Samsung Galaxy A23 5G review

A quad-camera on a budget

The Galaxy A23 5G has the same four cameras as the Galaxy A23, and while it's a basic setup, we do appreciate having OIS on the main camera. Indeed, the A23 5G features a 50MP OIS primary shooter, a 5MP ultrawide cam, a 2MP macro eye and a 2MP depth sensor. There is also an 8MP selfie on the opposite side, in the notch.

The main camera relies on a 50MP Samsung JN1 sensor with a Tetracell color filter (Samsung's speak for Quad Bayer). It's a 1/2.76" type with 0.64µm pixels (1.28µm after the 4-to-1 binning). The sensor sits behind a 26mm f/1.8 optically stabilized lens. PDAF is available, naturally. This is the only camera to support Night Mode.

The ultrawide camera uses a 5MP GalaxyCore 5035 sensor with a 13mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity.

The macro and depth cams utilize 2MP GalaxyCore GC02 sensors. The macro camera uses a 26mm f/2.4 lens, and the focus is fixed at about 4-5 cm away.

The selfie camera packs an 8MP GalaxyCore sensor with 1.12µm pixels and a 25mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is once again fixed.

The camera app is the same as you'd find on every Samsung phone these days. Swiping left and right will switch between all available modes, and there's an option to re-arrange or remove some of the modes from the viewfinder. Vertical swipes in either direction will switch between front and rear cameras.

The settings icon is located in the upper left corner of the screen and gives you fine control over the cameras. You don't get separate setting screens for photos and videos since the options aren't that many in total. Like grid lines, location data, etc., the usual stuff can be found there. You can also turn on and off the Scene Optimizer. Once on, you still have to toggle it on a second time from the main UI, though. Keep that in mind.

Camera app

Night Mode works only on the main camera. There's a Pro mode for the main camera, too, but it's a rather basic one - you cannot tweak the shutter speed of the focus. What you can change is ISO, exposure compensation and white balance.

The full resolution mode on the primary is triggered from the aspect options, which is a rather unintuitive bit.

Photo quality

The main camera on the Samsung Galaxy A23 5G saves 12.5MP photos by default. The sample images we collected during sunny autumn day turned out great. There is plenty of resolved detail, low noise levels, good dynamic range and superb contrast. The colors are true-to-life, too.

Sure, the corners are soft, and the camera may have a hard time resolving some of the more intricate detail, but we still find the photos very nice.

Main camera, 12.5MP

There is a dedicated 2x toggle on the viewfinder, but there is no high-quality digital zoom available. The 2x zoomed photos are just upscaled crops from the standard output.

2x main cam, 12.5MP

There is a dedicated 50MP mode oddly placed in the aspect ratio menu. The unbinned photos are okay, but nothing impressive or useful in real life. The file size is large, while the detail is average.

Main camera, 50MP

The 5MP ultrawide camera is as basic as they come. The contrast and dynamic range are acceptable. The noise is kept low, and the automatic corner distortion correction works fine. But the resolved detail is rather poor, and the colors are dull. Overall, not a great showing.

Ultrawide camera, 5MP

The Galaxy A23 5G packs a 2MP depth sensor, which assists the primary camera when taking portraits. And those turned out surprisingly good - the subjects are detailed and sharp, well-exposed, with good colors and low noise.

The subject separation, while not flagship-worthy, is still pretty good, and the simulated blur is quite convincing.

Portraits, 12.5MP

The Galaxy A23 5G also comes with a 2MP macro camera with a fixed focus at 4cm away. Unfortunately, the photos are rather underwhelming - the detail is poor, and the colors are somewhat off, but hey, the dynamic range and the contrast are fine.

The biggest issue remains the fixed focus - it's hard to frame your subject in the camera's sweet spot, and that's why you will have to take several photos just to be sure.

Macro camera, 2MP

The 8MP selfie camera takes good selfies when the light conditions are good but produces noisy and blurry photos when the light is not ideal. The selfies we took around our office at noon are average in detail and noisy, and the colors are not always accurate. But they will do just fine for sharing on social networks, but the image quality won't hold to any scrutiny.

Selfies, 8MP

It turned out that the main camera's laid-back processing is well suited for low-light scenes. The photos are nicely detailed with good contrast and okay dynamic range. There is no HDR or Night Mode involved here, so there are clipped highlights occasionally. The color rendering is the only caveat here - everything looks either desaturated or too reddish.

Main cam, 12.5MP

The Night Mode works only on the main camera and takes 2s to shoot and 3s to save the photo. It restores the clipped highlights and reveals more detail in certain shadows. The Night Mode also helps achieve a more realistic color saturation. Unfortunately, the photos turned out softer than we would expect.

Still, we think the Night Mode photos look better for their improved colors and highlights, and we suggest using this feature when possible.

Main cam Night Mode, 12.5MP

Here are a bunch of 2x zoomed low-light photos - they are upscaled crops from the standard ones.

2x main camera, 12.5MP

The 5MP ultrawide photos we took at night have good exposure, but that's about the best we can say about them. The resolved detail is poor, the noise reduction has smeared both noise and detail, and the colors are off, too.

Ultrawide camera, 5MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Samsung Galaxy A23 5G. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Galaxy A23 5G against the Galaxy A33 5G and the Realme 10 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Samsung Galaxy A23 5G supports up to 1080p@30fps video capturing on its primary, ultrawide and selfie cameras.

Optical stabilization is available for the main camera. Optional electronic stabilization is available on the primary and the ultrawide cameras, but there is no real-time preview - you will see the result after your video has been saved.

Here are samples from the main and ultrawide cameras to see the EIS performance for yourself.

The video bitrate is about 17Mbps, while audio is recorded in stereo at 256kbps bitrate.

Both the main and the ultrawide camera capture very good 1080p videos - the resolved detail is plenty for a Full HD video, the contrast and the dynamic range are good, and the colors stay accurate.

The ultrawide camera offers a pretty wide field of view, and the corners are soft, which is expected for a camera with such a lens.

There is a 2X toggle for videos, too, but it's a crop and upscale from the main output, so there is no point in showing the results here.

Finally, the low-light video from the primary camera is alright - it's bright and colorful, even if the colors aren't accurate. The resolved detail is low, and the video is noisy, though.

Finally, the Samsung Galaxy A23 5G in our video comparison database.

1080p: Galaxy A23 5G against the Realme 10 and the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G in our Video compare tool