Samsung's newest budget-friendly phone comes with a big battery, 90Hz screen, and 50MP camera
In spite of its enduring overall global smartphone market supremacy, Samsung is not doing as well as it used to a few years back in the low to mid-end segment. It's fairly easy to guess why the Korea-based tech giant can't keep up with brands like Xiaomi, Oppo, and Realme in Europe or Motorola stateside when it comes to budget-friendly handset sales, especially after the recent (low-key) introductions of the Galaxy A04 and A04s.
While the latter device offers slightly better specs than the "regular" A04 model (quietly) unveiled just last week, it's hard to get excited about either of these two decidedly humble Android affairs.
Spotted by GSMArena on multiple regional Samsung websites, including in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, the all-new Galaxy A04s doesn't have an official price tag attached to its name anywhere, which means we can't form a complete picture as far as its value for money is concerned yet.
Although it's difficult to imagine a low enough price to justify the notched screen, fairly thick side bezels, and massive "chin" of the A04s, hardcore Samsung fans on a (super) tight budget might find the 5,000mAh battery, 50MP primary camera, and 90Hz display refresh rate support more than satisfying if this 6.5-incher manages to undercut pretty much all of the best Motorola phones available today.
Knowing Samsung, however, that's unlikely to prove the case, and alas, essentially all the other specs and features look disappointing (to say the least) by any standard on paper.
The reasonably smooth aforementioned display only comes with a resolution of 1600 x 720 pixels (aka HD+), that large battery lacks any sort of fast charging functionality, and the 50MP shooter equipped with f/1.8 aperture is joined by a pair of 2MP sensors (handling depth and macro operations) on the lackluster plastic back of the Galaxy A04s.
Then you have a mysterious octa-core processor under the hood that's unlikely to provide more than middling raw power, 3 and 4GB RAM options paired with 32, 64, or 128GB storage, a single 5MP selfie camera housed in a V-shaped screen cutout, microSD support, a good old fashioned 3.5mm headphone jack, side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and a USB Type-C 2.0 port.
Overall, the Galaxy A04s is unquestionably better than the non-S A04, but Samsung undeniably has to step things up on the low-cost Android scene to keep its increasingly stiff competition at bay.
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