The Samsung A15 5G was launched in the Kenyan market earlier this year and it is one of the budget phones in the Samsung lineup.
We managed to get our hands on the device and took the phone out for a spin, here are our thoughts.
Build
The Samsung A15 5G measures 6.30 x 3.02 x 0.33 inches and weighs 200 g which I found to be generally comfortable in the hand. It has a plastic frame and plastic back which has a matte finish which reduces fingerprint smudges.
The A15 features a 6.5-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED screen with a slim bezel at the top and bottom giving the phone a screen-to-body ratio of approximately 84.3 per cent. It has a 1080 x 2340 resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio which translates to 396 pixels per inch density. This coupled with a 90 Hertz refresh rate gives a crisp display that you will definitely enjoy when playing different media like Netflix and gaming. The screen comes with 800 nits peak brightness aided by its Vision Booster, which makes it usable even when outdoors under direct sunlight.
The phone has stereo speakers at the bottom which though not exceptional produce sound which you can work with.
The selfie camera is located at the top of the screen with the right edge featuring the volume up and down rocker plus power button which also doubles up as the fingerprint sensor. The left edge has the sim card tray that can house two nano-SIM cards or one sim card and a microSD card expansion slot. The bottom of the phone holds a mono speaker, Type C charging port, a microphone and an earphone jack. At the back we have the camera bump which houses the triple cameras as well as the led flash.
Performance
Under the hood, the Samsung A15 5G rocks a Mediatek Dimensity 6100+ the chipset is built on a 6 nm process node technology and has a maximum CPU frequency of 2.2 GHz. It has 128GB of internal storage and 4 GB of RAM. The device performed okay while scrolling through social media and even playing some games which are not graphic heavy. However, I did experience some lag when multi-tasking, switching between apps and playing some games. This is most probably due to the 4 GB RAM on the device.
The Samsung A15 runs Android 14 operating system straight out of the box and a One UI 6 interface. Samsung promises four major Android updates and five years of security patches which will ensure that the A15 remains viable for years. I loved the fact that the phone does not comes with bloatware unlike some other budget Android devices.
Camera
The Samsung A15 comes with a triple camera setup at the back which consists of 50MP main camera, 5MP (ultrawide) and 2MP (Macro) at the front we have a 13MP selfie camera which takes some good photographs. The photos were fairly detailed, with decent saturation, dynamic range. However, I found that the cameras struggled a bit in some low light conditions.
Both sets of cameras can shoot videos in 1080 pixels up to 30 frames per second which means that you will be able to get some good and decent videos for your content.
Check out the photos.
Battery
The phone features a 5000 mAh non-removable battery supported by an 25Watt flash charging power brick with the phone charging from zero to 22% in 15 minutes, 44% after half an hour and got to 100% in about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Unfortunately, the phone does not come with a charging brick so should you use a charging brick lower than 25Watts, it will definitely take longer to charge.
A user gets a full day’s heavy use from a fully charged battery, so everything from listening to music, to reading and browsing as well as gaming is possible. While light usage can see the battery lasting up to 3 days.
Conclusion
You should definitely buy this phone if you are a looking for a budget friendly device that has a capable processor, quality display and good battery life. Also, the price point of Ksh. 18,399 is quite affordable.