Samsung Galaxy A52 5G review

Your typical quad-camera setup

The Galaxy A52 5G offers the same setup as the Galaxy A52. There is a 64MP primary camera with, a 12MP ultrawide unit, a 5MP macro snapper with fixed focus and a 5MP depth sensor. The selfie camera at the front has a 32MP sensor.

The primary camera uses a 64MP Sony IMX682 1/1.7" sensor with 0.8µm pixels and 24mm 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 16MP photos with 4-in-1 binning, though a high-res 64MP shooting mode is available. Phase-detect autofocus is supported.

The ultrawide camera uses a 13MP 1/3" imager with 1.12µm pixel pitch. The sensor is behind a 13mm f/2.2 lens and the focus is fixed. Note that this camera is advertised as 12MP and it saves 12MP photos. We suspect some cropping is needed for the automatic distortion correction.

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

The depth senor uses the same 5MP GalaxyCore GC5035 module with f/2.4 aperture and focus fixed at infinity.

The selfie camera is the same as on the Galaxy A52 - it uses the 32MP Sony IMX616 1/2.8" sensor with 0.8µm pixels and Quad-Bayer filter. Hence, it is meant to produce 8MP stills (in its default mode it does 3264 x 2448 pixel stills). There is a 32MP mode available if you need it though.

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 photo and video 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.

The primary and the ultrawide snappers 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.

The full resolution modes on the primary and the selfie camera are triggered from the aspect options, which is a rather unintuitive bit.

Photo quality

Samsung's Scene optimizer doesn't really make a huge difference in most shots - whether it was on or off, we still got the same photo. While at times a bit sluggish, its detection never actually tripped up and ruined a shot for us, so there is no benefit in turning it off. Maybe it can make a difference in very specific shots, but more often than not its presence is unfelt.

In contrast, the Auto HDR mode is very trigger happy and it used HDR in ALL shots. We snapped a couple without, too, but we will talk about these in a bit.

So, the default 16MP samples were shot with Auto HDR and scene optimizer, as intended by Samsung. And these are some solid photos with enough detail, excellent contrast, accurate colors and wide dynamic range (thanks, HDR!).

There is noticeable noise in areas of uniform colors, but it's not too distracting.

We've seen sharper images from this class, sure, but we suspect the HDR processing might be responsible for the lower-than-expected sharpness and possible loss of intricate detail.

Main camera, 16MP

The non-HDR samples are indeed sharper althuogh that comes from more agressive processing rather than having too much extra detail. The only other difference is the less developed tonal extremes, which is expected.

Auto HDR • no HDR

The Galaxy A52 5G offers lossless 2x zoom thanks to its high-res 64MP sensor. The images we shot at 2x magnifications were solid with excellent detail and all the benefits from the regular non-zoomed photos - lively and accurate colors, superb contrast and dynamic range.

Each 2x zoomed photo takes about a second or two to shoot. We'd guess it's done by shooting a couple of 64MP images, stacking them, and then cropping the center. We suspect that's the case because the 2x photos offer much more detail and sharpness than the default 64MP photos. Also, if your hand isn't particularly steady, you may get a blurry photo on occassion despite the presence of OIS.

Main camera 2x zoom, 16MP

And here are a bunch of full res 64MP photos. There don't have that much extra detail, but do excel in everything else as the default 16MP photos.

We tried downscaling the 64MP down to 16MP and it turned out there are no gains when compared to the regular 16MP stills. The default images weren't outdone even in areas of higher complexity. And given you can do great 2x zoom by using the 2x toggle, we see no reason whatsoever of shooting in the full 64MP resolution.

Main camera, 64MP

The 12MP photos saved by the ultrawide camera are some of the best you can get from a mid-range smartphone. They offer good detail levels and the gentler noise reduction surely helped for that. The colors and contrast are commendable, the dynamic range, too, thanks to the Auto HDR.

The automatic distortion correction seems proficient, too, but the price you are paying is noticeable corner softness. That's common with this type of cameras. For now, only the flagship-grade UW snappers with freeform lens can do better.

Ultrawide camera, 12MP

Contrary on what we observed with the main camera, shooting without HDR with the ultrawide camera won't be yielding sharper images.

Auto HDR • no HDR

The 5MP macro camera has its focus fixed at 4cm, and shooting a sharp picture involves a lot of trial and error. Eventually, you will learn how to hit the sweet spot - you will begin to recognize when your subject is on focus. It takes a bunch of tries and a ton of ruined photos, of course.

When you hit the sweet spot the 5MP macro shots on the Galaxy A52 5G are quite good - they are sharp and detailed, colorful and with high contrast. They are ideal for your Instagram or Facebook for sure, but given the tough learning curve and limited capabilities, we can imagine only a handful of users shooting with this camera.

Macro camera, 5MP

The Galaxy A52 5G has a dedicated 5MP depth sensor, which assists the main camera when taking portrait photos. The portrait photos we took are good, but not ideal.

The subjects are detailed and well exposed, while the blur is rather convincing. The subject separation is a mixed bag. It works well when the backgrounds and the haircuts are simpler. But when dealing with busier backgrounds or messy haircuts it immediately starts to falter.

Portraits, 16MP

Now, let's move to some low-light samples. The main camera produces great photos at night. They are nicely detailed, with satisfyingly low noise levels, excellent color saturation and contrast. The exposure and dynamic range are also praise-worthy for images that were taking without Night Mode.

The Auto HDR helped where necessary, while the optical image stabilization allowed for slower shutter speeds and blur-free photos.

Main camera, 16MP

Night Mode is available on the Galaxy A52 5G, of course. When used on the main camera, it saves a cropped 12MP photo for some reason.

Those 12MP images aren't a major improvement over the regular ones. We noticed it reveals a bit more detail in foliage and some shadows, restores minor parts of blown highlights, and cleans noise, although the cleaning costs fine detail at times.

We see no point in using the Night Mode on the main camera until it is really necessary. The camera is equipped well to handle low-light photography on the go, Samsung's processing is proficient, too, and yields natural-looking images.

Main camera Night mode, 12MP

There is no lossless zoom at night though. If you shoot 2x photo, you will get the simple digital zoom done by crop and upscale.

Main camera 2x zoom, 16MP

The 12MP ultrawide photos are okay - you can see what's on them, the detail isn't half bad as on most mid-range snappers of this type, and the colors retain good saturation. The exposure is actually better than we expected.

Ultrawide camera, 12MP

Night Mode makes a big difference here and we suggest using for the majority of your ultrawide photos at night. You would get better exposure, less noise and even better colors. Just don't expect sharpness gains and you would be happy.

Ultrawide Nigh Mode, 12MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G. Here's how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G against the Poco X3 GT and the OnePlus Nord 2 5G in our Photo compare tool

Like many other Samsung phones, the selfie on the A52 5G has a toggle to determine how wide the frame will be. This setting annoyingly defaults to the narrower option and hence - an 8MP crop. When shooting in the wider aspect, selfies come out in 12MP.

The 12MP selfies with took with the Galaxy A52 5G may not be the sharpest around, but they do excel in contrast, colors, and dynamic range. You should know that when the light is not ideal, the resolved detail is going to deteriorate dramatically.

Selfie camera, 12MP

And here are two 32MP selfie shots - they are soft and lack the benefits of HDR and Scene Optimizer. But if you want to get the maximum detail from this sensor for whatever reason, you can try shooting in 32MP and then downscale the images to 8MP.

Selfie camera, 32MP

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

Portrait selfies

Video recording

The Galaxy A52 5G captures 4K@30fps videos with its primary and ultrawide cameras. The mainstream 1080p mode at 30fps is available for both, while 1080p at 60fps works only on the main camera.

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

The video bitrate is generous at 48Mbps in 4K. Audio is captured stereo with a 256Kbps bitrate.

The 4K clips from the main camera are excellent for the class - the detail is plenty, and noise is low. Overall, the Galaxy A52 5G handles the scene very well - the colors are accurate, the contrast is great, and the dynamic range is plenty enough for a great picture.

The 4K videos from the ultrawide camera are quite nice, too. The footage is noisier than the one from the main camera and there is noticeable corner softness, but other than that, the center is incredibly detailed, and the clips present natural look, accurate colors, great contrast and outstanding dynamic range.

The Galaxy A52 5G supports hyperlapse, as well as night mode hyperlapse. The NMHL captures 1s of footage for each 45s in real time. Meaning 30s clips you are about to see took nearly an hour to make. NMHL are shot in 1080p resolution and are stunning! If you find the right scene and you have enough juice in the phone, you will have a video you can really show off with and rightfully so.

Finally, here is the Galaxy A52 5G in our video comparison database.

2160p: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G against the Poco X3 GT and the OnePlus Nord 2 5G in our Video compare tool