Samsung Galaxy A17 5G review: Hindering performance

My benchmark scores are consistent with my real-world evaluation. The A17 ranked slightly higher than Motorola’s $200 Moto G in single-core performance, but much lower in multi-core performance, suggesting that the Motorola device generally excels when handling multiple apps. This makes sense, because I don’t remember having a frustrating experience with the Moto G when I tested it a month ago. Don’t get me wrong, this phone is also very slow and annoying to use, but I wasn’t this surprised.

The good bits

I had no issues with the 6.7-inch AMOLED display, it gets bright enough in sunny conditions, and it’s sharp enough. The single mono speaker can be used, although it’s easy to get blocked when holding the phone in landscape orientation. There is a microSD card slot for expansion to 128GB of storage, which is present in the phone IP54 rating To withstand the rain, contactless payments worked well, and the fingerprint sensor is reliable. GPS was good, although Google Maps could crash sometimes, especially if you tried to do something else while navigating.

I dropped the A17 a few times (less than 2 feet), and it held up surprisingly well, so it gets an A+ for durability. If it interests you, there it is no The headphone jack is here (Motorola keeps it on the Moto G.) It’s also great to see that this phone will receive six years of software updates, which is much better than anything Motorola offers at this price. There is a fair amount of bloatware that you might want to remove, but the experience with the program is similar to that of other programs Samsung phones. If you’re a fan of One UI, you’ll feel right at home here.

Samsung has packed a 5,000 mAh cell here, but battery life is fairly average. It lasts a full day with moderate to heavy use, but if you use the phone sparingly, it will easily survive the second day. There’s no wireless charging, which isn’t surprising for a budget phone, but 25W wired charging means it’s not too slow to recharge.