We appreciate the 120Hz upgrade as it can make things feel smoother, especially with the new One UI 5 (with Android 13) update that’s already available on this phone. The panel still has the same old-school droplet-shaped notch, which may seem dated but is not a huge blunder in our books. The phone shares an identical no-nonsense design with the rest of the Galaxy A phones with a flat Gorilla Glass front, a plastic frame and a matte plastic back that’s reminiscent of the high-end Galaxy S22 series.
Other notable specs are the tri-card slot with a microSD tray, the 3.5mm audio jack, NFC, and the large 5,000 mAh with 25W wired charging support. Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); NFC; 3.5mm jack; Virtual proximity sensing. The most notable omissions, if you’ve followed the recent Galaxy A phones, that is, are the OLED panel and the ingress protection. There are some other odd bits, too – the virtual proximity sensing remains as controversial as ever, and the lack of a real ambient light sensor is baffling. The Samsung Galaxy A23 5G ships in a small paper box, which contains the phone itself and a white USB-C cable.
Samsung Galaxy A23 5G review
Our Samsung Galaxy A23 5G booted Android 12 with One UI 4 out of the box, but after the initial setup, we were greeted with a message that there was an update to Android 13 with the new One UI 5. Core Android features are sometimes neglected by other manufacturers when they update their proprietary OS versions, but Samsung diligently implements them to its One UI. And since those are not applicable to Samsung’s own take on how Android should look, this leaves us with privacy and notification-focused improvements.
Notification-related controls are now easier to access and will always appear around the top of the system menu.
Separate language control for each app is also available, which makes us wonder why such а basic feature wasn’t available before. Privacy-wise, Android 13 now deletes clipboard data after a while because malicious apps were often exploiting the clipboard as users oftentimes copy sensitive data like phone numbers, emails, credit card numbers and even passwords. As we already said earlier, perhaps one of the biggest improvements is the overall performance of the OS. Ever since the ancient TouchWiz, Samsung’s software has been infamous for its rather sluggish performance.
And even though One UI is a lot better than its predecessors, it’s still lagging behind its rivals in this regard. Samsung has optimized animations and transitions, and they are sensibly faster and smoother. Other visual changes include better contrast, new app icons and illustrations across the system menus so that it’s easier to recognize apps and read text. Once again, the accent color palette is automatically generated based on your wallpaper, but this time around, the system gives you a wider choice of color combinations and that palette can also be applied to app icons.
Keep in mind that not all widgets support stacking, so app developers might have to get around that pretty soon. Unless, of course, you assign an AR emoji, a sticker or a photo of your choice. The lock screen looks the same as before, with two monochrome shortcuts – dialer and camera. It can be more convenient in certain situations, but it generally is less secure since it’s just using the selfie camera.
The lock screen is largely unchanged, as mentioned, and has a lot of customization options available. You populate homescreens with app shortcuts, folders and widgets. An easier way to launch two apps in split screen mode – a short swipe up from the bottom edge of the display with two fingers. We’ve already touched upon the new notification features that come bundled with Android 13, but Samsung took the extra mile to offer some small improvements of its own.
The first thing you’ll notice is that notification cards in the drop-down menu appear with a bigger icon of the app and a corresponding color.
The text alignment in those notification cards is also optimized for better readability.
Samsung is introducing Routines, a feature similar to Apple’s Focus. You can choose a mode based on what you are doing right now and execute certain actions, change sound profiles, display settings, notifications, etc.
For instance, the driving Routines profile can be set up to turn on DnD mode and launch Spotify automatically, for example. You can even trigger certain Routines with actions of your choice, such as turning on the hotspot or airplane mode.
Samsung also made connecting with nearby devices a tad easier.
In the Connected devices sub-menu, you will find available devices for Smart View connection (read screen cast) or Samsung DeX, where available. Chromecasts are easier to discover and stream audio too. When you play sound from your phone, nearby Chromecasts will appear on the quick panel.
And once you cast the phone’s screen on a TV, for example, you can choose to hide your notifications so others won’t be able to read sensitive information from your phone. Familiar proprietary Samsung features present in One UI 5 include the Edge panels – the panes that show up when you swipe in from the side and provide tools and shortcuts to apps and contacts. Otherwise, the software package is similar to other Samsung phones, with an in-house Gallery app, the Game Launcher app, and a proprietary file manager. Naturally, Samsung’s Internet web browser is also available. Gallery • Game Launcher • File manager • Edge panel The built-in photo and video editors get a couple of new functionalities.
You can create a sticker from any picture; there are more ways to edit GIFs now, draw perfect shapes on top of videos and photos using the pen tool, and you can find 60 new emoji stickers to add to your stills and clips. Some small new functionalities spread across the system include exceptions for DnD mode (apps of your choice won’t be affected by DnD), RAM Plus can be completely disabled through Device care, auto background optimization that keeps the system running smoothly, set up more timers simultaneously, expanded search in the My Files app, redesigned Digital Wellbeing, etc. There aren’t any major changes to the camera performance or new modes, but there are a couple of neat new additions.
For once, it’s easier to zoom in and out with one hand, and you can add a custom watermark or a date on each photo you take, and the telephoto camera now supports Food mode. This is a completely revamped chipset since the Snapdragon 680 behind the Galaxy A22 4G, one that comes with a 5G modem, more powerful GPU, and expanded support displays, cameras, among other things. Finally, the SD695 chip supports dual 5G, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, GPS.
Some of the competing MediaTek chips come with Wi-Fi 6 support, so there is some room for improvement. The Geekbench 5 tests show the Galaxy A23 5G has a perfectly adequate processor.
The GPU performance is behind what the Mali-G68 GPU offers as part of the Exynos 1280 5G chip (Galaxy A33, A53) and the Dimensity 920 5G (Realme 9 Pro+) and the Dimensity 1080 5G (Realme 10 Pro+). Finally, the compound AnTuTu test puts the Galaxy A23 5G in the middle of our chart, somewhat behind the curve. The Galaxy A23 5G also aced the stress tests we ran, and it promises long-lasting sustained performance. It didn’t get hot, just barely warm, when running either of these tests.
This is what happens once you set up the phone, put all of your accounts and contacts, and start taking photos and videos – the Galaxy A23 5G becomes sluggish, and there is a noticeable lag or delay at times. We can only guess the reason behind this sluggishness, but perhaps 4GB RAM is not enough for Android and One UI to operate smoothly enough, not once you fill your phone with accounts and content.
If you choose the A23 5G for your daily driver, we may encourage you to opt for the 6GB or even the 8GB RAM option.
The 4GB RAM version just don’t seem to cut it performance-wise. And while it’s tolerable for a review week, it’s a nerve-wrecking oddity you’d be dealing with for at least a year or two.
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