This is Samsung’s Galaxy A23. It sits at the lower end of its midrange A series lineup,
but still offers a few enticing features.
So, is it worth it to get the Galaxy A23 over its more expensive siblings, and save a bit of cash?
I’m Will for GSMArena, and let’s find out in our full review.
The galaxy A23 is a budget smartphone that aims to stand out from competitors with its large,
optically stabilized main camera, and its up to date Samsung software package.
The Galaxy A23’s design is similar to the other A series phones, but there are some differences here.
The most noticeable is that rather than a matte finish, this one is quite glossy and
plasticky looking. The A23’s camera bump blends into the back panel, but doesn’t
wrap around into the plastic frame. The phone collects fingerprints quite easily, and it feels
actually rather large and hefty in the hand. Unlike the more expensive A series phones,
you don’t get IP rated water resistance here. On the front of the A23 is a 6.6-inch IPS LCD,
with a 1080p resolution, gorilla glass 5 protection, and a 90hz refresh rate.
Movement looks smooth here thanks to the fast refresh rate, and that’s adaptive, to a
certain point. If you are not interacting with the display, it will tone down to 60Hz to save energy.
You are missing a couple of things on the A23- there’s no proximity or ambient light sensor.
The latter means that the phone has to use the selfie cam to detect light for auto brightness mode.
We’ve seen this solution before, and we’re not fans. The auto brightness adjustment is
sluggish and sometimes unresponsive, and we found ourselves reaching for
the brightness slider more often than not. The brightness itself is nothing to write
home about either. We measured a maximum of just around 460 nits- it’s okay for indoor use,
but not enough for good legibility outdoors in the sun, especially on an LCD panel.
With a fullHD resolution, content looks sharp enough. But the color accuracy isn’t the best, as
whites and grays trend towards bluish. You don’t get any color settings to adjust this with either-
what you see out of the box is what you get. For audio, the Galaxy A23 has a headphone jack,
and a single bottom firing speaker. It earned a score of Good on our loudness charts,
but the sound quality is unimpressive- about par for the course at this price.
To wake up and unlock the Galaxy A23, you can use the fingerprint reader on the side,
which is built into the power button.
And you can get the A23 with 64 or 128 GB of storage, which is expandable thru microSD.
One attractive feature about Samsung phones nowadays is that even the budget level ones
get the latest software. The Galaxy A23 runs the same One UI 4.1 based on Android
12 that you’d find on the flagships. There are a few features missin g that
you’d find on the more expensive models, like Bixby, Samsung Pay, and Windows Link.
But still, you get most of the features here. And Samsung is
committed to providing quarterly security updates for at least four years on this one.
To find out more about the features of Samsung’s OneUI 4.1, you can check out our dedicated video.
Under the hood of the Galaxy A23 is a Snapdragon 680 4G chipset. It’s a modern chip, built upon a
6nm process, but performance wise it’s pretty underwhelming- especially when it has to power
a 90Hz refresh rate screen. In benchmarks, the A23 sits at the bottom of the charts, both in CPU and
GPU tests. In fact it’s outclassed by last year’s Galaxy A22, which had a Mediatek Dimensity 720.
Simple games can run okay here, but for anything more demanding, the experience isn’t great.
We've also noticed that there are stutters and the occasional lag here and there when navigating
the UI or performing everyday tasks. Definitely not ideal, especially when you’re in a hurry.
Just like last year’s model, the Galaxy A23 has a large 5000mAh battery, and battery life is great.
The phone was able to score a competitive 130 hour endurance rating in our proprietary tests.
The A23 supports 25 watt fast charging, but ships with just a 15 watt charger.
With this we were able to charge the phone from 0 to just 32% in half an hour.
Now on to the cameras. The Galaxy A23 has a 50MP main camera with OIS, a 5MP ultrawide camera,
a 2MP macro cam, and a depth sensor.
During the day, the A23’s main cam does a good job, punching above its class when it comes to quality.
The sharpness and fine detail are pretty good, and the colors are pleasant,
though a bit on the oversaturated side. Portraits look decent overall, with good exposure, and a somewhat convincing bokeh effect.
The ultrawide cam maintains the same contrast and punchy colors as the main camera,
but the quality is worse here, as you’d expect. These photos are noisy and soft,
with less detail and limited dynamic range.
Closeups taken with the 2MP macro cam aren’t very good. You need plenty of
light to achieve something usable, and at this resolution you don’t get much detail anyway.
The colors are dull, and there’s no autofocus to make these easier to shoot.
In low light, photos from the main cam are underwhelming. They have a bright enough exposure,
but they’re soft and noisy, with washed out colors and clipped highlights.
The results aren’t much better with night mode on. There’s less noise, but the detail
is smeared by the noise reduction. And each photo takes plenty of time to process while shooting.
In low light, photos from the ultrawide are hardly usable. They’re fuzzy,
with low contrast and dull colors, and limited dynamic range. There’s no night mode support here.
Selfies taken with the 8MP front facing cam are pretty good. They have decent
sharpness and detail, and colors are punchy. When it comes to video recording, resolution
is capped at 1080p. Footage from the main cam is actually pretty decent. There’s good sharpness,
nice looking colors, low noise and good dynamic range.
On the other hand, video quality from the ultrawide is subpar.
There’s poor detail and sharpness, plenty of noise, and dynamic range isn’t great.
So, that’s the Samsung Galaxy A23. You get great battery life, a good main camera,
and Samsung software. But in the end this doesn’t seem like enough for it to be competitive.
For me the most underwhelming aspect is the performance- the lag even when swiping
around is pretty noticeable. Then the screen isn’t very bright, and its colors seem off.
And on top, the A23 isn’t as cheap as you might imagine.
In the end you can find much better value elsewhere. And if I was going for a Samsung
midranger, I would think it’s worth it to spend a little bit more to get a better chipset, an
AMOLED, and some waterproofing while you’re at it. Thanks for watching and see you on the next one.