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Today we have a new entry-level phone from Samsung. It's the Galaxy A18 and it's the 4G model. A 5G version should come out later on as well. In today's market, it's getting tough to find a good deal in the budget space. So, is the A18 one of them? Let's go through all of our test results and find out in our full review. The Galaxy A18 is a low-tier A series entry-level phone, so don't expect anything fancy. This phone is here to get the job done without breaking the bank. The A series can be traced all the way back to the Galaxy A3 and A5 at the end of 2014. Initially, the A series featured some very
premium phones, including the Galaxy A7. We did a video on it back in 2018 when it came out. It was the first to feature three cameras, and the experimental model A9 was the first to provide a quad camera setup in the Samsung lineup. As the S series expanded, the A models had to settle for slightly lower market segments. In the fifth generation, a complete refresh of Samsung's portfolio saw the Galaxy J series merged into the already blooming A series. These have come a long way, though. Five generations back, the A12 wasn't water-protected at all. Its rear cameras were housed in a black rounded square,
and the selfie cam was a very basic 8 megapixel unit. The Galaxy A13 lined the cameras in a row, and they've been sticking to that layout ever since. Then the A14 was moved to a 13 megapixel selfie cam and was the first to get a 5G version. The next model was the first one where Samsung started taking software support more seriously. In fact, the Galaxy A15 is still getting software updates today, but waterproofing wouldn't be available until the A16. The A17 moved from a MediaTek series chipset to an Exynos one, which leads us back to this year's model.
It packs a high refresh rate OLED display, some ingress protection, solid battery life, and three cameras on the back. More on those in a bit. At nearly 200 g, the phone is not exactly a featherweight. The design isn't flashy. It's rather minimal with a single color, a matte finish, and a frame that is a very convincing metal impression. Don't be fooled, though. The whole phone is made of plastic. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Plastic is harder to dent and usually provides a better grip. The phone does have some splash proofing and Samsung has managed a slightly higher IP64 rating for ingress protection this year. It's hardly a huge leap over the previous IP54 and it only affects the dust resistance rating, not the water one.
For some reason, Samsung has downgraded the glass protection on the display. It's Gorilla Glass 3 now, less durable than the Gorilla Glass Victus Plus we saw last year. With a 1080p resolution and a fast 90 Hz refresh rate, while it's not something you could exactly measure, somehow the display looks punchier than what we've seen before from this class of Samsung devices. Of course, there's no way to miss the bezels and chin, which remind you of the phone's budget nature. You won't see those blistering brightness numbers that you get on the flagships either. In our
testing, we measured about 770 nits maximum in automatic brightness mode, and this went up to about 1100 nits peak brightness when only a small section of the screen was lit up. It is nice that you get some sort of high refresh rate to smooth out your swiping and scrolling. Even though it's only 90 Hz and it won't dial down by itself to save energy. Unlike higher-tier Samsung phones, the fingerprint reader is on the side here, built into the power button. It's fast and reliable. And just like its predecessor, the Galaxy A18 has just a single bottom-firing speaker for audio. The speaker did measure very
good loudness in our test, but the sound quality is rather flat and dull. You can have a listen for yourself through our comparison tool linked below. And speaking of that tool, would you like us to bring back the actual audio samples to our video reviews? Let us know down in the comments below. You can get the A18 4G with 128 or 256 gigs of storage. And in either case, that's expandable through microSD. A sign of the times we live in is that Samsung is also offering a 64 gig version, which we wouldn't recommend unless you're really strapped for cash. But the RAM here is only 4 gigs
no matter which storage tier you get. And that did seem to limit the performance of this phone. It feels a bit on the slow side with some lags and stutters here and there. Still, the Galaxy A18 packs a new chipset called the Exynos 1610 made in-house by Samsung. It's a budget 4G chip built on a 5 nm process, and while it's not underpowered for the class, it's definitely not designed for power users and heavy gamers. In benchmarks, we see CPU scores that are on the lower end of the scale, but still okay for the class. The surprise
were the graphics scores, which were certainly higher than we expected. And this chipset doesn't run hot like what you'd see on higher-powered devices, so the thermal management is great. The Galaxy A18 gets the latest Samsung software out of the box, One UI 9 based on Android 17. It actually includes many of the features that you'd find on the flagship phones, except for the AI-based ones. That's right, Galaxy AI is missing altogether, which could be a dealbreaker if you're looking for that. You don't even get the AI-based editing tools for photos in the gallery.
If you want to know more about One UI 9, you can check out our dedicated video. The A18 has a 5,000 mAh battery just as before, but we expected improved battery life since the new chipset should be more efficient. Our testing proved that to be the case, and the battery life is indeed a bit better with an overall active use score of about 13 hours. And compared to last year, there were notable improvements in the call test and video playback test. There's support for 25 watt wired charging here, the same as what we saw in the previous model. With a suitable adapter, we were able to charge from 0 to 48% in half an hour,
and a full charge took an hour and a half. We didn't expect blazing fast speeds, but this is about the slowest we've seen lately. Let's have a look at what comes with the phone. The box is pretty minimal and made of recycled material. Inside is the phone itself, a USB Type-C to Type-C cable, and some paperwork. Onto the camera setup. You get a 50 megapixel main cam, a 5 megapixel fixed focus ultrawide, and a 2 megapixel macro camera. You'd think the interface here would be pretty minimal, but you actually do get a pro mode with manual controls. Even better,
you can spice things up in the fun tab with a bunch of filters and animations. In broad daylight, the A18's main camera takes decent photos. They have good dynamic range and pleasing colors, and while the detail is not amazing, it is adequate for the class. Photos of people also come out okay in good lighting. The dimmer the environment, the less likable the result. Two times digital zoom photos aren't impressive when it comes to the detail. It's coarse and patchy. The photos from the 5 megapixel ultrawide aren't exactly packed with detail either, but they're still sharp enough in good lighting, and the colors look nice.
2 megapixel close-ups taken with the dedicated macro camera are underwhelming, though we weren't expecting a lot to begin with. Selfies from the 13 megapixel front-facing camera are quite all right. Detail is good in well-lit scenes, even though the rendition isn't the most natural, and skin tones look nice. In the dark, the main camera's photos are okay with good dynamic range, but there's notable softness, especially in the shadows. Enabling night mode improves things a fair bit, livening up the colors, brightening the shadows, and boosting sharpness. There's
no night mode on the ultrawide, so you're stuck with the soft and noisy default output. The video recording capabilities of the Galaxy A18 are quite basic. You can record in a maximum of 1080p resolution at 30 fps. Daytime clips from the main camera are pretty solid for 1080p video. The ultrawide footage is just okay. It's quite soft. And low light videos from the main cam are usable, but understandably lackluster. So, that's the 4G model of the Galaxy A18. It's an okay phone. Battery life is decent. The display looks good besides the thicker bezels. And Samsung has improved the dust protection this year, which might count for something.
However, the cut corners are quite apparent here, and it's not just the bezels, but the single speaker and the slower performance, which might be linked to having just 4 gigs of RAM. But the main issue is that in the end, this phone isn't even that cheap. It joins a wave of price hikes that have been going on across the industry. So, unless you can find the A18 4G at a lower price, it might be better to look at some alternatives. The first one is another Samsung phone. The Galaxy A27 is a few months older, but sits in a higher tier than the A18, and with it, you get more RAM and a better chipset for less money. Or you could bump up all the way to the Galaxy A37,
which funnily enough is the same price as the A18 at launch. And it has a brighter and higher refresh rate display, stereo speakers, 4K video capture, and faster charging. Thanks for watching, guys. Here are links to our reviews of those two phones. Let us know what you think down below and I'll see you on the next one.
