant surprise, although the resolution can be better. The processor and RAM ensure fast day-to-day use. The battery is big and supports fast charging.

The operating system is the latest Android 9.0 Pie with fluid One UI user experience.

And this also includes little perks such as Dolby Audio, fingerprints plus face scanner, big capacity for expandable storage, and your good old headphone jack.

If you don’t mind plastic body, less than Full HD screen, and cameras with okay quality during low light conditions, this phone could be a bang for your buck.