The Samsung Galaxy A01: Surprisingly Economical, Delightfully Stylish, and $40
The Samsung Galaxy A01 is a mobile phone released by Samsung Electronics in early 2020. It features an octa-core Snapdragon 439, with four cores at 1.95 GHz, and another four at 1.45 GHz, along with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage. I got mine from TracFone via Amazon, meaning it was locked to one of their carriers (Simple Mobile, Net10, StraightTalk, Total Wireless)- mine, in this case, TracFone itself.
A full list of specifications can be viewed at GSMArena.
Pricing and Comparison
At the time of my purchase it was $39.88, on sale, and has now risen to almost $60. For $40, the performance gap between it and some of my even lower-costing TracFone ZTE Blade T2 Lites and Alcatel TCL LXs is astounding. The $27 that remunerated my TCL LX gave me a quad core Snapdragon 210- with each core running at a measly 1.1 GHz. The screen was also only standard definition 480 x 854, making the pixel density scarily low, to the point where its noticeability would impede a lot of users’ day to day tasks.
It runs Android 10, with Samsung’s OneUI running on top of it. OneUI has a relatively poor reputation for having a slow interface that a lot of people dislike, but even with that, navigating around the phone is relatively smooth. Games run alright on it, and the 720 by 1520 pixel display is alright for my eyes. The color range and viewing angles are pretty alright for an IPS display as well.
A Good Budget Choice
With a headphone jack and room for storage expansion via a microSDXC card, it doesn’t force you to have expensive wireless earbuds and doesn’t restrict you to the measly 16GB of storage that is embedded within the motherboard. Another great thing is the USB-C interface, which, in my opinion, is bounds better than its previously widely used predecessor, micro USB. Micro USB, which runs on the ZTE and Alcatel phones, along with some of my other phones, is a really flimsy port that does not seem to go in all the time in the case of some devices.
The camera quality, for a $40 phone, is okay. Compared to better, more expensive phones, it’s pretty bad. Noise is everywhere across the photo, and even compared to my budget Pixel 3a, the stills and video are comparable to garbage. There are two- one of which is 13MP, and another of which is 2MP, playing as the wide and depth cameras, respectively.
Final Verdict
Overall, I think for $40, it’s almost a steal, if you aren’t using it as a daily outside phone, or are using TracFone service (like I am). Personally, I am not using it as a main phone, but I wouldn’t mind using it as a backup in the scenario that my Pixel 3a would break. A solid 8 out of 10 is my rating. Hopefully, you enjoyed my short review of the Samsung Galaxy A01. This is literaiiy signing off!
Thank you to Emiliano Cicero on Unsplash for the post’s featured image!