Samsung Galaxy A42 5G review

Quad-camera on the back

The Galaxy A42 5G offers a quad-camera setup on the back with the traditional mid-range skillset - a 48MP primary cam, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, a 5MP macro snapper, and a 5MP depth sensor. It is the same setup as Galaxy A41's, but with an additional depth imager. A single LED flash is around as well if you ever need it.

The primary camera uses a 48MP Samsung S5KGM2 ICOSELL GM2 1/2.0" sensor with 0.8µm pixels, 24mm f/1.8 lens, and Quad Bayer color filter. The latter means this camera saves 12MP photos, though a high-res 48MP shooting mode is available. Phase-detect autofocus is supported.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Samsung ISOCELL S5K4HA 1/4.0" sensor with 1.12µm pixels behind 13mm f/2.2 lens. 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 camera uses the same 5MP GalaxyCore GC5035 sensor with f/2.4 aperture and focus fixed at infinity.

The selfie camera is the same as on the Galaxy A31 - it uses the SK Hynix Hi-2021 20MP sensor - part of their Black Pearl CIS lineup, optimized explicitly for ultrawide and selfie use and rocking a 1.0µm pixels. It uses a Bayer algorithm. More specifically - "Quad Pixel function to resize the pixel areas, as well as the Quad to Bayer (Q2B) Re-mosaic algorithm that is more efficient compared to the one adopted in competing products".

Oddly, this camera saves 12MP photos - there seems to be some constant upscaling at play here. The default photos are 12MP, as we said, but you can opt for 20MP photos for whatever reason, too.

Like many other Samsung phones, the selfie on the A42 has a toggle to determine how wide the frame will be. This setting annoyingly defaults to the narrower option and hence - an 8MP crop, which is unfortunately also the norm with Samsung devices. When shooting in the wider aspect, selfies come out in 12MP.

The camera app is the same you'd find on every Samsung with a few minor design tweaks introduced with One UI 2 like the larger font for the modes and the outline for the selected mode as opposed to the solid bubble of before.

Functionally, it's mostly identical to any other camera app out there. Swiping left and right will switch between all available modes, and there's also 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 photo and video since the options aren't that many in total. Like video resolution, 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.

Only the primary camera of the Galaxy A42 supports Night Mode.

There's a Pro mode too, and, somewhat surprisingly, the A42 5G gets the full-featured one, as opposed to the more stripped-down version we typically see on lesser models. You get granular exposure controls and manual focus with peaking, up to 10s shutter speed control, but there's still no live histogram or the ability to operate anything but the main cam - perhaps if we continue to whine about those, Samsung will address them as well.

Photo quality

The 12MP default photos from the Galaxy A42's main camera are quite nice. The resolved detail is plenty, even areas of high complexity such as building decorations and foliage. The contrast is high, the noise is low, and the dynamic range is good but not over the top.

The colors are a tiny bit warmer than they should have been in this winter afternoon but still lively.

There is some minor edge softness, but it does not ruin the overall positive impressions.

We shot with Auto HDR turned on (the default setting), but it triggered only once or twice.

Main camera, 12MP

A high-res 48MP mode is available even though it is a bit hard to find - it's within the aspect settings. It does an outstanding job - the 48MP images look incredibly detailed, with great contrast and more accurate colors.

Main camera, 48MP

But can you get better 12MP shots from downsizing the 48MP ones? The short answer - yes, you can.

If you want to get a more detailed image, shooting in 48MP and then manually downsizing to 12MP is the way. Is it worth the hassle? The extra detail is artificially created by the algorithm, and you may notice some artifacts in the foliage. Still, the photos do look sharper and nicer, so when you need such a detailed photo - switch to the 48MP mode.

The 8MP ultrawide camera delivers some decent shots for the class. Here the Auto HDR triggers at least half of the time, and still, the dynamic range isn't impressive at all. But the photos do present enough detail and good contrast, the noise is reasonably low, and the automatic distortion correction does a fabulous job.

The colors look a bit dull, but that's the only real complaint we could come up with for this class.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The 5MP depth sensor is used when shooting portraits and the Galaxy A42 5G shoots some excellent portrait shots, indeed. The detail is abundant, the contrast is excellent, and the subject separation is proficient enough for this class. The artificial blur looks quite good, too.

Portraits, 12MP

The 5MP macro photos are okay, but we've seen better. The camera has a fixed focus at around 4cm, and it usually takes at least 4-5 tries to get one sharp photo. You get to capture tiny details like the fine text on bills or the intricate detailing on Christmas decorations. The quality isn't that good though, add the numerous blurry photos needed to make one right, and we'd say this macro snapper is useless for the most part.

Macro camera, 5MP

The 12MP low-light photos from the main camera are surprisingly good. They have enough detail and good contrast, the colors get to keep their saturation, and the noise is rather low.

The Auto HDR was on, and it fired in most of the shots. Even with the HDR on, though, some highlights remained blown. Still, we'd suggest leaving the Auto HDR to do whatever it thinks is right.

Main camera, 12MP

Night Mode is available only on the primary camera, and it takes about 2-3 seconds to shoot and save the photo. It introduces a slight crop, and the resulting images are 8MP. The Night Mode restores the blown highlights, reveals more detail in the shadows, cleans up some noise, and exposes more detail underneath. The contrast is better on the Night photos, too.

We do recommend using the Night Mode occasionally; it indeed does an excellent job!

Main camera with Night Mode, 8MP

The 8MP ultrawide photos aren't as good as the ones from the main camera. But if presented with enough light, the Galaxy A42 should snap some usable images - they won't shine with detail or purity, but they do fit a lot in the frame, and the colors and contrast survive the darkness.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

We also shot our usual posters with the Galaxy A42. Here's how it stack-up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Samsung Galaxy A42 5G against the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite 5G and the Realme 7 5G in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

Depending on the view mode, the front camera will either give you 12MP shots or an 8MP crop from the said shot. We captured all selfies in the native 12MP mode.

The 12MP selfies aren't excelling in detail, but they are great elsewhere - contrast, colors, dynamic range. These Galaxy A42 selfies are good, indeed, but it is good to know that when the light is not ideal, the resolved detail is going to deteriorate dramatically.

Selfie camera, 12MP

The portraits taken with the selfie camera and pretty nice - the subject separation good, and so is the background blur.

Selfie portraits, 12MP

Video quality

The Galaxy A42 5G captures 4K@30fps videos with its primary and ultrawide cameras. The mainstream 1080p mode at 30fps is available for both, but there is no 60fps support.

The video bitrate is generous at 48Mbps in 4K and about 18Mbps in 1080p. Audio is captured stereo with a 256Kbps bitrate.

The 4K clips are excellent in detail and low in noise. Overall, the Galaxy A42 handles the scene very well - the colors are accurate, the contrast is great, and the dynamic range is enough for a lively picture.

The 4K videos from the ultrawide camera are good, though not great. The resolved detail isn't spectacular as some of it gets destroyed by the noise reduction process. The colors are a bit over-saturated, too. But overall, the 4K videos look good, with nice contrast and a good dynamic range.

Electronic stabilization is available for the primary and ultrawide cameras, but it can be used only at 1080p resolution.

Finally, closing this camera section off, here is the Galaxy A42 5G in our video comparison database.

Samsung Galaxy A42 5G against the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite 5G and the Realme 7 5G in our Video compare tool