Samsung Galaxy A12 - Smartphone 64GB, 4GB RAM, Dual Sim, Blue

Product Information

Actual user memory will vary depending on the mobile phone operator and may change after software upgrades are performed. The Galaxy A12 comes with a 6.5in PLS display (basically Samsung’s IPS-like panel) with a resolution of 720 x 1,600, giving you approximately 264 pixels per inch. And while this may be some way short of Full HD experiences that you can get for the price, even with the large panel it looks perfectly sharp in day-to-day use. The Samsung Galaxy A12 has a 6.5-inch screen, which while smaller than, say, the 6.76-inch Huawei Mate 40 Pro or the 6.8-inch Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, is still an above average size for a smartphone screen. The Samsung Galaxy A12 captures video at 30fps in 1080p or 720p – there’s no 60fps option for either and, clearly from the footage I captured, no attempt at stabilisation either. Video of me walking through a park was just too bumpy to be usable, and swift pans also temporarily turned the footage into a blur fest. In short, this isn’t one for wannabe filmmakers. Samsung Galaxy A12 review: Verdict

In practice, it’s reasonably sharp, so you’re unlikely to miss the extra pixels too much, and it’s a slight upgrade in both size and resolution on the 6.2-inch 720 x 1520 Samsung Galaxy A10. It’s not all bad in the performance charts, though: the one area where the hardware really shines is in efficiency, with the 5,000mAh battery managing a whopping 25hrs 58mins in our looped video battery test. These gut impressions are confirmed by the benchmarks. As you can see in the graph below, Geekbench 5 has it performing quite a bit worse than all the rivals I highlighted in the beginning, but it’s an especially poor performer compared to the three Chinese branded handsets – two of which use a superior MediaTek chip. That makes it good for watching videos on – whether short TikTok ones or long Netflix content – as well as for viewing photos, using apps, and playing games. But of course at this price there are some compromises too – and whether you can live with them or not will depend on what you need from your phone. Below we’ll dive into all of that, so read on to see if the Samsung Galaxy A12 is the smartphone for you. Screenthat is, or may reasonably be considered to be, defamatory, libelous, hateful, racially or religiously biased or offensive, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing to any person or entity; Display Size: Measured diagonally, the screen size is 6.5" in the full rectangle and 6.4" accounting for the rounded corners. Actual viewable area is less due to the rounded corners and the camera cutout.

Having said that, it’s definitely one of the weaker points of the Samsung Galaxy A12. While it should be fine for general day-to-day performance, this isn’t a phone that’s going to do well for more than casual gaming or other demanding tasks, so think about what you’re going to be using your phone for before buying it. Right out of the box, the phone feels sluggish with stuttery animations and apps that take a couple of seconds to open. Granted, it does catch up with itself after a period of use, but it’s certainly not ideal for multitasking, despite the relatively generous 4GB of RAM it’s endowed with.The Samsung Galaxy A12 has a quad-lens camera, which is more lenses than you sometimes get at this end of the market. It’s also substantially more than, say, the Galaxy A10. Basically, the delay between pressing the shutter button and a picture being taken means that anything that’s prone to any kind of sudden movements – think birds, babies, cats or dogs – will almost inevitably be a blurry mess by the time the phone finishes capturing the image. It’s here in spades. If you need more power on a similar budget, look to something like the Moto G9 Power or the Nokia 5.3. There’s also of course no 5G with this phone, but nor is there with any similarly priced rivals. Camera

The other camera modes are fine as far as they go, but aren’t the kind of thing you’ll turn to often. Still, should you ever want to take a close-up shot of a 5p piece as I did below, you’ll get decent results. Network: The bandwidths supported by the device may vary depending on the region or service provider. There’s also no water resistance rating here, but we’d have been very surprised to see one at what this costs, so that’s not really a mark against it, just something to bear in mind. Power The Samsung Galaxy A12 is designed as a phone for anyone who puts price and battery life first, because it excels on both fronts – it’s one of the cheaper smartphones you’ll find, and also has a bigger battery than most at 5,000mAh.

What’s not so good?

As you might guess from the narrow aperture and the low price of entry, photography on the Galaxy A12 is a mixed bag. In bright conditions, photos are quite good, with a decent composition and enough detail to be worthwhile. Yes, you can certainly do better by spending more money, but the pictures are clear enough for sharing, and you can get good results in the right conditions. That said, the Galaxy A12 does suffer from the same problem plenty of budget handsets do, which I assume is exacerbated by the poor performance of its MediaTek processor. It’s what I euphemistically call ‘the cat problem’: For memory, you get 64GB built in. There are other storage capacities, but they don’t seem to be widely available in the UK. Still, 64GB is decent at this end of the market, and what’s even better is that there’s a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 1TB, so you can massively build on the included storage. The Samsung Galaxy A12 has a huge 5,000mAh battery. That’s one of the biggest you’ll find in a mainstream phone – a few have now pushed their way to 6,000mAh, but most don’t go above around 4,500mAh, and many still hover around 4,000mAh or even less.

Memory size - User memory is less than the total memory due to storage of the operating system and software used to operate the phones features. The Galaxy A12 comes in at 164 x 75.8 x 8.9mm and 205g, so it’s on the large and hefty side – as we said above, this isn’t one that you’ll necessarily be able to comfortably use with one hand, unless you have particularly big mitts. The 8MP (f/2.2) front-facing camera is good enough for selfies and video calls. By default, it has ‘beautification’ options enabled (centre) which are more subtle than some, but can be turned off completely (left) or maxed out (right). As ever, max out at your own risk, because to me the results look anything but natural.The Galaxy A12 is outfitted with a massive 5,000 mAh battery that lasts around a full day with daily use. It doesn't support wireless charging, but with wired fast charging it fills up in around 2 hours when depleted. The most underwhelming aspect of the phone is its MediaTek MT6765 Helio P35 processor. Unfortunately, combined with the entry-level configuration that features 3GB of RAM, the phone can get stuttery even with relatively demanding applications. Of course, one shouldn't expect a high level of performance from a cheap smartphone like this, but it should be noted regardless. Although for simple daily tasks it's acceptable. Cameras This basic performance is mirrored in the graphical tests with GFXBench, where the Samsung Galaxy A12 managed a paltry 19fps in the native 720p resolution, and just 12fps when output to 1080p. Given the Realme 7 and Poco X3 NFC manage around four times the frames at that resolution, I think we can say that’s simply not good enough for the price. The Redmi Note 9T is sadly missing here as GFXBench refused to run, but it would be surprising if it ran worse, given its Geekbench 5 score. use of the content you supply does not violate these Terms of Use and will not cause injury to any person or entity.