Samsung Galaxy A17 5G review

While last year's Galaxy A16 5G brought a significant upgrade over the previous generation, this year's A17 5G's hardware upgrades are more modest, but still noteworthy.

The Galaxy A17 5G is your second-cheapest option from the Samsung portfolio, making it an ideal entry-level solution for Samsung fans and Samsung even offers long software support with promised 6 years of major OS upgrades.

Samsung Galaxy A17 5G specs at a glance:

• Body: 164.4x77.9x7.5mm, 192g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), plastic frame, glass fiber back; IP54 dust protected and water resistant (water splashes).
• Display: 6.70" Super AMOLED, 90Hz, 800 nits (HBM), 1080x2340px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 385ppi.
• Chipset: Exynos 1330 (5 nm): Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G68 MP2.
• Memory: 128GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM; microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot).
• OS/Software: Android 15, up to 6 major Android upgrades, One UI 7.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.8, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, AF, OIS; Ultra wide angle: 5 MP, f/2.2, 1/5.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
• Front camera: 13 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1/3.1", 1.12µm.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
• Battery: 5000mAh; 25W wired.
• Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 5; BT 5.3; NFC.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted).

The new Galaxy A17 5G is now equipped with Gorilla Glass Victus protection on the front and a glass fiber back. The new materials have allowed Samsung to slim down the phone a bit and to shave off a few grams too.

The camera hardware remains largely the same (now with OIS), and so does the battery hardware. It's still 5,000 mAh with 25W charging.

The Galaxy A17 5G will likely be well-positioned in the US, where the entry-level solutions are scarce, but it will face some challenges in markets such as Europe and India. Let's take a deeper look at the Galaxy A17 5G.

Unboxing the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G

The phone comes in a standard retail box containing only the user manuals and a USB-C to USB-C cable.

You will need to get your own charger separately, and if you are after the fastest charging speed possible, Samsung's own 25W charger is a cost-effective way to get an adapter that supports the required PPS profile.

Design and ergonomics

The Galaxy A17 features largely the same design as last year's A16, with some minor changes. The camera lenses are not separate but are housed in one camera bump, which doesn't stick out as much.

The back and the side frame remain flat with no changes. The available colors are Black, Gray and Blue, so there's no more Green this year. We have the Black option for this review.

It's nice to touch, feels premium even. The side frame, albeit plastic, feels nice in the hand. The frosted matte finish on the back is also a nice touch, but fingerprints and smudges are quite visible. And makes the phone quite slippery.

The fingerprint reader is placed on the side, integrated into the power button. It works well, but we would have preferred an under-display one as it's more versatile and convenient.

This year, Samsung used glass fiber for the back panel, instead of plastic, while the front is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, again a step up from the A16.

When it comes to SIM card support, the A17 is like its predecessor. It features a hybrid SIM card slot, which can take up to two SIM cards or a single SIM card + microSD card. You can't use a dual SIM + microSD card configuration.

Samsung was able to make the phone slightly slimmer and shaved off 8 grams of the weight too.

Despite the body being slippery, we really like this design. It feels solid and almost premium, which is hard to achieve in this price segment.

Familiar 6.7-inch 90Hz OLED display

The Galaxy A17 likely uses the exact same OLED panel from last year - 6.7-inch, 1080 x 2340px resolution, 90Hz refresh rate.

There are no fancy features like HDR video support or granular refresh rate control, but we don't expect them either.

The maximum brightness in auto mode is decent enough at 738 nits and 353 nits in manual mode. The boost brightness sure isn't very impressive, but it's enough to get the job done even on a bright sunny day.

Notably, the phone doesn't have a hardware proximity sensor and uses a virtual one, so it might be an issue when talking on the phone sometimes as the screen lights up mid-call. It's not always the case, but your experience may vary depending on how you hold the phone.

Refresh rate

The available refresh rate control options are pretty straightforward. The High option locks the refresh rate at 90Hz, while the Standard is capped at 60Hz. There's no automatic switching.

Battery life

We expected the Galaxy A17 to have similar battery life to its predecessor, given that the phone runs on the same hardware. The Galaxy A17 and A16 (both 5G models) feature an Exynos 1330 chip, a 6.7-inch 90Hz OLED display and a 5,000 mAh battery.

However, we found a slight discrepancy between the two, likely due to the difference in the software version at the time of testing. Either way, the Galaxy A17's battery life is far from impressive. For a low-power chipset like this one, we expected better web browsing runtimes. The video playback and gaming tests returned respectable scores, though. The overall Active Use Score of 11:48 is below average for the price range.

 

Charging speed

There's no change in the charging technology either. Just like its predecessor, the Galaxy A17 supports up to 25W wired charging over the Power Delivery protocol, as long as your adapter supports PPS charging negotiation. Any charger advertised to offer USB-PD+PPS should work but Samsung's own 25W adapter (sold separately) is usually a cost-effective way to get an adapter that supports the required PPS profile needed for the fastest possible charging on the Galaxy A17 5G.

Of course, the fastest possible charging speed is a relative concept here as the A17 is one of the slowest devices in this regard, taking around 1 hour and 20 minutes to reach a full charge. Considerably slower than most direct competitors.

But if you find the charging, for whatever reason, too fast, then you can limit the charging speed in the Battery settings, or, if your phone spends lots of time plugged in and charged fully, you may opt to limit the charging to a preset level of 80, 85 or 90% to prolong the battery's longevity.

Speaker

The Galaxy A17 still lacks stereo loudspeakers, even though most competitors offer a set of those. The A17 offers only a bottom-firing speaker.

As a result, the loudness score isn't very high - -26.4 LUFS, also rated as "Good". In terms of quality, expect rather flat-sounding tracks with noticeable distortion at higher volume.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies.

One UI 7 and Android 15

Like the rest of the Galaxy A phones this year, the A17 launches with Android 15-based One UI 7 out of the box, and Samsung promises to deliver 6 timely OS upgrades. However, getting the updates is one thing and having them run well is another, and the latter does not leave us very hopeful as the base version of the A17 5G comes with a measly 4GB RAM and performance is not particularly great as is.

If you've used One UI in the past, you will feel right at home. Although there are quite a few design changes, make sure to check out the new aesthetics in the video below. It's in mobile view format, so it's best viewed on your phone's screen.

Keep in mind that not all features in the video are available on the budget Galaxy A17. Most of the advanced features and AI-related functionalities are limited on this device due to the lack of processing power.

Still, Circle to Search is available, but Don't expect the same level of performance as on the S series, though.

While the One UI itself is one of the best among the custom Android overlays, the Galaxy A17 struggles to keep up with the demanding software. The phone is frustratingly slow, laggy and with choppy animations most of the time. It could be due to the limited 4GB RAM, and the 6GB could very well be better, but we can't confirm.

Benchmark performance

The handset uses an in-house-made Exynos 1330 chipset, which remains unchanged from last year's A16 5G model.

The Exynos 1330 is a 5nm chip with an Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU setup and a Mali-G68 MP2 GPU. The Mediatek Dimensity 6300 is a 6nm chip with an Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU setup and a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU.

For memory, the Galaxy A17 5G comes with either 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Storage is expandable via a microSD card.

Our review unit is the base 4GB RAM and 128GB model. In our testing, the storage chips used here have speeds which are UFS 2.2 grade, which is not ideal but certainly better than budget eMMC chips.

Those 4GB of RAM have us a bit worried about future-proofing. Still, Samsung has promised up to six major updates, and we have to take that promise for what it is.

There are other available memory configurations - 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB and 8GB/256GB. We recommend opting at least for the 6GB/128GB version if you plan to keep this phone around for more than a couple of years.

It's not that the Galaxy A17 doesn't utilize the Exynos 1330 very well, it's just that it's not very competitive in the said price bracket. Most phones in the same class use considerably more powerful Snapdragon and MediaTek chipsets, leaving the Galaxy A17 in the dust.

Sustained performance

Unsurprisingly, the device handles long CPU and GPU stress tests with ease, given that the chipset itself isn't all that powerful and does not require massive cooling in the first place.

CPU and GPU stress test

We observed stable clock speeds throughout the CPU stress test, while the GPU stress test showed 97% stability.

Outer temperatures

The outer temperatures were pretty low too.

50MP main camera, 5MP ultrawide

The camera hardware is familiar. We've got the same 50MP + 5MP + 2MP camera setup. The 5MP one is ultrawide, while the 2MP shooter is used for close-up macros. The main camera gains OIS this year, though.

The selfie unit also remains unchanged, offering 13MP resolution.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The main camera captures more than decent photos during the day, with minimal loss in quality when you take it indoors. Colors are punchy and lively, and sharpness is more than satisfactory. However, the dynamic range could use some improvement, but this is likely due to processing power limitations or the 50MP sensor caps.

Main camera daylight photos

We also took a few people shots, and these come out pretty decent.

People photos: Photo mode • Portrait mode

The high-resolution 50MP mode isn't something we'd recommend using, as the quality/file size tradeoff is not worth it.

50MP high-resolution photos

2x crop zoom

The 2x crop zoom photos are decent enough for casual social media posting, but are far from perfect. The 2x photos inherit the good and the bad from the 1x photos, meaning you get a good level of detail and plenty of color, but sharpness deteriorates significantly when zooming, and the contrast and dynamic range leave more to be desired.

Daylight 2x crop zoom photos

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera is pretty basic and offers lower resolution compared to most ultrawide cameras in competing smartphones. Still, the overall quality is comparable. Don't expect very sharp or detailed photos, but the colors are nice and so is the contrast. The dynamic range is even more limited compared to the main camera.

Ultrawide camera daylight photos

Macro camera

The 2MP macro photos are far from impressive. They are not very detailed, contrast is lacking and colors are rather dull. On top of that, the fixed focus makes capturing some close-ups a finicky process of trial and error.

Macro camera photos

Selfies

Even though the selfie camera isn't anything special on paper, it produces likeable selfies with more than decent quality. You can spot plenty of detail, lively colors and a relatively wide dynamic range. Sharpness could use improvement, but given the price of the phone, we can let it slide.

Selfies

Low-light photos

Main camera

The low-light photos are largely unimpressive, showing signs of limited dynamic range, a bit too much noise and low contrast. Colors could use some boost too.

Main camera low-light photos

Luckily, the Night mode fixes most of the issues, introducing more color, improving contrast and sharpness and clearing the noise.

Main camera Night mode photos

2x crop zoom

The 2x zoom mode is hard to recommend at night. The cropping from the already small main sensor amplifies some of the issues we have with the 1x photos - noise, softness and the low contrast. There's no Night mode to help either.

2x crop zoom low-light photos

Ultrawide camera

Not that we expected much, but the ultrawide nighttime shots are a mess. They are fuzzy, lack detail, have plenty of noise, and there's noticeable color fringing. Again, Night mode isn't available.

Ultrawide camera low-light photos

Video recording

Тhe device is limited to recording 1080p videos at up to 30fps, but just like with the A16 5G, we were able to record non-stabilized 4K videos using the Open Camera app, albeit with 1080p-level bitrate (17Mbps).

The main camera captures decent-looking videos for 1080p resolution and offers punchy colors, good contrast and a satisfactory amount of detail.

We can't say the same for the ultrawide clip, though, as it's very fuzzy, with clipped highlights, and noticeable color fringing.

The nighttime video is understandably unimpressive as it lacks detail and has very limited dynamic range.

The 4K footage we captured using the Open Camera app is notably better than the 1080p footage captured with the native camera app. It is more detailed with a wider field of view, but it lacks EIS, so walking videos will be shaky.

The EIS is somewhat decent, but it leaves a bit more to be desired.

Verdict

The Galaxy A17 5G is meant to be a low-priced phone with a decent design and long software support from Samsung, but at its current pricing, it's far from competitive in its price bracket. You can easily find more powerful smarrtphones with longer battery life, faster charging and brighter displays with HDR support.

Perhaps the biggest issue we had with the Galaxy A17 5G is how laggy it is. It's important to note that this is our experience with the 4GB variant. It's possible that the 6GB version has it much better. The poor performance now also raises the question of how Samsung will be able to keep this phone up to date with newer software versions, which will likely be more demanding of the hardware.

Pros

• Nice design, despite the low budget.
• Overall decent main camera.
• Great selfie quality.
• Solid battery life for video streaming and gaming.
• Entitled to 6 major OS updates.
• microSD card slot.

Cons

• No notable upgrades compared to the previous model.
• Screen is basic - not very bright, and with no automatic refresh rate switching.
• Subpar performance.
• No stereo speakers.