Samsung Galaxy A06 review

A familiar dual-camera setup

Samsung hasn't really shaken up things in the camera department. The Galaxy A06 still has a pair of rear-facing snappers, out of which only one is effectively usable - the 50MP camera. The 2MP macro is complementary, so to speak.

• Wide (main): 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL (S5K)JN1, f/1.8, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, PDAF; 1080p@30fps
• Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
• Front camera: 8 MP GalaxyCore gc08a8, f/2.0, 1/4", 1.12µm, fixed focus; 1080p@30fps

The Galaxy A06 has a pretty modest camera setup. The main snapper is a 50MP in-house unit - the ISOCELL (S5K)JN1, more commonly known as the JN1. It is not a particularly large sensor, at least not as large as, say, the Samsung ISOCESS S5KGN8, used in some of the company's higher-end phones. It has phase detection autofocus, but that's about the only extra on board. There is no OIS, and video capture is limited to 1080p. However, that seems to be a chipset limitation rather than a sensor one.

The camera app is the same as you'd find on every Samsung phone these days. You only get Pro mode on the main camera, while night mode can be used across the main and selfie cams.

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

The main camera on the Galaxy A06 captures 12.5MP binned stills by default. These look passable but largely unimpressive. The frame has a decent amount of detail, but colors look a bit off.

Contrast isn't great, and neither is dynamic range. There is quite a bit of noise, especially on uniform surfaces.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 12.5MP main camera samples

The Galaxy A06 is not very good at handling faces and skin tones. You rarely get a flattering mugshot even if there is plenty of light. Subject detection and separation in Portrait photos are not half bad, but the phone often struggles to produce sharp photos which are in focus.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

You can force the Galaxy A06 to capture in 50MP mode. For most phones, that's not something you typically want to do, but the 50MP shots are noticeably better in this case. They are sharper, have a lot more fine detail, and are also cleaner. If you can deal with the bigger file sizes, you are probably better off shooting in 50MP mode.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 50MP main camera samples

The Galaxy A06 lacks a dedicated telephoto camera but can still do digital zoom on its main 50MP camera. There is a 2x toggle in the camera UI. At 2x, photos look decidedly soft and even a bit blurry. Unless you really need to, you are probably better off avoiding zoom shots.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

Selfie camera

Selfies from the 8MP front-facing camera are quite decent, considering the hardware we are working with. The focal plane is wide and pretty forgiving. Faces come out looking pretty natural with good skin tones.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 8MP selfie camera samples

Skin texture isn't particularly detailed, but some detail is still coming through. Dynamic range could definitely be better.

Low-light camera quality

The Galaxy A06 has pretty poor low-light performance. Detail is decent, but there is a lot of noise and softness all throughout the frame. The phone has difficulties focusing as well.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

In case you were wondering, 2x zoom isn't better. In fact, as expected, these shots are still a bit worse.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom low-light samples

The Galaxy A06 has a dedicated night mode. You have to toggle it manually since the phone won't do it automatically for you. You probably want to go through the extra effort since night mode greatly helps quality. It cleans up most of the noise in the frame, which is admirable.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples

Low-light selfies look pretty bad. Noise is the main issue yet again.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 8MP selfie camera low-light samples

Thankfully, night mode also works on the selfie camera and helps quality a lot. Most of the noise is gone, and you even get some skin tones and texture coming through.

Samsung Galaxy A06: 8MP selfie camera night mode samples

Video capture quality

Both the main and selfie cameras on the Galaxy A06 cap out at 1080p video resolution. Videos get captured with a standard h.264/AVC video stream at around 20 Mbps and 48 kHz AAC audio inside an MP4 container. Unfortunately, the Galaxy A06 captures mono audio. You can also save some space and go for h.265/HEVC video encoding.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

Unfortunately, the Galaxy A06 lacks any kind of stabilization. There is no OIS and no EIS.

FullHD video from the main camera looks quite poor - the color rendition is off and there is heavy oversharpening. Additionally, there is no video stabilization here whatsoever.

Selfie videos are pretty washed out, with insufficient contrast and dynamic range. Colors aren't particularly true to life either.