Samsung Galaxy A32 review

Android 11 and OneUI 3.1, all of the updates

The Galaxy A32 is launching with the latest One UI 3.1 and Android 11 combo out-of-the-box - the same treatment as the A52. Like most other recent Samsungs, the A32 should get 3 major OS updates, as well as 4 years of security patches. Theoretically, your Galaxy A32 should get Android 14 in 2023. That's a great commitment to support if we've ever seen one.

To be fair, visually, One UI 3.1 hardly represents a major leap forward compared to 3.0 and even 2.5. Still, there are some subtle differences worth going over. For example, the default lock screen shortcuts - dialer and camera, are now monochrome - they used to match the respective apps' colors. Oddly enough, if you pick different apps, they will keep their colors - it's not a first-party vs. third-party type of differentiation either.

Among the functional changes on the lock screen is the added wellbeing widget - you can now keep track of how much time you've spent on your phone without even unlocking it. Meanwhile, the always-on display settings have been simplified.

Lock screen

Unlocking the phone is best done using the fingerprint reader embedded in the display. The option is there if you want to use face unlock. It can be more convenient in certain situations, but it generally is less secure since it's just based on the selfie camera. Iris scanners are sadly a thing of the past now, not that an A32 would have gotten one.

Biometrics and security

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, the portion of the screen below the last notification would remain visible but darkened.

While we're here, the quick toggles can now be edited directly from the plus button at the end of the list instead of going into the menu.

Coming courtesy of Android 11, there is now Notification history, too. 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.

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.

Bubbles is an extension of the Conversations feature, another new development. You tap on an icon in the initial incoming message notification. It turns into a conversation that you can then minimize to a bubble, or what was known as a 'chat head' - originally Facebook Messenger's default way of dealing with chats.

Notifications and quick toggles

Introduced with Google's latest OS version, the new media controls have been implemented in One UI as well. You get a stack of the active audio playback apps 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 or using Samsung's Music share feature. 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

Yet another of the native Android 11 improvements that Samsung also includes in One UI 3 is the ability to pin apps to the top of the sheet with Share options. It's one of those things that make you wonder how come it had to wait until v11 for us to get there. Things are much better now, but still, we'd like to be able to remove some of the options, too, because that list could sure use some decluttering.

One more thing that Google tweaked in this year's release is the permission handling, and Samsung's implemented it in One UI 3. With this version, you will now see a new prompt for permissions every time an app requests it, letting you deny permission, allow it only while using the app, or just for this one time. If an app requires constant access to permission, you also get a fourth option that takes you to a setting page where you can provide it. This is done to prevent the user from accidentally selecting this option while blazing through the permission dialogs.

Share options pinning • Permissions handling

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.

The dialer comes with a bunch of cosmetic changes itself. You get to pick one of two layouts for the in-call screen. 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.

Settings UI • Samsung dialer

There are plenty of other smaller visual changes scattered all throughout One UI 3.1. 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.

Similarly to the A52, the Galaxy A32 has a rich selection of additional Samsung software features. Things like the Edge panels interface, Bixby and full integration of the SmartThings platform. There is also Game launcher, the hub for all your games, which also provides options for limiting distraction when gaming is here to stay as well.

Samsung still elected not to include some of its more advanced features on the Galaxy A32, most notably Dex. Even in its absence, though, you can still get a lot of its functionality through the Link to Windows feature that has been implemented in cooperation with Microsoft.

Synthetic benchmarks

The Galaxy A32 has the Mediatek Helio G80 chip inside, an okay performer but one that's going to have a hard time competing with rival offerings in this price bracket. It features an octa-core CPU in a 2+6 configuration (2x2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) and a Mali-G52 MC2 GPU. A number of RAM and storage options are available, ranging from 4GB/64GB all the way to 8GB/128GB. Our review unit is the 4GB/128GB variant.

The CPU does have two Cortex-A75 cores that can put out decent numbers for more demanding operations, but most competitors use designs based on the newer A76, and they're often clocked higher than the 2.0GHz in the G80 chipset. So the Galaxy A32 results are showing it's not quite up there with rivals' results in GeekBench. It's an insignificantly small improvement over the Galaxy A31 and notably behind the A52 and most other phones you can get for the money.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  2196
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  2009
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  1980
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  1910
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  1848
• Realme 7 Pro
  1811
• Realme 7 5G
  1794
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Poco X3 NFC
  1777
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  1775
• vivo V20
  1686
• Realme 7
  1681
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  1666
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  1577
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  1385
• Realme 6i
  1349
• Realme Narzo 20
  1328
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  1216
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  1034

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  661
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  659
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  643
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  608
• Realme 7 5G
  598
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  595
• Realme 7 Pro
  576
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Poco X3 NFC
  568
• vivo V20
  554
• Realme 7
  536
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  525
• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  522
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  517
• Realme 6i
  388
• Realme Narzo 20
  385
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  352
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  311
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  169

The Antutu results largely mirror the CPU-only GeekBench ones. The A32 is significantly more powerful than the A12, but it's no match for the Snapdragon 720s or the Dimensity 800s of this world.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  324686
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  318882
• Realme 7 5G
  318535
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  312461
• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  295562
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442
• Realme 7
  292828
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  291407
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  288732
• Poco X3 NFC
  283750
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  279579
• Realme 7 Pro
  278414
• vivo V20
  276006
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  261282
• Realme 6i
  202275
• Realme Narzo 20
  193912
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  174332
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  173611
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  151815
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  107189

The Galaxy A32's GPU is struggling a bit with the high-res display, as evidenced by the results in GFXBench.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Realme 7 5G
  35
• Realme 7
  34
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  34
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  34
• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  34
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  33
• Poco X3 NFC
  33
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  33
• vivo V20
  31
• Realme 7 Pro
  30
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  29
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  26
• Realme 6i
  16
• Realme Narzo 20
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  13
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  7.7

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  56
• Realme Narzo 20
  32
• Realme 6i
  31
• Realme 7 5G
  31
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  30
• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  29
• Realme 7
  28
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  28
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  28
• Poco X3 NFC
  27
• vivo V20
  27
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  26
• Realme 7 Pro
  25
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  23
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  12
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  12

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Realme 7
  20
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  20
• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  20
• Realme 7 5G
  20
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  19
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  19
• Poco X3 NFC
  19
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  19
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  19
• Realme 7 Pro
  18
• vivo V20
  18
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  17
• Realme Narzo 20
  16
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  14
• Realme 6i
  9.4
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  9.3
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  8
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  7.1
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  3.3

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  33
• Realme Narzo 20
  18
• Realme 6i
  17
• Realme 7
  17
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  17
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  17
• Realme 7 5G
  17
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16
• Poco X3 NFC
  16
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  16
• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  15
• vivo V20
  15
• Realme 7 Pro
  14
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  8.1
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  7
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  6.6
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  5

The uphill battle continues in 3DMark, where the majority of competitors score 2x higher than the Galaxy A32.

3DMark SSE ES 3.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  3308
• Realme 7 5G
  3163
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  3147
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  2819
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  2810
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  2789
• Realme 7
  2709
• Poco X3 NFC
  2689
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  2683
• vivo V20
  2593
• Realme 7 Pro
  2541
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  2529
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2166
• Realme Narzo 20
  1400
• Realme 6i
  1363
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1323
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  1150
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  1127
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  365

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno4 Z 5G
  3180
• Realme 7 5G
  3028
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  3003
• Realme 7
  2772
• Realme Narzo 20 Pro
  2735
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  2609
• Motorola Moto G 5G
  2608
• Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite
  2595
• Poco X3 NFC
  2495
• vivo V20
  2451
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  2406
• Realme 7 Pro
  2358
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2012
• Realme Narzo 20
  1382
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1371
• Realme 6i
  1347
• Motorola Moto G Pro
  1125
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  894
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  612

The benchmark scores confirm what we already expected - the Galaxy A32's chipset isn't competitive. The phone isn't slow, strictly speaking, and the 90Hz refresh rate does make for a mostly fluid experience. However, there are occasional hiccups when shuffling through the UI, the unlocking is on the slow side of the spectrum, Night mode processing takes a while and introduces crashes more often than we'd like - overall, the phone would have benefited from a better SoC, but there's only so much you can fit in a certain budget.