In our review, the Samsung Galaxy A02s had a lot of Wi-Fi problems, and the transfer rates changed a lot. The Galaxy A03s, its replacement, aims to bring back the phone’s status as the cheapest in the Galaxy A family. It also has a slightly more modern SoC. The spec sheet doesn’t show any other major differences between the Galaxy A03s and its predecessor. So, did they just raise the price and fix the Wi-Fi problem, or is there a real improvement?
It’s not surprising that a low-end smartphone comes with a cheap bundle. The phone, a slow 7.8W power adapter, and a USB cable are all inside the white paper box. The phone doesn’t come with a protective case, which is kind of a bummer because we’ve come to expect that from cheap phones. The power button is on the right side of the phone, next to the volume keys. It also works as a fingerprint scanner. But it’s so unreliable that we gave up on it within a few days.
[content-egg-block template=offers_logo hide=price]The Galaxy A03s has a 6.5-inch LCD screen with a resolution of up to 720p. Inside the plastic body of the A03 are a low-end Helio P35 chipset and a big 5,000mAh battery. There is a 13MP main camera, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor on the back. There should be enough variety between wide shots, panoramas, portraits, and close-ups. On the other hand, the front-facing camera is only 5MP.
That’s all there is to it. The most basic version of the phone is 3GB+32GB, but you can go all the way up to 4GB+64GB. Since the phone isn’t that powerful, it runs Android 11 with the lighter OneUI 3.1 Core interface, which doesn’t have as many features as the Galaxy phones that cost more.
The Galaxy A03s does not have a splash guard, and it also does not have stereo speakers. On the other hand, you do get a fingerprint scanner on the side Power button, NFC, a 3.5mm jack, and a microSD slot that is only for microSD cards.
But the 5000mAh battery has a drawback. The Galaxy A03s takes a long time to charge up again, especially since it doesn’t have a fast-charging feature. It took 1 hour and 45 minutes to charge the phone from 0% to 50%, and it took a whopping 4 hours and 8 minutes to charge it all the way up.