Design and build quality
Galaxy A14 5G isn’t a huge update over its predecessor the a13 5G you get the same cameras on the back and the same battery capacity too the chipset is the same as well but that’s not so straightforward I’ll get into it in a bit the major update you’ll find on the A14 is the display it’s slightly larger and has been upgraded from a 720p resolution to 1080p you also get a higher res selfie cam this time around the Galaxy A14 brings a design that’s similar to this year’s Flagship models it is made of plastic though rather than more premium materials the flat back panel has an interesting vinyl like texture to it too you get individual bumps for each of the rear cameras and a slightly rounded frame the phone feels grippy enough and quite solid like.
Screen specs and features
I mentioned on the front is a new 6.6 inch display with a 1080p resolution and a 90 Hertz refresh rate it’s an LCD here not an AMOLED with a pixel density of 400 PPI the A14 screen is much sharper than last year’s model since it’s an LCD blacks aren’t as deep as on an OLED panel but the contrast is still decent there are no color options to choose from and out of the box the colors aren’t super accurate the 90 Hertz refresh rate makes your movements and swiping on the screen appears smoother than it would on a screen with a standard 60hz refresh rate it will dial down to 60 when idling though to save energy and for brightness we measured a maximum of 520 nits here there’s no boost on top of that available in bright conditions.
Single bottom-firing speaker test, headphone jack
The Galaxy A14 has a headphone jack and a single bottom firing speaker the speaker’s loudness is good and the sound quality is okay you can wake up and unlock the phone with a side mounted fingerprint reader built into the power button.
Storage options
Galaxy A14 can come with 64 or 128 gigs of storage and is expandable beyond that through microSD
Android 13 and UI
The interface of the Galaxy A14 is one UI 5.0 Core on top of Android 13. it’s similar to what you’d get on the new high-end Samsung phones but with trim down features for example you don’t get the Bixby assistant or Samsung pay otherwise you get a pretty familiar Samsung interface to learn more about specific features you can check out our dedicated 1uy5 video I mentioned earlier that the chipset situation is a bit complicated the A14 5G comes with different chipsets depending on the market.
MediaTek Dimensity 700 performance
the Indian market you’ll get an exynos 1330 chipset which has both a more powerful CPU and GPU than the dimensity 700 and last year’s Galaxy a13 5G however our galaxy A14 is the US variant which brings back the old domestic 700. it’s a low end 5G capable chipset that delivers just average performance for this price range so it seems that the Indian model is much more appealing in this regard.
Battery endurance and charging test
The Galaxy A14 5G has the same 5000 milliamp hour battery capacity as last year and the battery life for this us variant is excellent with a score of 130 hours in our proprietary tests the phone is rated for 15 watt charging but you don’t get an adapter in the box with an official 25 watt Samsung charger we were able to charge the A14 from zero to just 30 percent in half an hour not too speedy the A14 brings.
Camera specs,Daylight photo quality,Low-light photo quality
The same rear camera setup as the previous model there’s a 50 megapixel main cam a 2 megapixel macro camera and a depth sensor photos from the main cam are very good for the class detail is excellent and the contrast and dynamic range are good the colors could use some more saturation though and there is some visible noise Porter is taken with the main cam are good the subject detection is proficient and the Blurred backgrounds look nice close-up photos from the macro cam are predictably mediocre there’s not much detail to be had and the colors are muted in low light the main camera produces shots with good detail and mostly accurate colors highlights can be blown out and while Shadows are decently well developed they contain plenty of noise turning on the night mode makes a big difference when it comes to dynamic range the highlights are reigned in and light sources are restored Shadows do look a bit darker though the detail also gets some heavy sharpening applied and each night mode shot takes around 6 seconds to capture.
Selfies,Video quality
selfies you get a 13 megapixel front-facing cam an upgrade from the 5 megapixel one and last year’s model selfies come out good with plenty of detail and sharpness accurate colors and very good dynamic range there is some noise but it’s not a big issue the Galaxy A14 can capture videos with its main camera and 1080p at 30fps the detail is nice for this resolution colors are saturated and the dynamic range is okay there is electronic stabilization available and while it does smooth things out of it you lose some detail and there’s heavy sharpening on it.
Conclusion
Samsung Galaxy A14 5G for a budget phone is pretty decent the screen upgrade to 1080p is nice and you get good battery life and a decent Main and selfie cam plus the Samsung software package we wish the chipset update was across the board though as it stands now us consumers will get a less competitive product than those in India still if you’re able to get the exynos version or you just don’t care about the chipset at all the A14 could be worth considering.