Samsung Galaxy A33 5G review

Main camera gets OIS, front camera gets 4K videos

The Galaxy A33 5G has the same cameras as seen on the Galaxy A32 5G but with a couple of improvements - the main camera gets OIS, while both the primary and the front camera now support 4K video capturing.

So, the Galaxy A33 5G has a 48MP OIS primary, an 8MP ultrawide, a 5MP macro, and a 2MP depth cameras on its back. There is a 13MP front camera for selfies.

The primary camera uses a 48MP Sony IMX 582 1/2" sensor with 0.8µm pixels and 26mm f/1.8 optically stabilized lens. It is quite rare to see OIS in this mid-range class, and we appreciate it. The camera has a Quad Bayer color filter, which means this camera normally does 12MP photos with 4-in-1 binning, though a high-res 48MP shooting mode is available (within the aspect ratio options, go figure). Phase-detect autofocus is supported.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Sony IMX 355 imager with 1.12µm pixel pitch. The sensor is behind a 13mm f/2.2 lens, and the focus is fixed.

The macro camera uses a 5MP GalaxyCore GC5035 sensor with f/2.4 aperture and focus fixed at about 4cm.

The depth sensor uses a 2MP GalaxyCore module with f/2.4 aperture and focus fixed at infinity.

The selfie camera relies on a 13MP Sony IMX 258 1/3.06" sensor with 1.12µm pixels. It sits behind a 26mm f/2.2 lens, and the focus is fixed.

The camera app is the same 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

The primary, the ultrawide, and the selfie cameras support Night Mode.

There's a Pro mode, too. You get granular exposure controls and manual focus with peaking, up to 10s shutter speed control, but no live histogram or the option to operate anything but the main cam.

Camera app

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

Photo quality

We chose to capture photos with both Scene Optimizer, and Auto HDR turned on as intended by Samsung. The Scene Optimizer option rarely makes a difference, though the HDR does help in certain scenes, and the tonal extremes are usually well developed.

So, the default 12MP photos from the primary camera are superb for the mid-range class. They are sharp and offer more than enough resolved detail, good contrast and pleasant dynamic. There is no noise either.

You can't but notice the usual Samsung processing - all the photos show eye-popping colors, and the foliage presentation, while okay, is not ideal, especially across the grass.

We know many people like the saturated colors, and they will be more than happy to post these overprocessed photos on social networks. But if these over-saturated images are not your cup of tea, turning off the Scene Optimizer and the Auto HDR might help. This way you will reduce the image processing involvement, though it still may not get you the natural look you were hoping for.

Main camera, 12MP

There is a 2x zoom toggle on the viewfinder, and it does provide digital zoom of high quality, something we like to call 'lossless'. Basically, the camera app seems to be shooting in 48MP and cropping the center of the images. Per-pixel sharpness isn't on par with the default images, but it is noticeably higher than what regular digital zoom would have offered.

The rest is pretty much the same as on the regular photos - popping colors, satisfying dynamic and high contrast.

Main camera 2x zoom, 12MP

There is a 48MP mode available within the aspect ratio settings. It shoots high-res photos, which offer good levels of resolved detail for such (un-binned) photos, and they look a bit less processed. These photos don't make sense if you are going to keep them in the original 48MP resolution and about 20MB file size. But we do recommend using this mode if you have the means to downsize those to 12MP - doing so will offer you more per-pixel detail than the standard output and allow for a more natural-looking photo with higher sharpness and previously unavailable intricacy across some images.

Main camera, 48MP

We are quite happy with the 8MP ultrawide photos we took with the dedicated camera. This camera has an f/2.2 13mm lens and provides a pretty wide field of view even with the automatic distortion correction applied.

This ultrawide offers good detail levels and incredibly low noise. The contrast is good, and so is the dynamic range, while the colors are handled the Samsung's way - punchy and likable, though we can see why they won't be everyone's favorite.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The 5MP macro camera has a fixed focus at 4cm away, and it takes a while to get the handle of it. Once you get used to the fixed focus and hit the focus sweet spot, you will get good closeups - detailed, with high contrast and popping colors. There is a lot of visible noise, but as it turns out, it doesn't get that much in the way.

Macro camera, 5MP

The Galaxy A33 5G has a dedicated 2MP depth sensor that assists the main camera when taking portrait photos. And those turned out unexpectedly good considering the phone's low-end mid-range position.

The subjects were always detailed and well exposed with likable colors. The blur turned out rather convincing, too.

The subject separation is what surprised us, as it is quite good on the Galaxy A33 5G. It is not as proficient as on flagships, and the transitions are masked with a different kind of a blur, but overall - everything looks good even when you pixel peep at those photos. Not a professional job, obviously, but a more than enough for sharing with your friends.

Portraits, 12MP

Like on many other Samsung phones, the selfie on the A33 5G has a toggle to determine how wide the frame will be. This setting annoyingly defaults to the narrower option and hence - about an 8MP crop. When shooting in the wider aspect, selfies come out in 13MP.

So, the full-size 13MP selfies with took with the Galaxy A33 5G are among the better ones you can get from a selfie camera these days. They have enough detail, though the noise reduction and the heavy Samsung processing smears some of it and are responsible for the overall oil painting look.

The contrast is high, while the dynamic range is good, but not over the board.

Selfies, 13MP

The portraits we took with the selfie camera and nice - the subject separation is good, and we liked the background blur. The detail is less than on the regular selfies, though, probably hurt by the even more intense processing.

Portrait selfies, 13MP

Now, let's move to some low-light photos.

The main camera saves some great photos at night that don't need Night Mode as there is already involved some multi-frame stacking. The images we took are detailed and sharp, with satisfyingly low noise levels, and excellent color saturation and contrast.

The exposure and dynamic range deserve praise, as well.

Just as on some previous mid-range Galaxy A models, the optical image stabilization allowed for slower shutter speeds and blur-free photos, while the Auto HDR helped where necessary to restore some blown highlights.

Main camera, 12MP

Using the Night Mode on the main camera saves sharper, cleaner and less noisy photos, and for these improvements, we can recommend it. It will expose more detail in the shadows, too. But you should also know that it will also boost the exposure and make for some even brighter photos (especially the skies) that may not look as realistic as you might have hoped for.

Main cam Night Mode, 12MP

The 2x zoomed photos have their resolved detail noticeably reduced, and everything looks like an oil painting, but the processing managed to keep them usable, and if you need a zoomed photo at night, you should use the zoom toggle even if it won't provide as lossless zoom as when shooting in broad daylight.

Standard 2x • Standard 2x • Night Mode 2x • Night Mode 2x

The 8MP ultrawide photos we took at night were okay. They are usable as they have just enough detail for that, the colors are mostly preserved, and the exposure is not that bad. Some of the photos are overrun by noise, and they are still okay, so if you must use this camera, it will get the job done in an acceptable manner.

Ultrawide cam, 8MP

The Night Mode does help a lot - just like on the main camera, it saves more detailed and sharper photos, clean of noise and with better exposure and a brighter look. We recommend using the Night Mode here.

Ultrawide Night Mode, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Samsung Galaxy A33 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 A33 5G against Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G and the Realme 9 Pro+ in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Galaxy A33 5G captures 4K@30fps videos with its primary and selfie cameras. The mainstream 1080p mode at 30fps is available across all cameras, while 1080p at 60fps works only on the main camera.

Electronic stabilization is available for the primary, ultrawide and selfie cameras, but it can be used only at 1080p resolution. Of course, the optical stabilization on the primary camera is always active.

The video bitrate is generous at 48-49Mbps in 4K and 17Mbps in 1080p. Audio is captured stereo with a 256Kbps bitrate, and the sound is good across all videos.

So, the 4K videos from the main camera are superb - there is plenty of resolved detail and good sharpness, and there is absolutely no noise. The dynamic range is noticeably wide, but it didn't hurt the contrast, and we are happy with what we saw. The colors are a bit punchier than they should have been, as usual.

You can shoot 4K 2x zoomed video, and it's as nice as the regular one even if the resolved detail and overall sharpness aren't on par. There is some good processing involved as the video isn't just a simple digital zoom with crop and upscale and halved detail. So, we'd consider this footage good enough to make sense using it when an occasion presents itself.

The 4K low-light videos from the main camera offer realistic exposure, good enough detail and preserved colors. They are quite noisy, but it doesn't exactly ruin them. Thus, here comes another Usable mark - nothing special, but we've seen a ton of worse samples.

And, finally, we liked the 1080p clips from the ultrawide camera. They are sharper than we expected, with excellent resolved detail and an accurate white balance with realistic colors (how about that?!). The contrast could have been a bit higher, though now we have an outstanding dynamic range. The noise is kept incredibly low for such an ultrawide camera and, overall, these are among the best 1080p clips we've seen UW cameras do lately.

Finally, here is the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

Galaxy A33 5G against Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G and the Realme 9 Pro+ in our Video compare tool