Galaxy offers 5G without breaking bank

Samsung’s Galaxy A90 has plenty of great selling points — not least of which it being the cheapest 5G on the market.

Samsung Galaxy A90 5G smartphone.

Samsung’s Galaxy A90 5G is the most affordable 5G phone in Australia so far. That’s if you buy a 5G handset outright; you can pan out the payments if you buy a 5G phone from Telstra or Optus on a plan. Vodafone’s 5G isn’t up and running yet.

Telstra sells Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Galaxy Note 10+ 5G, LG V50 Thinq 5G and Oppo Reno 5G, along with the Galaxy A90 5G. Optus sells the same 5G phones except for the LG handset.

Outright prices can vary but typically they are Galaxy Note 10+ 5G (from $1999), Galaxy S10 5G ($1749), LG V50 Thinq 5G ($1449) and Oppo Reno 5G (1268). That makes the Galaxy A90 5G a relative bargain at $1049.

The A90 5G is cheaper because Samsung bothered to offer a slightly cheaper alternative 5G phone. Other phone makers have yet to offer multiple 5G models.

The Galaxy A90 is no slouch specs wise. You get a 48 megapixel main camera, 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 5MP depth sensor on the back. Artificial intelligence is used to optimise shots in the super steady, scene optimiser and flaw detector modes. The selfie camera is a decent 32MP.

The phone has a bright 6.7-inch full HD super AMOLED display. Apple confines OLED screens to its premium models; Samsung offers it on this budget phone. It has a big 4500 milliampere hour battery that can be fast charged.

You can use face recognition and on-screen fingerprint authentication to unlock the phone.

The A90 5G supports Samsung DeX, which means the phone’s screen is organised like a laptop home screen when connected to a display or DeX compatible notebook. You can use the Microsoft Your Phone app to mirror the phone’s display on a desktop to send and receive messages, browse recent photos and check notifications. It’s just that the Galaxy A90 5G hasn’t got some advanced features available on the more expensive Galaxy S10 or Note 10+, but do you need them?

The phone uses the Snapdragon 855 5G mobile platform, which Qualcomm rates as powerful enough for gaming. You should experience little latency when playing games online in 5G areas.

However, this chip set has already been superseded by the Snapdragon 855+ chip set, which Qualcomm says delivers 15 per cent faster graphics.

Manufacturers have been adding separate 5G modems to 5G phones to offer 5G connectivity. This year phonemakers will have access to Qualcomm’s new 865 5G mobile platform, which properly integrates 5G. That should make 2020 5G phones more energy efficient and across time should see 5G phone prices come down.

The availability of 5G phones will increase quickly this year. This week Samsung will host an unpacked event in San Francisco and it is likely the Galaxy S20 range will have another 5G option.

Later this month, several handset makers are expected to unveil 5G phones at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona. That’s provided the event proceeds. LG and ZTE have already pulled out, citing the safety of their staff and the public because of the coronavirus outbreak. Others could follow.

Later this year Apple is expected to release 5G-capable iPhones and there is chatter that up to four iPhone 12 models will have 5G. That will bring a large handset audience onto 5G networks.

Despite the still shallow 5G rollout locally, and some health fears about 5G, the take-up in Australia has been promising.

Last month, Telstra said the number of 5G devices in the country was about to exceed 100,000 devices, which is a bigger take-up than in the US to date.