I am very impressed by the A50. Coming from a Galaxy S5, the A50 is a big improvement and I had cautious high hopes about size, features and performance. I was not let down.
Received model SM-A505G/DS in a sealed Samsung box with a US compatible charger (EP-TA200 15 watt Adaptive Fast Charger) and a rather short 31.25", 79.5cm USB C cable, headphones, clear case, SanDisk brand 64GB Class C (high speed) Micro SD card, and warranty cards (valid in the US only if you live in the US Virgin Islands, LOL). BTW, the USA is not the only country that uses the two blade plug. Many countries use that same design, but run on 240V. Philippians is one that comes to mind. The A505G/DS model is basically the South American variant of the A50.
Setup is easy, fully charge the phone, insert a SIM and the included SD card, then power on, choose your language and wait a few minutes. I transferred the apps, data, settings, contacts, etc from the old phone (Galaxy S5) to the new A50 using the Samsung Smart Switch app (had to download and install on the old phone from the app store). Then in about 15 minutes the data was wirelessly transferred and apps installed on the A50. Saved me lots of time.
The Finger Print reader works very fast. Other reviews claim it is useless, slow etc. I got unlock response times less than 1 second with two fingers prints registered. Adding a third slowed it down to about 1 full second. So I suspect registering 5 fingers will slow it down more. Also note that the phone comes with a tempered glass screen protector already installed, so don't put a another one on top of it or that could mess up touch response and fingerprint reading.
Both hand air gestures and near field are not supported with model A505G/DS. I never used these features on my old S5, so I don't miss them on the A50. More about NFC and Samsung Pay later.
Bloatware is practically non-existent. There are only a few Google and Samsung apps that can not be uninstalled, but can be disabled. The major offender is Bixby. I know of no one that wants or uses Bixby. There is nothing like all the junk you get with a branded phone. IE games, sports apps, shopping apps, etc that take up lots of memory and just can not be deleted unless you ROOT your phone.
The initial 100% charge lasted about 4 hours of WI-Fi , LTE and constant changes to settings, screen savers, install/uninstall, downloads, etc until it was down to about 40%. I finally let it run down to 25% and put it on to charge. An hour later it was back to 100%, and that charge lasted the whole next day of constant use, testing every feature, etc. Every time the battery is recharged, it lasts noticeably longer, and this is typical of a new LION battery.
I was very worried that the 4G/LTE bands would not match Cricket Wireless (Cricket is owned by ATT ). The seller listed the bands the phone supports in the Q&A section above, and Cricket Wireless uses LTE Bands B2 (1900 PCS), B4 (1700/2100 AWS 1), B17 (700 bc), and B30 (2300 WCS). Bands B2, B4, and B17 are supported by the A50 so 4G is working for me even though I am on the fringe of a LTE area getting only 1 or 2 bars tops while having connection on 3 of the 4 Cricket bands . Speed test showed consistent 5 to 6 Mbps download speeds even with such a weak signal. When it was raining hard, the phone was getting H+ (3G). Note that these bands only apply to the A505G/DS model. The other popular foreign model is A505F/DS and it supports entirely different set of LTE bands. So if you are on a ATT based GSM system, you need the A505G/DS model.
The back of this A50 is the "iridescent" version, about as rigid as the S5 plastic back, and collects fingerprint smudges like you will not believe. But it looks really cool. I'm using a Wallet Case, so the back does not matter to me.
The 4GB of ROM are enough for my use, as even with multiple apps running at once, no more than 2.5GB have been used. After deleting the installed apps I didn't want, and transferred and/or downloaded more apps, the internal memory shows 39GB free. And that includes what the OS uses. Plenty of room for more apps. All the data, photos, video, etc are on the SD card.
A few hours after setting up the phone, an update was downloaded that took about 15-20 minutes to install. Says it improves finger print reader performance, and makes apps and the OS more stable, as well as other things. So far the phone performs flawlessly.
The CPU in this phone is very fast. 8 cores, 4 up to 2.31 Ghz, and 4 up to 1.74 Ghz as measured by the GPU-Z app. Graphics are fast too, and the screen looks great. Haven't tested the camera yet, but so far the few pics I took look very good. When I get home in a few days I'll see how good the pics look on a 27" 4K monitor.
The audio app works great, has an equalizer and other other features.
The included headphones are the hard plastic style, not foam buds. So unless you want to press each piece into your ears while listening to music, they are pretty much only good for phone conversations.
The Bluetooth 5.0 is awesome. I only have 4.1 headsets, but the distance 5.0 gives is amazing. Left the phone in the family room, and walked outside. That put 1 interior wall, and one outside wall between me and the phone. I was able to walk about 50 feet from the house before the music broke up. I am able to walk all over 2,500 sq ft ranch with the phone in the middle of the house and not even one hickup in the playback. Also transferred a few files from the laptop (BT 4.1) to the A50. Worked well. Was an easy way to copy some stuff to the A50.
Fast charging works, well, fast. About 1 hour from about 30% to 100%. The charging tester showed that even though the A50 said "100% charged", but it was not. The charger continued to output slowly diminishing amperage at 9.0 volts for about another 15-20 minutes until the tester showed that the A50 was no longer drawing any power from the charger. So I suggest leaving the A50 on the charger about 15 minutes past the Notification that it is 100% charged to actually get a full charge.
Hot spot worked with my laptop in the same room. But with the poor 4G signal I was getting performance was barely OK. Video would not play. I suspect this would improve with a descent 4G signal.
Phone calls using only WIFI work great. Sending pictures and texts via WIFI worked good too. Using 4G, large photos attached to texts were sent in just a matter of moments.
BTW, I just took the SIM card out of the S5 and put it in the A50 and it worked. A few hours later I logged into my Cricket Wireless account and it was showing the EMEI number from the A50.
All and all, the phone is doing what I want and doing it better than expected, and with no glitches, freezing, heating up or slowing down. I'm very happy.
Update 10/16/2019. In an area that has good 4G, (3,4 out of 5 bars) video phone calls work great. No glitches, no stutter, no voice issues. I have traveled all over town with this phone doing a video chat to Hong Kong perfectly. HK is where my fiance is. Nice.
I gave up trying to get Samsung Pay and Google Pay to work at checkout, even though the phone has the sensors (NFC) needed for checkout. I was unable to identify the specific sub APL routine that connects the NFC sensor in the phone to the applications that get installed. That seems to be the the problem. Phone has the NFC sensor, but not a driver to connect to apps that need NFC support for checkout. Anyone know where I can download the NFC driver, please let me know.
Anyway, the phone is still working perfectly. I have manually rebooted the phone about 6 times after big installs and big uninstalls. The phone is working great. Perfect. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
BTW, speed tests in a 3/4 bar 4G area hit the Cricket limit of 8Gb/s on downloads. So it is working well on the Cricket system. If you have an Att account, I believe the cap is 10Gb/s download. You will have to test yourself. Upload tests are not working. But I can upload huge pics with no problems. Multiple huge pics attached to a single text message go in a matter of moments. Emails with 6 or 8 big picture attachments are sent in less than 20 seconds. So the LTE is working well.
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This Item  Samsung Galaxy A50 A505G 64GB Duos GSM Unlocked Phone w/Triple 25MP Camera - Black |  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | — | $619.05 | $138.00 | -11% $620.00 List: $699.00 | -8% $153.49 List Price: $166.00 | $299.99 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15 | Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15 | Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14 | Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Battery life | ||||||
| Face recognition | ||||||
| Fingerprint reader | ||||||
| Value for money | ||||||
| Sold By | — | Mobile deals | thegadgetdeals | Mobile deals | ElectroDealz LLC | New Sky INC |
| display size | 6.4 inches | 6.1 inches | 6.6 inches | 6.1 inches | 6.7 inches | 6.4 inches |
| memory capacity | 64 GB | 128 GB | 64 GB | 128 GB | 128 GB | 64 GB |
| model name | Galaxy A50 | Galaxy S23 | Galaxy A23 5G | Galaxy S23 | Galaxy A71 5G | Galaxy A50 |
| operating system | Android 9.0 | Android 13.0 | Android | Android 13.0 | Android | Android 9.0 |
| connectivity tech | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | USB, Bluetooth | Wi-Fi | USB | Wi-Fi |
| display type | AMOLED | AMOLED | LCD | AMOLED | AMOLED | AMOLED |
| service provider | T-Mobile | — | — | — | Verizon | T-Mobile |
Sustainability features
This product has sustainability features recognized by trusted certifications.
Energy efficiency
Conserves energy compared to similar products.
As certified by
EPEAT EPEAT addresses the sustainability impacts of electronic products. An EPEAT registered product must meet required criteria and can meet optional criteria. The criteria depend on the type of product and can include energy efficiency, reduction of fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-Gases), and end of life management. Products meeting 50% - 75% optional criteria are “Silver” and those meeting more than 75% are “Gold”.
Certification Level
SILVER Part of
Reviews with images
Incredible value for price (1yr update)
EDIT: After three months the phone is still so solid in all areas. Made a great purchase here.EDIT 2: After one year, AccuBattery reports 90% battery capacity retention. Solid.Original review: The Galaxy A50 is the first phone I've ever bought unlocked. I've had it for over a month now and I feel I can safely say that this really is an incredible phone for the price point.Its battery is the best thing about it, and it's actually why I bought the phone. It always lasts the entire day with heavy usage AND GPS on, will probably last you two if you don't use it very often throughout the way. Full marks.I'm on AT&T's network and there's been absolutely no reception issues in Texas. Can't say for anywhere else but I assume it's still good.The speaker volume is very good and the phone even came pre-installed with a screen protector, which is awesome. (And a microSD card!)I can't say much for its gaming performance. Not because it's bad, but rather, I hardly play games on my phone to properly give an opinion. Seemed solid with Minecraft though. (Update: It runs kinda poorly in Pokemon Masters, but all other games are no struggle.)And although it may not serve much use in the US, its radio feature is actually very cool. I love that.This may be a hot take, especially considering others' reviews of it, but the in-screen fingerprint reader is not half bad. It's definitely not as lenient as you would hope, but if you can learn to scan your finger in a consistent angle, it's acceptable.The camera's the worst part about the phone, but I feel the default Samsung Camera app does it even more injustice. For video capture, stabilization is always on so you have a large feeling of delay when you capture video. Some aspect ratios aren't available, and video framerate options are nowhere to be seen. Additionally, while the camera supports the Camera2 API, those features are stripped from Pro mode. A workaround I now use is downloading Open Camera off the Play Store and enabling Camera2 features.All that aside though, the camera still offers interesting and fun shots to take. It really should be fine for people who aren't power users. It's good enough.Another minor inconvenience is that the phone lacks Smart Capture entirely, for whatever reason. I had to download Screen Master as a replacement ... which seems to do fine as is, so it's not a big deal.One last thing is that I notice my touches stick when I type too fast, resulting in accidental swipe text input. I don't know if that's a global thing or if that's just some sort of unfortunate issue I have. This never happened with my S7. I just remedy it by typing slower.Overall though? This is a really good phone. It's exceeded my expectations in several areas. :)PS. Attached images are shots I've taken with the camera. Aside from resolution shrinking (for bandwidth's sake) and captions, these are unedited.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2019
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Omar
Muy bueno por el precio.
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El mejor paquete al mejor precio
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Gran teléfono en relación precio calidad - Terrible sistema de huella digital
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