This is the new Samsung Galaxy A21. It's Samsung’s newest low budget phone and it has little to do with the shiny Galaxy S20.
It doesn’t have the latest and fanciest camera features, or the fastest processors or the insane amount of RAM and storage available on Samsung’s prohibitively expensive flagships. But you know what? It looks good enough to me!
Android Headlines got an exclusive look at what the low-cost phone will look like when it comes to the US “very soon” — along with some solid specs.
- Read our Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review
- Samsung Galaxy A20 review: A long-lasting phone for less than $250
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Samsung Galaxy A21 display: Good enough
Android Headlines claims that the Samsung Galaxy A21 — which is the successor of the Galaxy A20, apparently the seventh best selling phone of 2019 — has an Infinity-O display with the punch hole on the top left corner. The blog claims that it is smaller than the one in the Galaxy S10 but bigger than the one in the Galaxy S20.
Unlike the S20, the A21 doesn’t have an in-display fingerprint reader, and instead has a regular fingerprint reader on the back. The former is nice to have despite its security problems, but avoiding putting your finger on the back of the phone is not worth $999 to me.
The most important thing about this display, however, is that it is AMOLED. The resolution is not QHD, of course, but it’s HD+. Again, good enough for most people.
Samsung Galaxy A21 cameras
Samsung has allegedly included four cameras in the A21, doubling the two sensors in the A20. There’s no information about the sensors yet, but there should be a wide lens for the main camera plus telephoto, ultra-wide and a depth sensor that will not be a 3D time of flight (ToF) sensor but a plain monochrome 5MP sensor. Do you need a 3D ToF sensor to make photos with bokeh and gather depth information? No, no you don’t thanks to AI. So again, this is enough for most people.
Having three sensors with three different sense of lenses will give this phone the abilities that something like the Galaxy S20 give on the high end but for a fraction of the cost. Sure, the sensors may not be the latest and greatest, but again, they will probably be good enough for most, specially at its low price point.
Samsung Galaxy A21 specs
The other guts of the Galaxy A21 follow the same “good enough” philosophy: an Exynos 7904 CPU (not as fast as the Snapdragon 865, but whatevs), 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, with optional expansion thanks to its micro SD card slot.
To power this package — which comes enclosed in a hard plastic — the blog claims there’s a 4,000mAh battery inside. Knowing the phone's specs and the fact that it doesn’t come with 5G connectivity, which probably take you through an entire day of work without any problem. In fact, in our Galaxy A20 review, Samsung's previous budget phone lasted a whopping 13 hours and 46 minutes on a charge.
Samsung Galaxy A21 price: Possibly great
We only have the alleged Galaxy A21 specs and design. We don’t know anything about its arrival date in the United States or Europe, although we know that it is coming to these shores and that it may arrive on March 6 to India.
As for the price, we know the A20 was $250 and was considered to be an excellent value thanks to its features.
Samsung will likely keep that price point while greatly boosting the new phone's capabilities. It certainly needs something to grab onto, knowing that the Galaxy S20 is probably not selling very well because of its $100 price hike (coronavirus or not). And it’s no coincidence that — of the 10 best selling phones of 2019 — the top 1 was the low-cost iPhone XR, which was Apple’s entry point to the full-screen smartphone world. Plus there was not a single S-line phone in that list.
We can’t wait to get our hands on this low-cost battle horse. It's not fancy, and it’s not amazing tech in the sleekest package. But, honestly, I don’t care. Good enough at a very low price is good enough for me.
P.S.: The Galaxy A21 has a 3.5mm HEADPHONE JACK.
I rest my case.
