Has grown

Review: Samsung Galaxy A35 - Good Basic Mobile

As mobile prices increase, the Samsung Galaxy A35 may very well take over the role as the slightly cheaper basic mobile we can always recommend.

Published 4 April 2024 - 04:04 Modified 24 January 2025 - 15:45

Samsung Galaxy A35 has grown, in more than one way. For those who think that flagship models have become far too expensive, Samsung's Galaxy A series offers alternatives in several price ranges. For a long time, the Galaxy A5x models, with the latest being the Galaxy A55, have been the most popular, with surprisingly good screen and camera at an affordable price. However, that price has taken a noticeable step upwards, and perhaps now the slightly cheaper Galaxy A35 will take over the role?

In last year's models, Galaxy A34 and A54, the camera, screen, and performance in the Galaxy A34 were slightly worse than in the A54, but at the same time not so much worse that it was a problem. This year's Galaxy A35 has become slightly better and thus less limited.

If we start with the chipset, it is Samsung's Exynos 1380 that powers the phone. It is the same chipset that was in the Galaxy A54, and the A35 has thus inherited its one-year-old chipset from a more expensive model. It has become common in cheaper variants of top models, but here we are talking about a chipset that was not super fast to begin with. In practice, I do not experience top performance, but at the same time, I do not feel that the phone is slow or that I am handicapped by not having a top chipset in it.

Warning for low RAM

The variant I am testing has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage and has a recommended price of 5300 kronor, so it is not exactly a budget phone. The cheaper variant with 128 GB of storage costs 4500 kronor, but has 6 GB of RAM, which is a bit stingy by today's standards and can make the phone slower at, for example, launching apps than the one I tested.

The screen, and for that matter the entire phone, has become larger than last year's model, and even though the black bezels around the screen are thinner and the plastic frame narrower, it is noticeable that the phone has become quite heavy and bulky. Whether it is worth it for an extra fifth of an inch of screen can be debated. The fact that the back is now glass instead of plastic is also not necessarily an improvement, but at least it makes the phone feel less cheap than its predecessor.

The screen is undeniably good. It is a bright AMOLED screen with a small camera hole for the selfie camera, 120 Hz refresh rate, and nice colors, a screen that could fit in a significantly more expensive phone. With the Always-on display enabled, the screen shows time and notifications even when it is off, but it does so with such low brightness that it becomes difficult to see.

Unfortunately, the fingerprint reader is also in the screen, and I often get misreads when I try to unlock the phone. Additionally, for some reason, I can only register three different fingerprints.

Competent camera

Samsung Galaxy A35 has three cameras. A main camera with 50 megapixels, a wide-angle camera with 8 megapixels, and a macro camera with 5 megapixels. The main camera has a slightly larger sensor compared to the Galaxy A34, but it is smaller than the sensor in the Galaxy A55, or for that matter, the Galaxy A54.

The main camera is competent and works well for most needs, including photos taken in slightly poorer lighting. The color reproduction can sometimes feel a bit flat, but on the other hand, it is not exaggerated, and the sharpness is good. The biggest weakness is in high-contrast images, where parts of the image tend to become over- or underexposed. The wide-angle camera is quite okay considering the circumstances, no autofocus and comparatively low resolution. However, I find it hard to see any benefit with the macro camera, which has such low resolution that zoomed-in images from the main camera provide better close-ups.

The phone lacks a zoom camera but utilizes the high resolution of the main camera, which provides images up to two times zoom that are sharper than if you enlarged digitally. In the same way, you can take a picture in the full 50-megapixel resolution, which is then more detailed but also a bit more light-sensitive. Up to four times zoom, I think you can take useful pictures with, but after that, the images become too blurry.

The system might be a reason to choose Samsung over other Android brands. Samsung's interface One UI changes a lot, and often for the better. Samsung also adds a range of services, which are sometimes better than Google's equivalents. You won't find Samsung's new AI features in the Galaxy A35, but mainly in the more expensive top models in the Galaxy S24 series.

The battery life in the phone is above average, both when it comes to screen time and standby. Samsung does not include a charger, but if you connect a charger that follows the USB PD standard, it can be charged with up to 25 watts, which means it takes a little more than an hour to charge the battery. Wireless charging is missing.

If it has to be a Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy A35 is probably the most affordable option among this year's models that are still good enough for most people. A good basic phone, simply. But you have to put up with it being quite a large and heavy phone.

Questions & Answers

Is there space for a memory card? Yes, the phone has a so-called hybrid card slot, so you can choose between having two SIM cards in the phone or one SIM and one memory card.

What is the difference compared to Galaxy A55? Galaxy A55 costs just over 1000 kronor more, has a faster chipset and better cameras, as well as a metal frame.

How is the speaker sound? Unevenly balanced between the left and right speakers, but still quite good.

An Alternative

Last year's Samsung Galaxy A54 is now sold cheaper than Galaxy A35, and has the same performance and better cameras. The only real downside is one year shorter system updates because it is an older model.

Camera Example

At two times zoom, you get images with more details than if you manually zoom in on pictures you took without zoom, which shows that the camera's extra pixels are used for optical zoom.