2023-05-31 19:00:00
Testing top-of-the-line cell phones is interesting, following all, who is not enchanted by the incredible photos and impressive performance of models like the S23 Ultra or the iPhone 13 Pro Max? However, personally, I find it even more interesting to analyze the intermediate and cheap cell phones: it is easy to create an excellent cell phone for 7 thousand reais – the real challenge is to develop a quality device for an affordable price.
And that’s exactly the purpose of cell phones like the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G: a basic and cheap cell phone that doesn’t disappoint in terms of cameras and performance. Does he accomplish this mission successfully?
Samsung Galaxy A14 Review: The best cheap phone of 2023
cameras
The Galaxy A14 5G has a camera 50MP maina camera 2 MP macro it is a depth sensoralso from 2 MP. Unfortunately, we don’t have an ultrawide camera on this device here.
In the selfie camera we have one of 13 MP.
We already start here with one of the biggest positive points of the A14: Even though it is a cheap entry-level cell phone, Samsung did very well with the cameras. Take a look at the photos I took during a walk using the main camera: the sharpness is excellent and the colors are very well represented. The cell phone managed to capture the light tones of the sky with good precision, without adding extra exposure to the shadows of the landscape. This shows that Samsung has taken care to improve the dynamic range of this camera.
The HDR has been implemented very well – the dark parts of the image are exposed, without blowing out the parts that are already bright.
Both on cloudy and sunny days, the cell phone manages to take satisfactory pictures, which is unusual to see, especially in this price range.
Notice how well the phone handles sunlight in selfies:
When we took this same photo with Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 12, we had a much lower result.
If you want to see the complete comparison video between these two cell phones, cameras, screen, battery, performance, there’s a link in the description.
Returning to the A14, the selfies during the day are good, but things get worse when we don’t have strong light in the environment: In these selfies that I took inside the garage, for example, the photos had that classic noise that we are used to seeing on cell phones cheaper. With the lighting of the light pole too, the cell phone left something to be desired.
videos
As for videos, we can shoot in Full HD and 30 frames, both with the front and rear cameras. I found the quality of the footage satisfactory, the stabilization works well, at least compared to other phones in this price range.
Bodies
On the screen of the Galaxy A14 we have a display with resolution FULL HD+ e 90 Hz in the refresh rate. The bad news is that Samsung has chosen to put a LCD screen on this device, while other brands, such as Motorola and Xiaomi, offer AMOLED screens even on their entry-level smartphones.
Even so, we can’t say that the A14 has a bad screen: the colors are vivid and the image has good contrast. The brightness is strong enough to use the cell phone outside on a very sunny day.
Good news is that the screen has an adaptive refresh rate, that is, when the cell phone is stopped, it automatically changes the refresh rate to 60 Hz to save battery life.
Something I didn’t like, even on the front of the device, are the edges: It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a cell phone with edges as thick as this Galaxy A14. Because of this, even though it is a cell phone with dimensions above normal, the screen maintains the common size of 6.6 incheswhich is a shame – a lot of wasted space up front here.
External Construction
The cell phone is entirely made of plastic. We have it available in 3 colors: black, silver and green. Particularly, I found the A14 to be a very beautiful cell phone: Samsung follows this three-camera design that is maintained from entry-level cell phones to the top-of-the-line S23, which ends up leaving this device with a very consistent look to the rest of the brand.
We have the volume buttons, the power button that also works as a fingerprint reader, space for a chip and micro SD card.
It has two microphones, one on top and one on the bottom. Already the speaker is not stereo – we only have one output here next to the P3 input for headphones.
If you’re going to use the phone without a case, you’ll be happy to know that the texture behind the device doesn’t leave fingerprints.
Now, something that negatively surprised me regarding this cell phone was the complete absence of protections: we do not have any certification once morest splashes and dust, which phone does not have Gorilla Glass or any screen protection.
When I buy a cell phone, and I imagine that you at home are like that too, I expect it to last at least two years. And without those guards, you’ll need to be extra careful not to drop the A14 at all.
Hardware and Performance
In the technical specifications we have the processor Exynos 1330which is an octa-core with four cores of 2.4 GHz and six cores 2 GHz. In Brazil, it has a single version of 4GB de RAM e 128GB of internal storage.
Tests no AnTuTu Benchmark
In the AnTuTu benchmark tests the Galaxy A14 had the score of 366 thousand points. That leaves it slightly underperforming the A53, which scored 386,000 in the same test. The good news is that the A14 fared better than last year’s entry-level phones like the Redmi Note 11S and Moto G53.
Teste no CPU Throttling
It hardly heats up at all during heavy use: in the CPU Throttling test, it achieved a score of 178 milslightly more efficient than the A53, which scored 173k in that test.
These are great results when we consider that the A53 costs almost twice as much as the A14.
Games
In our game test on the Roda Liso channel, we discovered that this processor Exynos does not perform very well for games: It even runs light titles like Freefire and PUBG Mobile, but if you play something heavier, like Genshin Impact, things get ugly – got an average of 16 frames.
In Fortnite it didn’t work out very well either, regarding 15 frames on average. The Galaxy A14 occupies the bottom of our gaming ranking, along with cell phones like the Redmi Note 11, Realme C55 and Moto G52.
If you’re looking for a good phone to play games with, you’re going to have to keep looking – it’s definitely not the Galaxy A14.
Battery
One of our analysis steps consists of the Battery Test, where we use a robotic arm to scroll through Instagram, YouTube, play games, in short, imitating a user as much as possible using the cell phone normally for 7h45min.
The A14 managed to complete the test with ease, 16% of the battery remained. A great result. The problem comes when charging the cell phone: it took more than two hours to complete a charge from zero to 100% – this with the 15W charger sent by Samsung in the box.
- Battery: 5000mAh;
- Charger: 15W;
- Final result: + 7 hours 45 minutes from the phone. Completed the cycle;
- Consumption: 84% is the battery;
- Loading: 2h02 minutes.
While other brands put fast charging on all devices, Samsung swims once morest the current and puts this little mixuruca charger in the box. What is a shame.
Is it worth buying the Samsung A14 5G?
The price of the A14 5G varies between 1000 and 1150 reais, and for that amount, I believe it is worth buying. It is a very basic cell phone, having as a positive point the cameras, battery and performance. The negative points are slow charging, LCD screen and the absence of external protections, such as Gorilla Glass.
It is already updated with Android 13 and Samsung guarantees two updates – that is, this cell phone will receive Android 14 later this year and Android 15 next year.
The main competitor of the Galaxy A14 at the moment is the Redmi Note 12 4G. Both are entry-level cell phones, the main difference between them is that the A14 has the 5G version to buy here in Brazil – it comes with a much more powerful processor than the Note 12. The Note 12’s AMOLED screen is far superior to Galaxy A14 LCD screen.
If you are in doubt between which of these two to buy, take a look at our comparison. We put cell phones in a real battle, giving points to cameras, battery, performance, price, and in the end, only one wins.
Where to buy?
-
R$ 999,00
Smartphone Galaxy A14 128gb 4gb De Ram Verde Lima Samsung
View deal
-
R$ 1.079,00
Samsung Galaxy A14 128Gb Verde Lima 5G Octa-Core 4Gb Ram 6,
View deal
-
R$ 1.187,41
Samsung Galaxy A14 5G, 128GB, 4GB RAM, Tela infinita de 6.6
View deal
The grades that the Galaxy A14 received were:
- Cameras: 7,7
- Battery: 9,5
- Performance: 7,0
- Design and construction: 7,0
- Bodies: 7,0
- GENERAL RESULT: 7,6
With this result, the Galaxy A14 took 33rd place in our ranking of the best cell phones analyzed here at Oficina da Net, being tied with the Redmi Note 12.
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