Here is my Samsung Galaxy A20 unboxing and initial impressions. Read to learn more about this phone including local pricing.
Samsung has been on a roll in the last few months releasing multiple smartphone offerings under the Galaxy A series with different specs configurations for a pricing scheme that's way more aggressive compared to their midrange smartphone installments in the previous years. As of posting we have the following Samsung Galaxy A phones in the Philippines, A10, A20, A30, A50, and A70.
Of those A series, Samsung Philippines sent me the Galaxy A20 review unit and today I will be sharing with you my unboxing and initial impressions of the device as well as a few sample photos and videos captured on this phone.
What's in the box
Upfront the boxing, that image above is what we see, the image of the Galaxy A20 phone itself with the Samsung and A20 branding on a white background. Then on the back of the box are some of its key specs.
On the inside are the usual stuff like the earphones, charger, documentation, and cable. But for a sub-Php10K smartphone like the Galaxy A20, it's great to know that the charger is packed with 15W fast charging feature, something that's still very very hard to find on a smartphone of this price. Not only that, it also comes with a USB Type-C cable, which means, the unit itself is equipped with the same USB Type-C port, cool right? And then of course there is still the standard pair of earphones. Though not one of the best default smartphone earphones around, it is still good to have one right out of the box. One thing missing? There is no jelly case for immediate protection of the phone nor a pre-installed screen protector.
I would also like to mention that I just really love the unit I got simply because they are all in black including the accessories. Black color on a gadget, to me, just adds more premium look and feel to it. So yeah, that's a huge plus for me.
The Samsung Galaxy A20
Now let's go to the main star of the show, the Samsung Galaxy A20 itself.
Taking this phone out of the box, the immediate thing I noticed is its build. It feels very solid and feels way more premium that its asking price. I mean, build-wise, there is really nothing to complain about. Samsung did a great job in manufacturing this phone without compromising the physical appearance and quality of the Galaxy A20 while at the same time keeping its price as low as possible.
The front panel of the Galaxy A20 sports a tall 6.4-inch HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-V display. Yes you read that right, a Super AMOLED display on a budget smartphone. If you have both used an IPS and an AMOLED smartphone display panels before, you will know that the latter is far better compared the former both in terms of viewing experience and power consumption. The colors on the display really pop out especially the black, so impressive. Of course, I would not deny the fact that an 720p display on a phone is a bit of a let down these days. At times the pixelation on the A20's display is noticeable, especially at first glance and if you have been using phones with higher resolution prior to switching to this. But its Super AMOLED display compensates for that part. The screen is a little wider than most phones out there, the color reproduction on the screen is just great. And if I may add, Netflix looks great on this one too. Of course it would be far better if it was a Full HD+ panel, but considering the price again, it's already good.
The Infinity-V display is just in reference to the waterdrop-like notch on the display that holds the front camera. It is visible when you are on the home screen or browsing social media apps, but when you are playing games like Mobile Legends or streaming on Netflix and YouTube, it does not get in in the way which is really really nice.
On the back side of this Galaxy A20 is also worth mentioning. Samsung calls the design of the back cover "glasstic" which is as you may have already guessed is a combination of Glass and Plastic words. While that material used for creating the back panel is plastic, it was created to look and feel like a glass panel. And to be honest, that concept delivers. It does not feel cheaply made at all. Sure it is fingerprint and smudge hungry of a panel, but apart from that, it's a beautiful design innovation. If I wanna keep it shiny, glossy, and scratch-free, I can simply buy a silicon case, hopefully there are now available options at this point, but that will do away the premium feel it provides to the hand. You know, we touch this part of the device more than we look at it, so it's really up the users, but as of the moment I really love using this phone as it is.
I remember when I was showing one of my friends a video on Facebook and then she grabbed the phone to have a better look, her first comment on holding the A20 for the first time was, "this phone is good", to which I agreed with a smile.
So more on this side of the phone are the dual-rear cameras with LED flash all stacked vertically. Samsung decided to keep the traditional fingerprint scanner here which again is a nice thing to have instead of just relying on the Face Unlock security feature, though it is also an option here. One more cool thing is that none of those bumps out of the panel so when you put the phone on its back on a flat surface, it's just flat.
At the bottom are the 3.5mm audiojack, the USB Type-C port (YEAH!), mic, and the speaker grille.
The battery
The battery department is also one of the strongest points of this smartphone. It is packed with a massive 4000mAh battery capacity. Based on my initial use, it does last more than a day of life on a single charge. The sweetest part is it only takes less than two hours to fully charge the phone from 0%, thanks to its fast charging feature.
It is also worth noting that although this phone houses a huge battery pack, it is a pretty slim device at 7.8mm. I have not mentioned it yet but the sides and corners of this phone are rounded and that give the phone a much thinner feel to the hand.
The specs
Powering this phone is an octa-core Samsung Exynos 7884 processor with Mali-G71 GPU. Together with that power is 3GB of RAM. The phone's performance is quite fast and buttery smooth, I have never experienced any lag or freezing screen so far since unboxing this unit. And the display is very responsive too.
There is 32GB space for its storage and about 21GB of those are available to users at initial boot. If that is not enough, users can use a microSD card for storage expansion, which by the way has its own dedicated slot on top of the dual 4G LTE SIM slots, up to 512GB of size. Then for software there is the latest Android 9 Pie with the much nicer Samsung's One UI on top. And oh, I was surprised to know that there is a built-in Night Mode in this UI, I activated it right away.
The cameras
As for its cameras, on the front is an 8MP selfie shooter with F2.0 aperture. Camera modes for the front includes Live Focus to add a little blur in the background, video recording up to 1080p at 30fps, and beautification. On the back are the 13MP+5MP dual camera setup with ultrawide angle, up to F1.9 aperture, autofocus and LED flash.
Camera modes for the back-facing cameras include Panorama, Pro, Live Focus, and Video. Like the selfie camera it can also record up to full HD videos at 30fps. The wide angle lens on the back can be used for taking photos and recording videos. See some sample shots below.
Initial verdict
For its price tag of only Php9,990, the Samsung Galaxy A20 is a well rounded smartphone thanks to its superb build quality, sleek design both in the hardware and software department, and some of its features and specs that are still very hard to find from the competition in the sub Php10,000 price category. The camera quality may not be one of the best out there (selfie camera is pretty good though) especially in low-light, but it's still able produce decent photo and video qualities. This can be improved further though through software update, hopefully Samsung does that in the near future and hopefully that will also include the missing Always-On Display feature that so many Samsung fans love.
Samsung Galaxy A20 specs:
- 6.4-inch HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-V Display
- 1560 x 720 resolution
- Octa-core Exynos 7884 processor
- Mali G71 GPU
- 3GB RAM
- 32GB internal storage
- Supports microSD card up to 512GB
- 13MP + 5MP dual rear camera with F1.9 and F2.2 apertures, Wide-angle, Autofocus, LED flash
- 8MP front camera with F2.0 aperture
- Android 9 Pie with Samsung One UI
- WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS. GLONASS, Beidou, NFC
- Dual SIM + dedicated microSD slot
- USB Type-C port
- 3.5mm Audiojack port
- Fingerprint scanner
- Face Unlock
- Gyro Sensor
- 158.4 x 74.7 x 7.8mm
- 169 grams
- 15W Fast Charge
- Black, Deep Blue
- 4000mAh battery
- Php9,990
