Samsung Galaxy A41 review

One UI 2.1 and Android 10

The Galaxy A41 boots Samsung's current and up-to-date software combo, consisting of Android 10 with OneUI 2.1. The Korean giant has managed to maintain a surprisingly consistent look for its custom skin for quite some time now. Most recent refinements are subtle and mostly aim to polish the experience further. Things like sizing-up important interactable components and optimizing element placement for easier reachability. All the while, existing Samsung users on older devices should feel right at home with the general layout.

OneUI 2.1 has reached a level of maturity where simplicity, order, and good organization are a given. The Galaxy A41 greets you with straight-forward lockscreen and home screens, complete with a full set of customization features as well as various widgets for the Always-On display.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • App drawer • Notification shade • Task switcher

If you are into customization, OneUI is surprisingly malleable. The built-in themes capabilities are extensive and include a rich online repository of both free and paid options. You can mix and match individual aspects of the design, like icons. You can also have the lockscreen background change automatically.

Samsung Themes

The Always On display feature can also be heavily customized. Beyond a built-in selection of watch faces, you also get interactive controls, Samsung calls FaceWidgets. Also, there is a whole section in the Samsung Theme store dedicated to AOD animations.

OAD features and customization

Samsung also gets top marks for trickling-down what were originally flagship-grade software features to the rest of its lineup. Edge screen is a notable example. Edge panels is a well-known, long-standing feature that gives you quick access to apps, actions, tools, etc. with a single swipe from the side. You can choose which side the handle is located on, as well as adjust its position along the edge of the phone.

There is also Edge lighting - it's a feature that can light up different types of peripheral glow for notifications, and as you've probably guessed, there are tons of options and styles to choose from.

Edge screen, edge panels and edge lighting

Samsung is all-inclusive when it comes to navigation options. Out-of-the-box the Galaxy A41 is set up with the old-school, familiar nav-bar. Gesture navigation is also available, and you get to pick between the One UI 2 set of actions or go back to the One UI 1 way of doing things. The former is similar to the current native Android 10 approach with a swipe-in from the sides for 'Back' and swipe-up from the bottom for Home or task switcher. The old way is by swiping up from three separate areas on the bottom that do what the on-screen buttons before them used to do. This works well alongside the default Samsung Pay swipe-up interface, if that is your cup of tea.

Navigation options

Dark mode is a relatively new feature, at least in its current, dynamic and customizable state. It skins UI elements in black and shades of dark gray and also invokes the dark modes of supported apps, which include the in-house ones as well as most of the Google suite. Oh, and the GSMArena app, since its last update. You can also make use of an automatic scheduling system that toggles Dark mode at sunrise and sunset, respectively or set your own time-based schedule.

Dark mode

Biometrics on the Galaxy A41 include an optical fingerprint reader and basic camera-only face detection. Registering a fingerprint is a bit slow process, bur you only have to do it once, right?

The Galaxy A41 is a consistent performer when it comes to fingerprint recognition - in 4 out of 5 cases it recognized our finger, but keeping it for longer than usual (say, 3 seconds) is always a must. While it is an optical reader, it still feels sluggish like the ultrasonic units used in Samsung's flagships. The laggy unlock animation doesn't help with perceived speed.

Biometric security options

It is worth noting you have the ability to speed-up facial recognition at the expense of some security. The phone even allows you to override the requirement for open eyes for the unlock to work.

As a result of some of its extensive partnerships with third parties, like Microsoft, Samsung also throws in a few MS pre-loaded apps out of the box, to accompany its already above-average collection of in-house offerings. This might be considered bloat by Android purists, but if you don't want to use them, Microsoft apps are not too much in your face.

You'd be happy to learn that the Galaxy A41 also supports FM radio and the FM app is pre-installed.

Apps • File explorer • FM radio

There are also features like seamless connectivity with Windows 10, Samsung's excellent Health suite, and SmartThings home and IoT automation hub, the Game Launcher and Game Booster, AR zone, with doodling and AR Emoji support and they are all seamlessly integrated into OneUI 2.1.

Game Launcher, Game Booster and Game Plugins

Performance and benchmarks

Samsung Galaxy A41 employs the MediaTek MT6768 Helio P65 chipset - same chip behind the the Galaxy A31. It has an octa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A75 @ 2.0 GHz and six Cortex-A55 @ 1.7 GHz.

The SoC offers a mediocre Mali-G52 MC2 GPU.

Finally, the Galaxy A41 is available on one configuration only - 4GB RAM + 64GB storage.

Let's star with some GeekBenching. The Galaxy A41 scored the lowest score in both the single- and multi-core tests. The processor offers similar performance to the Exynos 9611 as part of the Galaxy A51 even if it is a few points behind.

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  1862
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro
  1785
• Realme 6
  1726
• Motorola One Fusion+
  1705
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  1413
• Realme 6i
  1349
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  1294
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9
  1292
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  1216
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  1175

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  591
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro
  571
• Realme 6
  548
• Motorola One Fusion+
  542
• Realme 6i
  388
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9
  361
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  352
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  347
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  315
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  309

Beyond the CPU battle we can clearly see that MediaTek's G80 and G90 family of chips, as well as Snapdragon's 700 line and Huawei's mid-range Kirin 810 are all a noticeable step above in performance. All the while, they can be found in handset within the same rough price bracket as the Galaxy A31.

The GPU scores are simply inferior to the competitions.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  49
• Realme 6
  45
• Realme 6i
  43
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro
  36
• Motorola One Fusion+
  34
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  19
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  17
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  16
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  12

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  31
• Huawei P40 Lite
  30
• Realme 6
  27
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro
  26
• Motorola One Fusion+
  25
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  12
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  12
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  11
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  10
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  8.9
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  7.4

And same goes for the compound AnTuTu test - all recent Samsung offers occupy the bottom of the chart.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  325777
• Realme 6
  288931
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro
  279625
• Motorola One Fusion+
  267980
• Realme 6i
  202275
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9
  200414
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  196545
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  175363
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  170044
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  167395
• Samsung Galaxy A31
  151815

The benchmark scores are not in favor of the Galaxy A41 for sure. The Helio P65 might seemed good in paper, but it is the weakest chip in this price bracket, especially when it comes to graphic performance. The A41 is not suited for 1080p gaming and some lower-res switch is required for proper experience.

While using the Android and One UI, we observed a couple of hiccups and longer than usual loading times, either masked by slow animations or just by a moment of unresponsiveness. It is not deal breaking, sure, but it is frustrating that you can have much better performance at the same price. Then again - it won't be on an AMOLED screen, so there is that, too.