Over the last few weeks, my hands were busy exploring the Samsung Galaxy A12, one of the newest Samsung phones in the budget category. How much, you ask? The Galaxy A12 is available for P9,990 SRP for the 6GB / 128 GB variant, and P7,990 SRP for the 4GB / 128 GB variant.
First Impressions
The first major difference I noticed between the Samsung Galaxy A12 and my previous Galaxy A20 and A50 is the back cover. While the older phones featured a glossy plastic back, the new Galaxy A12, while still plastic, comes with a matte-textured back design which extends up to 3/4 to the bottom, giving it a seemingly two-tone look. For me, this matte-finish (and slightly heavier weight due to bigger battery) provides for a better grip on the phone. With my old A-series phones, I would always have that fear that it would slip because of poor grip.
The matte design also makes the phone easier to maintain even without a case because it’s more difficult to leave fingerprints and scratches on this one.
Design
On the left side of the phone if the dual SIM and microSD tray. On the right side are the volume buttons, and power button which also serves as its fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanner recognized my thumbprint without delays. What took me a few days to adjust with though was were the volume buttons as I was accustomed to them being on the left side, as with the older A-series phones.
The phone has a microphone at the top and bottom. The bottom also has the earphone jack, speaker, and USB Type-C jack.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy A12 features a 6.5 inch HD+ LCD Infinity-V Display. Everything looks sharp, crisp and clear. The front camera is housed on the phone’s notch which is not-at-all disturbing. The display leaned more on the cooler color temperature which made it comfortable even on extended use. It has a blue light filter which is perfect for use at night to reduce eye strain before sleep.
Cameras
The phone is being packaged as an affordable, entry-level phone for content creators and I can say that its quad camera: a 48-megapixel main camera, 5-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 2-megapixel macro camera, and 2-megapixel depth camera, didn’t disappoint. Check out some of my raw shots below.
Depth 
Macro 
Ultra-wide 
Ultra-wide 
Note that all of my photos were taken outdoors as it struggles indoors or environments with poor lighting.
Battery and Performance
The Samsung Galaxy A12 has a 5000mAH battery, which could last the whole day with normal usage. I once took the phone out for an afternoon of photography, and found that it still had 50% when I got home.
When playing Mobile Legends, each game of 20-30 minutes reduces battery by around 2-4% which I found to be good. The processor though leaves some wanting as the phone struggled and heated up when I set my game settings to its highest just to check its performance. The performance improved when I lowered the game settings and I found myself consuming the whole 5000mAH battery just with playing!
The phone comes with a USB Type-C charger with 15-watt charging, which would take up to 2 hours to recharge a drained phone.
Verdict
The phone is definitely one of the most affordable Samsung phones. The photos and videos it produces are decent enough for daily social media use with today’s most used platforms – TikTok, Instagram Stories, Facebook and Twitter. I reckon the Samsung Galaxy A12 would also be a good budget phone for those who are on online classes.
But if you’re looking for a bang for your buck, there are a lot of other phones with a similar price point that are faster and have better performance and features overall.