Samsung Galaxy A03s review

GSMArena Team, 20 December 2021.

Android 11 with basic OneUI 3.1 Core

The Galaxy A03s ships with the Core version of One UI 3.1 and Android 11 out-of-the-box. There aren't too many massive differences between One UI 3.1 and One UI 3.1 Core, but we will go through them just in case, as probably few of our readers know them by heart.

Samsung Galaxy A03s review

The Core version of One UI cuts a few apps and services to make the launcher easier on system resources and storage. What didn't make the cut - Samsung Pay service (GPay is available), KNOX features and Secure Folder, the Easy Mode, the Bixby assistant, Windows Link service, and the Good Lock app for advanced customizations. Samsung's Game Launcher, Music Share and Smart View are not available either. We suspect few people will be missing these on such a basic phone, though.

The Galaxy A03s does not support Always-on Display. Its default lock screen has two shortcuts - dialer and camera, but you can pick different apps. The lock screen has a wellbeing widget - you can now keep track of how much time you've spent on your phone without even unlocking it.

Unlocking the screen with the side-mounted fingerprint scanner is a breezy experience - the reader is always-on and has superb accuracy and speed.

Lock screen - Samsung Galaxy A03s review widgets - Samsung Galaxy A03s review shortcuts - Samsung Galaxy A03s review wallpapers - Samsung Galaxy A03s review fingerprints - Samsung Galaxy A03s review face unlock - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
Lock screen • widgets • shortcuts • wallpapers • fingerprints • face unlock

Another notable change is that pulling the notification shade covers the entire screen underneath, even if there's just one notification card or none at all. Previously, a portion of the screen below the last notification still remained visible, just darkened.

Android 11 includes the nifty Notification history feature. It's accessed from the Settings menu, so it's not within immediate reach, but it's there for those occasions when you dismissed a notification too quickly and you can't seem to find what it was about. Just make sure to enable it because it's Off by default.

Notifications, quick toggles and notification history - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Notifications, quick toggles and notification history - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Notifications, quick toggles and notification history - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Notifications, quick toggles and notification history - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Notifications, quick toggles and notification history - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
Notifications, quick toggles and notification history

All of the standard layout adjustments and toggles for the quick panel and taskbar are accounted for. Android 11 has a new way of handling notifications for instant messenger apps called Bubbles, and One UI 3 adopts it, too. That's in addition to a previously available similar feature offered by Samsung by the name of Smart pop-up view. You'll find these settings under the 'Floating notifications' submenu, where you can alternatively turn both of them off and opt for the old-school cards-only interface.

Android 11's refined multimedia controls have made their way on to One UI. You get the active audio playback apps in a stack right below the quick toggles and swiping to the side switches between the apps.

The Media screen was already available on One UI 2.5 pre-Android 11, and it offers similar functionality for picking the output device. The volume control panel has gotten a makeover too, and now the four sliders are vertical instead of the horizontal ones of One UIs past.

Media controls - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Media controls - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
Media controls

The settings menu has seen a subtle but meaningful makeover. Subcategories are made more legible by using a dot separator and extra intervals, while recent searches are now shown as bubbles instead of a list. Additionally, there's a newly added feature to search settings by hashtags - for conceptually related things found in different places in the menu.

One UI Settings - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI Settings - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI Settings - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
One UI Settings

The One UI dialer app lends itself to plenty of customization. There are two different layouts for the in-call screen to choose between. You can also set up a background image or video for that screen, though it's going to be all the same for all of your calls - you can't have a different one on a per-person basis.

Samsung dialer - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Samsung dialer - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Samsung dialer - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Samsung dialer - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Samsung dialer - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
Samsung dialer

The Android experience with One UI is rather straightforward and familiar. Samsung's excellent theme support and rich online selection are present, as well. The same goes for the system navigation options, with a few tweaks and layouts available for gestures, as well as old-school button controls, even the really-old original style, with the back button on the right side.

One UI 3.1 and navigation options - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI 3.1 and navigation options - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI 3.1 and navigation options - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI 3.1 and navigation options - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI 3.1 and navigation options - Samsung Galaxy A03s review One UI 3.1 and navigation options - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
One UI 3.1 and navigation options

There are plenty of additional extra features in the Galaxy A03s as well, like the Edge panels interface. Android Auto support is baked right in on the Galaxy A03s, though.

The Galaxy A03s comes with Samsung's own Gallery, Internet browser and Notes app. Microsoft's Office, OneDrive, and Outlook apps are pre-installed, as well as all vital Google apps and services.

Gallery - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Gallery - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Galaxy Store - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Microsoft apps - Samsung Galaxy A03s review Samsung Notes - Samsung Galaxy A03s review
Gallery • Gallery • Galaxy Store • Microsoft apps • Samsung Notes

Overall, like we said, there are some omissions here and there the further down we go into the Galaxy A lineup. However, nothing cut is really major or all that detrimental to the overall One UI experience in our opinion. Fans of Samsung's particular Android experience should still be perfectly at home here.

Performance and benchmarks

The Galaxy A03s runs on the entry-level Mediatek Helio P35 chipset. Its octa-core CPU uses Cortex-A53 cores only, four of them clocked at up to 2.3GHz, the other four - capped at 1.8GHz. It's better than the Snapdragon 450-equipped lesser Galaxies like the A02s/M02s, which get a 1.8GHz cap across all 8 cores.

The GPU is PowerVR GE8320 GPU, and it can also be found in other Helios - for example, the G25 and G35 - and consequently in quite a lot of budget-focused devices.

The Galaxy A03s comes in several RAM/storage configurations - 3GB/32GB, 4GB/32GB, and 4GB/64GB. Our review unit is of the most basic trim - 3GB RAM + 32GB eMMC 5.1 storage.

Samsung Galaxy A03s review

Quite expectedly, the Helio P35 having only A53 cores did not turn well for the benchmark scores - GeekBench took forever to complete, and the only phone that's worse than the A03s is the A02s because of the lower CPU clock.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

  • Realme 8i
    1886
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
    1780
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    1719
  • Realme 8
    1690
  • Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
    1673
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
    1599
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9T
    1400
  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    1372
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Prime)
    1325
  • Xiaomi Redmi 10
    1294
  • Samsung Galaxy A32
    1277
  • Motorola Moto G10
    1139
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    889
  • Samsung Galaxy A02s
    495

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
    569
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    560
  • Realme 8i
    539
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
    534
  • Realme 8
    533
  • Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
    505
  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    376
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Prime)
    362
  • Xiaomi Redmi 10
    361
  • Samsung Galaxy A32
    361
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9T
    307
  • Motorola Moto G10
    247
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    179
  • Samsung Galaxy A02s
    131

The raw power of the GPU is incredibly weak.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

  • Realme 8
    33
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    24
  • Realme 8i
    24
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
    17
  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    15
  • Samsung Galaxy A32
    15
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9T
    13
  • Motorola Moto G10
    9.4
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    7.9
  • Samsung Galaxy A02s
    6.1

Then again, the Galaxy A03s has a 720p display instead if 1080p, and things do get a bit better when running benchmarks at the native resolution. Just a tiny little bit.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    30
  • Realme 8
    29
  • Realme 8i
    22
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    21
  • Motorola Moto G10
    19
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
    15
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    14
  • Samsung Galaxy A32
    13
  • Samsung Galaxy A02s
    12
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9T
    10

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • Realme 8
    18
  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    16
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
    16
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    12
  • Realme 8i
    11
  • Motorola Moto G10
    9.2
  • Samsung Galaxy A32
    8.1
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
    7.9
  • Samsung Galaxy A02s
    6.1
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9T
    5.8
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    5.5

The AnTuTu scores are not promising either - the Galaxy A03s is one of the slowest phones we've tested recently, and the only one that's worse than the A03s is the previous A02s model.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

  • Realme 8
    298328
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
    295442
  • Realme 8i
    293507
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    242155
  • Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
    226561
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
    218788
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Prime)
    201829
  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    185358
  • Xiaomi Redmi 9T
    177917
  • Samsung Galaxy A32
    174332
  • Motorola Moto G10
    140230
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    103465
  • Samsung Galaxy A02s
    90811

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

  • Realme 8
    357488
  • Realme 8i
    308544
  • Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
    223188
  • Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
    222125
  • Samsung Galaxy A22
    165959
  • Samsung Galaxy A03s
    101299

The Galaxy A03s provides good performance stability when running benchmarks for a prolonged time as it doesn't produce enough heat to put the chipset into throttling mode.

The performance itself is best described as acceptable for an entry-level phone, but honestly, at that €160 starting price, we expected a bit more. The phone is slow across the board, and you can feel it everywhere - even when scrolling the UI. Gaming is nearly impossible to enjoy, multi-tasking and operations are slow, everything takes time to happen. Once again, that would be fine for €100, but at €160 or more - it is not.

Finally, 32GB is barely enough - we ran out of storage in three days - after installing all benchmark apps, shooting our daylight and low-light samples, and capturing six videos - that was it. We'd definitely recommend purchasing the 64GB variant, especially if you hold on to your phones for longer.

Reader comments

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  • 19 hours ago
  • mFd

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  • 20 Nov 2024
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  • 26 Jul 2024
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