Review: Samsung Galaxy A14 5G

This phone is undoubtedly the best you can get for $200.

Rating:9/10

The $1200 flagships are not the most exciting smartphones. They have very minor upgrades that improve the camera’s performance from the previous year. It’s the inexpensive phones that I have been focusing on. It is amazing to see what features are coming down from the top end and how quickly these phones are improving. This is evident in Samsung’s Galaxy A14 5G.

The $200 unlocked Android phone from Google is truly amazing. You can buy a smartphone that is capable of handling most daily tasks and doesn’t act slow. It also has a decent camera system, lengthy software updates, and a longer battery life than the A13 5G. It’s amazing that Samsung managed to improve upon the A14’s predecessor, the Galaxy A135G, while reducing the price by $50. My mind is boggled.

Although the A14 5G may look a bit plain, its textured back gives it more personality than budget phones. It doesn’t feel cheap. You don’t have to worry about the glass surface because of the plastic rear design. Only problem with the hardware? The only problem with this phone is its IP rating. It’s therefore not water or dust resistant. It’s best to avoid it near water, pools, or beaches.

It has a 1080 pixel resolution, which is sharper than the previous model. The LCD display measures 6.6 inches and looks great. It’s easy to read on sunny days, which is not unusual in New York. I also enjoy gaming, reading and watching all the TikToks that my partner sends me.

Displays aside, cheap phones are now introducing high refresh rates to their screens. This is a new feature that has been gaining popularity and is being dropped as a flagship feature. The 60Hz screen was the norm for smartphones. However, by increasing the refresh rate from 60 to 90 to 120 times per second, the experience is fluid and responsive. Read more about it here. Samsung has kept the A13’s 90-Hz panel, which is a nice touch, but it is difficult to see. It’s not as smooth as other powerful devices, which can more frequently ratchet up frames as you move through the interface.

The performance is definitely a highlight. The Galaxy A14 5G is an incredible phone, especially when compared to the $170 phone that I just reviewed. My blood pressure doesn’t rise when I manage all my apps. Thanks to the MediaTek Dimensity 7005G and 4GB of RAM, this is possible. Geekbench benchmark testing shows a significant improvement in performance over A13 5G. This is not surprising considering that the A135G uses the same chipset as the A13 5.G. This may be due to better optimization. This is easily evident in my experience. I don’t notice any annoying hiccups when playing games such as Alto’s Odyssey, CarX Highway Racing and Dead Cells.

The primary camera is 50 megapixels. The camera snaps images quickly and has a Night mode that allows you to capture decently sharp and bright images even in low light (unlike Moto G Play). Nighttime photos may be blurry from time to time. Sometimes there’s too much processing, which can make it difficult to see certain details on faces or colors. For $200, the results have been satisfactory. This includes selfies that I took with the front camera of 13 megapixels (which also supports Night mode). If you’re looking for extreme close-up shots it’s possible to use the macro camera. However, this is only possible if there’s enough light.

My only complaint about this phone is its mono speaker. The mono speaker is not too loud and doesn’t sound very good. It’s also easy to block when playing video games in landscape mode. It’s possible to use headphones, wired or wireless, because has a headphone Jack.

You can even use the microSD card slot to increase the 64 GB internal storage. This is a big win for me as I almost always pay with my smartphone when I’m on the go.

As the name suggests, the Galaxy A14 5G supports… 5G. This is a rare feature at this price, since most phones below $200 rely on 4G LTE. Every major US carrier supports it, including AT&T, T–Mobile and Verizon. Samsung promises two Android OS updates. This means that, even though it is running the latest Android 13, it will still be receiving Android 15 in 2024. The phone will also receive four years worth of security updates. This is a rare offer for a smartphone this cheap.

It is almost impossible to not be amazed at the Galaxy A14 5G value. It does almost everything for so little. That’s exactly what we should expect from our gadgets.

January 27, 2023 Correction: The incorrectly stated that the phone had a 60-Hz display, but it actually has a panel of 90-Hz. We regret this error.

It’s not a flagship smartphone, so I won’t oversell it. You will still experience stutters when switching between apps. You might have to close some apps. The majority of the time, however, I have had a great experience with the A14 5G. It is not only useful for keeping up with Reddit or Twitter, but it also allows me to reply to emails, track work tasks and make calls.

This brings me to the battery. My sister is in India so we don’t have much time to get together. The battery was only 50% when I used it for a four-hour video call the other day. It was lower than what I expected. The same day, I also used my phone’s GPS to drive to a Manhattan dog park. I took lots of photos of the delicious Bua fried chicken sandwich. The phone was at 11 per cent by bedtime, which is, err, past midnight for my eyes. It had a remarkable 9 hours of screen-on-time. It was a very busy day. Even though I don’t spend a lot of time on video calls, I still had 30% left on my battery after two days. It’s wonderful not to have to recharge every night.