Samsung Galaxy A23 5G review

Display

The Samsung Galaxy A23 5G features the same 6.6-inch PLS LCD screen as the 4G Galaxy A23 model, but the refresh rate has gone from 90Hz up to 120Hz. The resolution is up to par for this budget class - 1,080 x 2,408 pixels or 400ppi. The screen is protected with a flat sheet of Gorilla Glass 5.

The waterdrop-like notch is back, and we can't say that it's a bigger eyesore than the widespread small perforations. It looks more natural, at least.

The display supports a wide color gamut, but there is no HDR video support. There are no promises for specific brightness either.

Just like it was with the Galaxy A23 LTE, the Galaxy A23 5G omits both proximity and ambient light sensors. The proximity is what Samsung calls virtual proximity sensing, a feature that uses input from the accelerometer and the selfie camera, among other data (i.e. apps you are using). It's not as reliable as the real deal, but it does an acceptable job - most of the time.

The absence of an ambient light sensor is baffling, though. The phone relies solely on the selfie camera for this, but that's not precise or quick enough, and the auto-brightness control is all over the place - it may dim the screen in bright conditions, or sometimes the screen would become too bright at night.

Let's talk about the panel's max brightness now. We captured 430nits of maximum brightness when using the brightness slider manually. Combined with the rather deep black level, the contrast ratio turned out to be an excellent one at 1328:1.

After a long battle with the auto brightness behavior, we were able to get a slightly better performance at 508nits and a contrast of 1254:1.

The minimum brightness at point white was 2.9 nits.

Color accuracy

There are no color options in the display settings, so what you get is what you are stuck with. The good news is that the screen turned out to be fairly accurate towards DCI-P3 targets, except for the bluish whites and grays.

Refresh rate

The Galaxy A23 5G has a 120Hz display, and the Display Settings allow you to choose between Standard and Adaptive modes.

The Standard, as expected, is fixed at 60Hz at all times.

The Adaptive is not as adaptive as the name suggests - it uses 120Hz for all compatible apps and the interface and reverts back to 60Hz when you are not interacting with the screen, you've launched an incompatible app, or when you are watching/streaming videos.

Battery life

The Samsung Galaxy A23 5G has a large 5,000mAh battery - the same capacity as on the 4G model and many other similarly priced phones. It has a rather efficient LCD screen and a 6nm Snapdragon 695 chipset, so we expected an excellent endurance rating.

And we got one! The Galaxy A23 5G scored 138 hours on our battery life test, acing all four test scenarios - calls, web browsing, video playback, and standby performance.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

The Galaxy A23 5G offers the same battery life as the 4G model, which is quite nice.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test is done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns, check out our all-time battery test results chart, where you can also find all phones we've tested.

Charging speed

The Galaxy A23 5G supports Samsung's 25W fast wired charging, but unlike the 4G version, it ships only with a USB-C cable. You have to purchase the 25W Samsung PPS adapter separately.

We tested the phone with the said adapter, and the charging speed is indeed impressive. The battery went from dead to 30% in just 15 minutes, while we recorded 58% at the 30min mark.

A full charge took exactly 68 minutes, an excellent speed for thus budget segment.

Speaker

The Galaxy A23 5G has a single, bottom-firing speaker. It scored a Very Good mark on our loudness test, and indeed, it sounds rather loud in real life.

The audio quality is good - the vocals are good, there is minor bass presence, and the high range is fine, even if not great. Overall, we are happy with the experience as the range is balanced instead of going towards extremes.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.