Samsung Galaxy A06 Review

Samsung has launched a new Galaxy AO6 model in the A series. It was launched on September 4, 2024, in India, and it got some upgrades over its predecessor, the Galaxy A05, such as a new side-mounted fingerprint, new colour options, and some software upgrades. Meanwhile, there are no such changes in the display and chipset, which are similar to the previous model, the Samsung A05.

Galaxy A06 Design and Display

The Galaxy A06 has a basic design with rounded corners and a plastic back and frame; the vertical stripes on the flat back are not visible, and you also feel ribbed texture on the back. Despite the plastic, the phone does not feel cheap. Meanwhile, the Galaxy A06 looks pretty good, and as a budget smartphone, there is no official ingress protection.

The Galaxy A06 features a 6.7-inch PLS LCD display with just 720 x 1600 pixels resolution, a 60Hz refresh rate, and 262 PPI display density. The content you show on the display is less sharp than other more expensive phones, and as an LCD display, it’s also less contrasty than an OLED, and of course there is no support for extras like HDR video, and with it’s 60Hz refresh rate, the response time is weak, as while scrolling or swiping on this display, it does not feel smoothest, and in terms of brightness, it achieved 560 nits maximum brightness, which is good for a budget phone.

Galaxy A06 Performance and OS

The Galaxy A06 is packed with a Mediatek Helio G85 (12 nm) chipset and coupled with a Mali-G52 MC2 GPU and Octa-core CPU. This chip has already been seen in the previous S series model Galaxy A05. It’s not a powerful chip, and it does not support 5G connectivity. In benchmarks, the Galaxy A06 comes in at the bottom of the charts, and unfortunately the phone stutters and lags during normal usage, and also the phone can’t handle popular games like PUBG and Call of Duty.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy A06 runs on Android 14, and it provides most of the features that you get on the expensive Samsung devices, but you will miss the fancy Galaxy AI features. For software support, Samsung promises 2 years of major OS updates and 4 years of security patches.

Galaxy A06 Camera and Battery

The camera setup of the Galaxy A06 is quite basic, as the phone features a single 50 MP main camera on the back, paired with a depth sensor. The main camera’s photos come out at 12.5 MP by default because of the pixel bending. The contrast and dynamic range are not good. The phone does not click on detail photos, and colours do not look well either. While indoor shots, the colour issue comes through stronger. However, the 2x zoomed photos look soft and even a bit blurry, and in low light, the results are not good as it captures noisy photos, and the dynamic range leaves a lot to be desired. 

On the front side, it features an 8MP selfie camera, which is quite poor too. Besides being extra soft, the colours do not look good.

Videos from the main camera look quite poor. The color rendition is poor, and there is a lot of oversharpening. There is no video stabilisation support, but it can record videos up to 1080p at 30/60 fps.

In terms of battery, the phone offers a 5,000mAh battery capacity and it gives up to 13 hours of screen time, which is quite impressive, and it supports 25W of charging, but there is no charger included in the box, and it charges 0 to 43% in half an hour and full charging took 1 to 2 hours.

Galaxy A06 Price

The Galaxy A06 base variant, 4GB+64GB of storage, is priced at ₹9,999, and the 4GB+128GB storage variant is priced at ₹14,499. The mobile comes in three color options: blue, gold, and white.

Verdict

Overall, the Galaxy A06 is a budget phone with the lowest specifications, with a 60Hz refresh rate display and a sluggish chipset, which may not be suitable for many users. Also, it does not support 5G connectivity or NFC, so it will be a good phone for the backup option. Also, there are many other options available in the market as well.