Samsung Galaxy A12

Hello and good day. Looking for a phone with impressive specs, battery life, and cameras? Well, the Samsung Galaxy A12 is among the ones to look at. Launched alongside my personal phone, the A02s, this phone packs a lot of punch. This is the review of a GHc 1000 phone which is turning a lot of heads these days.

 

 

NETWORK	Technology	GSM / HSPA / LTE

LAUNCH	Announced	2020, November 24
	Status	Available. Released 2020, December 21

BODY	Dimensions	164 x 75.8 x 8.9 mm (6.46 x 2.98 x 0.35 in)
	Weight	205 g (7.23 oz)
	Build	Glass front, plastic back, plastic frame
	SIM	Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

DISPLAY	Type	PLS LCD
	Size	6.5 inches, 102.0 cm2 (~82.1% screen-to-body ratio)
	Resolution	720 x 1600 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~270 ppi density)

PLATFORM	OS	Android 10, upgradable to Android 11, One UI 3.1
	Chipset	Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm)
	CPU	Octa-core (4×2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
	GPU	PowerVR GE8320

MEMORY	Card slot	microSDXC (dedicated slot)
	Internal	32GB 2GB RAM, 32GB 3GB RAM, 64GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 3GB RAM, 128GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 6GB RAM
		eMMC 5.1

MAIN CAMERA	Quad	48 MP, f/2.0, 26mm (wide), AF 5 MP, f/2.2, 123˚ (ultrawide) 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro) 2 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
	Features	LED flash, panorama, HDR
	Video	1080p@30fps

SELFIE CAMERA	Single	8 MP, f/2.2
	Video	1080p@30fps

SOUND	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

COMMS	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
	Bluetooth	5.0, A2DP, LE
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
	NFC	Yes (market/region dependent)
	Radio	FM radio, RDS, recording
	USB	USB Type-C 2.0

FEATURES	Sensors	Fingerprint (side-mounted), accelerometer
		Virtual proximity sensing

BATTERY	Type	Li-Po 5000 mAh, non-removable
	Charging	Fast charging 15W

MISC	Colors	Black, White, Blue, Red
	Models	SM-A125F/DSN, SM-A125F/DS, SM-A125F, SM-A125M, SM-A125U, SM-A125U1, SM-A125N
	SAR EU	0.67 W/kg (head)     1.38 W/kg (body)
	Price	$ 135.00 / € 152.07 / £ 119.89 / ₹ 11,890 / C$ 227.99 / Rp 2,299,000

TESTS	Performance	AnTuTu: 107189 (v8) GeekBench: 1034 (v5.1) GFXBench: 5fps (ES 3.1 onscreen)
	Display	Contrast ratio: 1363:1 (nominal)
	Camera	Photo / Video
	Loudspeaker	-30.4 LUFS (Below average)
	Battery life	Endurance rating 123h

This phone costs GHc 1000 and like most phones in this price range, it has a plastic back and frame, so no wireless charging here. And with a bigger battery, it has a fair weight to it, 205g.

For the design, we have a secondary microphone up top for stereo audio recording, the fingerprint scanner/power button and volume rockers on the right, the dual nano sim and SD card tray on the left, then finally at the bottom, is a 3.5mm headphone jack, the main microphone, a USB type C charging port and a single bottom firing speaker.

We get a single LED flash and 4 rear cameras, which I’ll talk about more, later in this video alongside.

The feel on the back is also great with this texture. And as you can see, there are no fingerprint on this.

Samsung gladly provides a clear case for this, which comes in the box. Funny enough, the case is a huge fingerprint magnet, so if you’re someone who’s not fond of cases, I suggest you don’t even take this out of the box.

 

 

Up front is a 6.5 inches PLS IPS display, running at a 720p resolution with an aspect ratio of 20:9

The phone is very responsive, running Android 10, with Samsung One UI

A 12mn Helio P35 chipset from MediaTek, with these configurations

32GB storage 3GB RAM

64GB storage 4GB RAM

128GB storage 4GB RAM

128GB storage 6GB RAM

I have the 64GB storage 4GB RAM, but the 128GB storage with 6GB RAM sounds pretty cool.

With a 5000mAh battery, you’re sure to get an entire day of usage. I charge this phone once a day, and that’s when I’m off to bed. The next day, I start out with 100% and have no battery problems until the day breaks again.



The main camera is a 48MP (26mm), then a 5MP ultrawide and a 2MP f2.4 macro and depth cameras

For pictures, I was pleasantly satisfied with the photos I got in every shot. Taking pictures was snappy and I didn’t notice any form of shutter lacks. My complaints though, yes, I have a few, is the inconsistency in the colours between the main and the ultrawide cameras. For some reason, the colours from the ultrawide were more vivid and saturated, which I preferred. But that’s 5MP. Imagine getting the same colour consistency on the 48MP main camera. That would be nice.

Within the camera app for the rear cameras, is the more options tab, where we get to shoot in PRO mode. This allows you to control you White Balance, ISO and Shutter Speed. Which helps turn photos like this, to photos like this. Night shots aren’t so great, so don’t take this along for night photography. You’ll be disappointed

Also, in the more options tab is the option to use the Macro camera. This, I didn’t think I would find myself enjoy using it, but I did. This is how close I have to get to the subject to get these shots. And as you can see, they are quite usable if you want to have some fun. Colours and sharpness are not that far off, so it’s acceptable. Unlike that of the Tecno Spark 5 PRO. There’s also LIVE FOCUS mode which blurs out the background of whatever photos you take. Just like the iPhone X and Google Pixel 4 XL, it doesn’t always get the edge detections right. If we look closely, this area is more blurred out than here. But this is the best edge detection I have seen so far.

With this photo, I took with the main lens, I wanted to get everything in a single shot. The blues and highlights in the sky, the greens in the leaves, the shadows on the street and the blacks on the water tanks and car.

Video recording is at 1080p@30fps and here’s how it looks and sounds like.

The 8MP, f2.2 front facing camera is in the teardrop display, and I must say, it takes very promising selfies

1080p@30fps

With features like HDR or High Dynamic Range support on both the front and the back, you can count on brighter images even in the dark. Not 100% though, but it’s still cool to have that option.

For security, besides the usual pattern, pin and password we get with all Android devices is the inclusion of Face and Fingerprint Unlock. As just like the Samsung Galaxy A02s, the face unlock feature is something you can trust. More on the A02s up here or down in the description below.

The side mounted fingerprint scanner also works just fine. It took less than 1 minute to completely scan my finger. For speed, it is very responsive. Just pressing on the power button, turns the device on, scans your finger and then unlocks it, all in an instant. Same idea and speed like that on the Samsung S7 Edge.

Playing games game with no problems, as we should expect with these specs. The taller and wider display also helps see a lot of what’s going on in the gaming environment. 1 inbuilt feature I found quite useful was the game booster options you get once you swipe up in a game. This gives you a fair idea of your battery life, temperature and RAM usage. You can even take screenshot or record game plays. That’s neat.

 

The 4G LTE connectivity too is on point and switching between SIM 1 and SIM 2 networks too, are very snappy.

Bluetooth v5

Fast charging at 15W

For GHc 500 more, you can get the A50 which has better cameras, software and continuous updates from Samsung. But unlike the A50, although shots aren’t stabilized, you don’t get the intense colour shifts when shooting on the ultrawide. It has a bigger battery and a much taller display.