Samsung Galaxy A15 5G Review: This Cheap Phone Is a Stalwart – CNET

During my testing of the $200 Samsung Galaxy A15 5G, I was heavily reminded of Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare. Samsung’s new low-cost phone would be the tortoise, certainly capable of handling your phone needs for years, but you might need to give it some patience.

This includes my commuting regiment of texting, podcasts and news reading; as well as taking decent food photos during coffee shop meetings with my colleagues. It even did a good job photographing a Disney event I attended last week at a dark bar for the horror film The First Omen.

Just everything it does takes time.

Every time I swipe left from the home screen to check my Google News feed, I wait an extra second than I’m accustomed to for my recommended stories list to pop up. When I play Dead Cells, I definitely noticed a longer wait to load a new area of the game after my character walked through a door. Taking a night mode photo involves holding the phone still for nearly 10 seconds depending on the darkness of your environment. And even typing on the display felt less responsive than I’m used to, leading me to adjust my texting speed slightly to make sure I was indeed hitting all of the letters.

But the Galaxy A15 still accomplishes all of its tasks, and the A15’s photo processing is decent for a phone in this price range. The photos I took outdoors look vivid, with enough detail that I’d be happy post them on social networks. And in a good way, the battery drains slowly and recharges fairly quickly thanks to its 25-watt wired charging.

Read more: Best Cheap Phone For 2024

Even though this $200 handset might lag behind rival phones on a specs level, Samsung pledged to support it for the long haul. Samsung’s commitment of four years of software updates and five years of security updates is currently unparalleled among phones that cost $200 and less.

This makes for an interesting differentiator this year. If you’re looking for a low-cost phone that will be easy and safe to use for years, the A15 is an easy choice. But if you’re looking for a phone that’s a better media machine, there’s an argument to be made for Motorola’s $200 Moto G 5G or, if you’re on T-Mobile, the $160 TCL 50 XL 5G. It’s just a matter of if you want something more stalwart that’s prepared to go the distance or a slightly faster device that’s better for a shorter term.

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G design, specs, features

Samsung’s Galaxy A15 5G has a similar plastic-like body as last year’s A14, but now comes in a new Light Blue color option that looks white with a luminescent blue tint. When holding it up to light, I see a blue hue but the phone otherwise looks mostly white. The hue adds a nice flare.

The Galaxy A15 has a single speaker, which is on-par for this price range last year but feels like it’s falling behind now that the Moto G 5G and the TCL 50 XL 5G both include stereo speakers. It was especially noticeable when I would hold the phone horizontally to play Dead Cells, as my finger would constantly cover the single speaker. The phone also includes a side fingerprint reader for unlocking the phone with a quick tap.

The Galaxy A15’s 6.5-inch display runs at a 90Hz refresh rate, which looks smooth but not as smooth as the 120Hz offered by both Motorola and TCL. The phone’s slow performance further impedes my ability to appreciate the screen’s refresh rate. There’s a camera notch in the top display bezel for a front-facing 13-megapixel camera, which while functional feels chunky in comparison with the thinner display cutouts that I see on the rival phones in this price range.

This display has a 1080p resolution, and it can get up to 800 nits which is bright enough that I’m able to see what’s on the screen on a sunny day. I found the Galaxy A15’s screen functional for watching videos and games, but craved the larger and higher refresh rates offered on the Moto G 5G and TCL 50 XL 50.

The Galaxy A15 struggles in the performance department. Whereas I outlined earlier how the A15 takes longer than I’d like to perform tasks, I did find it was able to multitask well without having to reload apps as I switched from a video call to music, to texting to news reading and a game. The latter issue was my main complaint about the Moto G 5G, where apps loaded decently but the phone often needed to reload prior apps that I had in use. Both the Galaxy A15 and the Moto G 5G include 4GB of onboard memory, which is now on the smaller side as phone apps continue to get bigger while providing new features.

The Galaxy A15 5G runs on a Mediatek Dimensity 6100 Plus processor, which is the same as what’s included in the TCL 50 XL. I felt like this processor was taxed to its limit in the TCL, where it had to power a bigger display running at 120Hz that seemed to also shorten the battery life. But inside this Samsung phone, the slower processor appears to be well optimized for preserving the Galaxy’s 5,000mAh battery. 

The Galaxy A15 easily lasts a full day on a single charge. During my 30-minute charging test, the Galaxy A15 recharged from 0% to 54%. The Moto G 5G and TCL 50 XL 5G — both of which have 18-watt charging and comparably sized batteries — managed to recharge by 36% and 29% in the same test. In our 3-hour YouTube streaming test, the Galaxy A15 decreased from 100% to 83% — which matches the $499 Google Pixel 8A. In the same test, the TCL phone dropped to 62%.

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G cameras

Samsung’s Galaxy A15 has a few camera improvements over last year’s A14. The photos I took with the A15 have better color balance along with improved corrections for darker environments. The Galaxy A15 has a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera, 5-megapixel ultrawide and a 2-megapixel macro camera. This matches last year’s main and macro cameras but is a small upgrade from last year’s lower resolution 2-megapixel ultrawide.

Like many cameras in $200 phones, this leads to decent photography under bright settings. This photo of the Supreme croissant from the Lafayette bakery has decent detail and texture (notice the ridges of the croissant). The color of the fondant looks just as it did in real life.

In this photo taken at Astor Place, the phone managed to freeze the motion of the moving cars and a bicyclist — there’s hardly any motion blur. But as you can see, there was a lot of bright even lighting to help make this happen.

But I wanted to challenge the Galaxy A15, and so I brought it to the dim and candle-lit Peasant bar. All these photos have a substantial amount of image noise and the camera struggled to focus, look closely at The First Omen book in the photo below.

Here’s a snap of a less crowded setup with The First Omen sign. The image looks better but still is soft from all the noise reduction.

Below are two selfies I took in a dark bathroom: one with night mode (bottom) and one without (top). The 13-megapixel selfie camera was pushed beyond its limits, but you can see the difference night mode made.

I also recorded video in the dim bar at 1080p resolution and 30 frames per second which fared poorly as well. A video I recorded of a violinist performing had image noise throughout, but her music sounded good in the clip.

In my own estimation however, the Galaxy A15 takes photos that are comparable or slightly worse than the Moto G 5G. For instance, when I took selfie photos in my medium-lit apartment, the Moto G 5G’s 8-megapixel selfie camera captured a noticeably clearer photo than the Galaxy A15. Both photos were taken at the camera’s default zoom, which appears to crop closer on the Galaxy.

Results are more even when photographing the grass wall in CNET’s New York office. In the photos below, both phones captured several different shades of green, with little saturation. Though the Moto’s photo handles details better — look closely at the individual blades of grass at the bottom.

While the Samsung Galaxy A15’s camera does an OK job of taking photos in most well-lit situations, I’ve yet to see any sub-$200 phone take great photographs that you’d be happy to have printed. Images from the Galaxy A15 are certainly suitable for quick captures that you’d want to send to friends and family in a group chat.

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G: Bottom line

Samsung’s $200 Galaxy A15 5G plays it safe. That’s not a bad thing as it remains a great option for someone looking for a cheap phone that gets plenty of support. But this year, Motorola and TCL provide their own tempting low-cost options too.

Samsung’s highlight feature for this year’s A15 5G is its software and security support, which is the most of any phone available in this price range. No other rival comes close, and this makes the A15 an easy choice for someone that needs a cheap phone and doesn’t want to think about buying a new one anytime soon.

If you don’t mind possibly needing a new phone in two or three years, the $200 Moto G 5G and the $160 TCL 50 XL have better looking displays that look smoother at their 120Hz refresh rates. Motorola’s cheaper phone also includes a nice vegan leather design, which looks innovative compared with the plastic-build of the Galaxy A15. Dual speakers help make both of these phones better media machines than the Galaxy A15, but each phone gets only one software update — from Android 14 to Android 15 — and three years of security updates.

There’s still plenty to like about the Samsung Galaxy A15, especially when taking its longer support timeline and its decent 25-watt charging speed into consideration. It’s a stalwart, functional choice when all you want is a stable phone. But if you’re looking for a better pocket YouTube machine, this year there are better options.

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET’s reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone’s features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it’s bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water resistance. We push the processor’s performance to the extremes, using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark as well as our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using the phone daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features, like support for 5G; satellite connectivity; fingerprint and face sensors; stylus support; fast charging speeds; and foldable displays, among others that can be useful. And we balance all this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. Though these tests may not always be reflected in CNET’s initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.