Samsung Galaxy A20 - The good and the bad

[jajk]

O.K, the Samsung Galaxy A20 is a budget phone (I bought mine for AU$239) so I do not expect any "flagship" performance but the initial attraction was the Amoled display that has some degree of daylight readability, reasonable camera performance, the relatively big battery capacity for SoC size and the glimmer of hope in rooting this device.
After a little while, some things becomes apparent which I would like to share:

1. There is no light sensor so screen brightness cannot adapt to ambient light....a strange and disappointing omission
2. The phone is made in Vietnam not South Korea...just an observation
3. The heavily embedded bloat from Samsung and Google is chronic in magnitude and its primary purpose is for harvesting personal information and pushing ads
4. Fingerprint lock works efficiently but the rear sensor is hard to locate
5. WiFi reception range is poor.
6. The Android One UI is pleasingly clean but the Settings menus are a bit disorganized
7. Root can be achieved relatively easily but is "precarious" to say the least.

Show me your good and bad list

 

[physwizz]

O.K, the Samsung Galaxy A20 is a budget phone (I bought mine for AU$239) so I do not expect any "flagship" performance but the initial attraction was the Amoled display that has some degree of daylight readability, reasonable camera performance, the relatively big battery capacity for SoC size and the glimmer of hope in rooting this device.
After a little while, some things becomes apparent which I would like to share:

1. There is no light sensor so screen brightness cannot adapt to ambient light....a strange and disappointing omission
2. The phone is made in Vietnam not South Korea...just an observation
3. The heavily embedded bloat from Samsung and Google is chronic in magnitude and its primary purpose is for harvesting personal information and pushing ads
4. Fingerprint lock works efficiently but the rear sensor is hard to locate
5. WiFi reception range is poor.
6. The Android One UI is pleasingly clean but the Settings menus are a bit disorganized
7. Root can be achieved relatively easily but is "precarious" to say the least.

Show me your good and bad list

It had no light sensor but somehow it uses the cameras to adjust to ambient light.

 

[jajk]

Update after using for some time.....
I really miss not having a notification LED - a backwards step to delete it for the notched display fad. An edge LED would have been great but that would cost 3c to include.....
Mobile reception is noticeably weaker than my old Moto G 2013 and Xiaomi Redmi Note2 - another backwards step!

 

[burningcreation]

Update after using for some time.....
I really miss not having a notification LED - a backwards step to delete it

I agree. I came from a Nexus 6P and found the notification light very handy. It's not a deal breaker for me though.

Does anyone know if the A20 has an oleophobic layer on the screen?

 

[ChewbaccaAndroid]

This might be stupid question but why does my A20 SM-A205G not have NFC there is no options under settings or on status bar to activate it but I see some SM-A205U have it and other 205g have enabled, do I have the chip in phone already? Just need to flash other firmware to use it? Has anyone else had any luck activating NFC?

 

[Fsanti87]

I've had the phone about a month now and coming from an LG V30 before this I can say that despite all the cons I'm overall happier with this phone over that garbage. Barely.

Pros:

• The A20 camera is much better with low light
• Apps seem to crash less
• I also like the Samsung UI more than I expected
• The samsung keyboard is so much better than any other keyboard I've been able to find in the app store
• I like how the lock button is on the side instead of the back like on the V30

Cons:

• The camera is still pretty grainy even in sunlight
• The auto screen brightness sucks balls. I can't even count how many times the screen dimmed & brightened just in the last few mins while I'm sitting in one spot
• I also very much notice the lack of ram. It feels really laggy at times, like a 5 second delay when I'm just typing or sometimes I'll tap and it'll register as a hold
• I can easily see the downgrade in screen resolution when watching videos
• The proximity sensor. I'll be in a call and occasionally my face will mute the call or dial numbers
  Or when I had the feature activated to double tap to turn on the screen, it would turn on in my pocket all the time and mess with buttons or sliders. On numerous occasions my phone would be ringing and I'd pull it out to find out my leg was messing with the volume slider. Not once did the LG do that
• And finally I should've looked into the ability to root this phone before I got it. I have the A205U sadly and didn't make sure it's even unlockable with all the extensive research I was doing while I was looking to replace my LG

 

[Ethan1987]

This might be stupid question but why does my A20 SM-A205G not have NFC there is no options under settings or on status bar to activate it but I see some SM-A205U have it and other 205g have enabled, do I have the chip in phone already? Just need to flash other firmware to use it? Has anyone else had any luck activating NFC?

I have the same question.... I've seen through the internet many sites saying the a20 has nfc, and even give instructions for activating it , but i couldn't.... Wether it has or not, I'm not certain at all.
Any way to activate nfc using root or something else of the sort?