If you’re looking for an entry-level budget-friendly smartphone the Samsung Galaxy A03 might be a device that you can consider.
The Samsung Galaxy A03 is now available at all Samsung stores and authorized distributors nationwide also available for as low as P660/month for up to 6 months at 0% interest via Home Credit until March 31. Those who purchase the Galaxy A03 until March 31 will also receive a 1-year free subscription to VIU Premium worth P999.
Let’s find out in our review the features of the Samsung Galaxy A03 has to offer.
Build Quality and Display
The Samsung Galaxy A03 comes in three available basic colors Blue for our review unit, Red and Black.
The Galaxy A03 has a refined curved edge for a comfortable hold and easy screen navigation even with just one hand.
The back panel cover is made of durable plastic material while the sides are surrounded by a metal frame body. It gets a minimalist design with a nice cross-hatched light pattern in a soft matte finish on the back and a Samsung logo below. With the matte finish it makes it prone against fingerprint smudges.
Housed in a square-shaped camera module are dual lens with an LED flash beside it. There’s a slight protrusion of the camera module but you can still place the device on any flat surface.
At the bottom holds the speaker grille, 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone and a MicroUSB port. Both the volume rockers and power/sleep button on the right side while the SIM tray is located on the left. The good thing with the SIM tray it has a dedicated slot for the MicroSD up to a capacity of 1TB.
The front bezels are still thin enough but vaguely visible from the top and sides while a very thick bezels can be seen at the bottom. A waterdrop notched design support the front facing camera located at the top center.
The display gets a 6.5-inch Infinity-V HD+ display with a 720 x 1600 pixel screen resolution. So far, the display is equipped with a PLS TFT LCD panel but still it has nice lively colors and text are crisp. You’ll have some struggle using the Galaxy A03 during bright sunny conditions.
Under the display settings you will find features that you can adjust or use such as dark mode, eye comfort shield, adaptive brightness or adjust the font size.
Hardware and Performance
Under the hood you have a 1.6GHz Octa-core processor and Mali-G57 for its graphic processing unit. The Samsung Galaxy A03 offers various storage options with its main variant of 3GB RAM and 32 GB of storage. The other higher variants offers 4GB RAM with 64GB to 128GB of space capacity.
Based on the hardware we would not recommend it as a solid gaming phone but it will still run some lightweight 2D games but with graphic-intensive games you may experience lag during playtime.
However, the Galaxy A03 would perform better for lightweight day-to-day consumption such as calls, web browsing or social media content. The quality of watching video content on the device is also excellent but the sound quality is not good coming out from the speaker grille. For a better sound quality you may opt to use an earphone to turn on the Dolby Atmos feature settings.
Camera
Samsung equipped the Galaxy A03 with a dual lens setup comprising of a 48MP main camera and 2MP depth camera for portrait shots. It also has 10x zoom capabilities but we don’t recommend it as the quality will be muddy.
For selfies you get a 5MP quality with available wide-angle option for group selfies in the camera app.
You can select from the camera app with the following shooting modes like portrait, photo, video, pro, panorama, food, night, hyperlapse and DecoPic to make photos and videos fun with live stickers.
Shoot videos in either Full HD or HD resolution only at 30fps however there is no video stabilization feature.
Below are sample photos taken with the Samsung Galaxy A03.
1x – 2x – 10x Zoom
Selfie and Group Selfie
1x with filter
Rear camera in Portrait mode
Night mode 1x
Selfie in Night mode
OS and Battery Life
The software and user interface used for the Samsung Galaxy A03 is the One UI core version 3.1 based on Android 11. It has some useful pre-installed apps such as Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, Lazada and TikTok. If you need to do some work with the device you also have Microsoft apps installed like Office, OneDrive, LinkedIn and Outlook.
A large 5,000 mAh battery is another noteworthy feature of the Galaxy A03 as you can get around 6 to 8 hours of usage. If you want to extend more of the battery you can turn on the power saving mode under the battery settings.
It does not support any fast charging feature which will take you a few hours to juice up this massive battery.
Conclusion
After 1 week with the Samsung Galaxy A03, for me what I love about it would probably be its long battery life, good display, expandable storage and its aesthetics.
Another highlight is the phone’s price, PHP5,490 is already a good deal especially if you’re looking for an entry-level phone to just do undemanding tasks. Also, if you want a Samsung phone as a gift to your kids who just wants to play simple games or watch their favorite video on YouTube or Netflix then you could consider this model.
What about the camera? Well it can properly shoot good quality photos in very bright conditions but suffers more on low light or during the night. Videos will be a little bit challenging as well, it does not support any image stabilization feature.
If you’re getting the base model at 3+32GB you may have to shell out extra for a MicroSD to expand more storage. The 32GB may not be enough if you’re going to download more apps to the phone. MicroSD are very cheap nowadays like a 256GB can cost around PHP300 while a 512GB for only PHP500. So, invest on a MicroSD we recommend it but if you’re budget can afford the 4+128GB variant then go for that.
If you’re not to keen about the specs just really looking for a nice and solid entry-level phone with a brand that you can trust then the Samsung Galaxy A03 might be the one for you.
Samsung Galaxy A03 Full Specifications
- Price PHP 5,490 SRP (3+32GB) / PHP 6,490 SRP (3+64GB) / PHP 7,490 SRP (4+128GB)
- Color variant Black, Blue and Red
- Display 6.5-inch Infinity-V Display HD+
- Processor 1.6 GHz Octa-core
- Storage+Memory 3+32GB / 3+64GB / 4+128GB expandable up to 1TB MicroSD
- SIM Dual-SIM
- Rear Camera 48MP (f1.8) + 2MP (f2.4)
- Front Camera 5MP
- Video FHD (1920x1080p @ 30fps)
- OS One UI Core based on Android 11
- Sensors Accelerometer, Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor
- Connectivity MicroUSB, GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 5.0, 3.5mm stereo, Smart Switch PC Sync
- Weight 196g
- Dimensions 164.2×75.9×9.1mm
- Battery 5,000 mAh
