The Samsung Galaxy A14 is a refreshing no-brainer in a market flooded with smartphones. Standing at a staggering 167.7mm, it’s a handful that lets you have the world at your fingertips. Easy on the pocket, you can expect an impressive smartphone experience that you can build on as you want to. When you open your box, you’ll find your Samsung Galaxy A14 and a USB Type C cable only. Although this enables a faster charge, you’ll have to buy a USB-C power adapter if you don’t already have one. Anyone else miss the good old days when you received everything you needed in one box?
Design
The Samsung Galaxy A14’s larger-than-life size is thankfully not a testament to its weight. As someone who constantly needs to have their phone in their hand, the A14 never once felt heavy. In fact, it felt so light that I accidentally dropped it a couple of times. Given I am a klutz, if you are to drop a phone – this one is it, as its durability can stand some knocks and bruises.
The smartphone is built in a solid casing with ridges on the back that make for a pleasant texture. It took a couple of falls from various heights and didn’t endure a single crack or scratch. Available in four colours – black, light green, silver and dark red – only the volume button on the side and the three camera lenses are raised, adding to its sleek and slim design.
Screen
Without a doubt, the star of the show is the screen. With a resolution of 1080 x 2408 (FHD+), everything it displays is clear and crisp. You’ll enjoy consuming your favourite content from TikTok to YouTube on the Samsung Galaxy A14’s LCD screen as all visuals look sharp – including icons.
For the most part, navigation is smooth on the phone. It tends to lag when you have too many apps open. For this, limit the number of apps running in the background, as the latency can get annoying, especially when unlocking the phone.
Speaking of which, it has three modes that you can choose to unlock it. For security and privacy purposes, you can access your most valuable information with facial recognition or a fingerprint sensor. Both of these work in conjunction with a passcode.
Camera
Boasting three rear cameras consisting of an ultra-wide, main and macro lens with 50.0 MP + 5.0 MP + 2.0 MP, respectively, and a 13 MP front camera, it takes great pictures and makes it fun! I thoroughly enjoyed taking photos in portrait view. The Samsung Galaxy A14 allows you to change your initially blurred-background image to include the likes of hearts and stars. You can also change the background to artistic spin, zoom, or colour point.
The gallery has an auto video preview that will save you precious time. Gone are the days when you have to play the video to see if it’s the piece of content that you want.
Features
Getting the Samsung Galaxy A14 will save you money and time as it comes preloaded with a bunch of apps such as personal faves, Netflix and Spotify. It’s also thoughtful of Samsung to bundle essential Google products into their own folder. These include the Google Family Link, which allows you to help the youngest family members navigate the digital world.
I was also delighted to see that it has a radio. I’ll never not like a phone that has a radio. Unfortunately, you’ll need a 3.5mm headphone jack to play the radio. Disappointing, especially seeing how they are not included in the box. We are in the future – AI is fully functional, and yet we still need headphones to play a radio on the phone? C’mon.
The browser is designed to make your life easier. With just a click, you can activate the ad blocker and adjust the text size without leaving the application. If privacy is paramount to you, then you’ll appreciate the Secret Mode. When in use – for whatever reason – and you exit the browser or the Secret Mode, it will require a password to gain access.
Battery
Out of the box, the battery life is everyone’s dream come true. It lasted me well over a day and some change from a single charge. Keep in mind, I was on it every chance I could be, from taking pictures, browsing on social media and everything in-between that a 21st-century girlie does on their phone.
Ultimately the Samsung Galaxy A14 is a good phone to transition to whether you are coming from another Android or an iPhone. It has a quick one-two step to set up where you can also retrieve data. The quick share makes it a breeze to share data with any device, regardless of manufacturer. You’ll get a bang for your buck and thank yourself for the budget-friendly upgrade.
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