Samsung Galaxy A50S Review

Last update : 29/7/2024 (added invidious.fdn.fr links, begrudgingly)

Introduction

To be blatant, I'd never thought I'd review a Samsung device. However, Lukas has "dropped" his A50S and subsequently switched to the X3P. Now, when a device gets dropped, chances are it'll survive (unless it's me, in which case my Lancer-class luck makes it more likely to break the display at least). However, if Lukas drops it (and "drop" is a generous word because in his case he yeets the device into the nearest & most rigid surface available at whatever levels of strength were required to single-handedly swing a fucking Zweihander at blindingly fast speeds), something else will break, in addition to the guaranteed destroyed display. One display repair later & the A50S' USB-C port was discovered to have difficulties working, and after one factory reset it was thrown to me like a kid done with its half-broken toy. Thus, free device for me (that will be boxed & displayed after this review because none of us could be bothered to visit the mall service center to hopefully fix whatever damage happened) & this review. But still, to be honest, I can never see myself using a Samsung device after this.

Physical features

The A50S... has the typical feel of a midrange glue sandwich of its time, for better or worse.

• On the top section, there's the secondary mic.
• USB-C charging port, speaker, headphone jack, & primary mic on the bottom corner, with the headphone jack at bottom-left corner. The jack's position isn't the best, but at least it's there.
• Left section contains only the dual SIM + microSD tray. You heard that right - 2 SIM slots & a dedicated microSD slot.
• Right section is home to the volume & power buttons. Not much can be said for them - they're as clicky as they should be.
• Front side is reserved for the 6.4' 19:9 60hz AMOLED (and an optical under-display fingerprint scanner), earpiece, & a front camera in the notch (my display's notch is v-shaped, though the A50S originally comes with an u-shaped notch). The earpiece grill also hides a white-only notification LED.
• The back holds the rear cameras & flash diffuser. Originally, they're stuck on the back plate, but Lukas glued them on the plastic body.
• For materials, Gorilla Glass 5 out front, with plastic sides (body) & plastic back.
• In terms of haptics, the A50S is alright, though it took 68ms in Simple Keyboard for it. It could've been better on AOSP-based custom ROMs, had there been any dedicated ones for this device.
• As for the under-display fingerprint scanner... it does read fingerprints somewhat accurately, at the very least. However, change your charging port and/or display while you have a registered fingerprint & it might demand a recalibration, which is probably impossible for us users (considering the tool isn't publicly & readily available). Honestly, it's the ugliest aspect of this shitbox I'd ever considered and I haven't even started discussing the bootloader unlocking, let alone anything related to aftermarket customizations.
• JerryRigEverything durability test video

No screen protector observations for this one - I couldn't be bothered to test this for something that's about to be a museum piece. Though if you insist on one maybe use clear hydrogels - it'll not interfere with that fingerprint scanner at least...

Audio Quality

The A50S has a bottom loudspeaker & a headphone jack.

The speaker quality is passable. It's a shame the earpiece wasn't a second speaker, but I've heard some XDA forum members made some dual speaker mod for A11. Not that I've tried it out since I couldn't.

The headphone jack quality is passable. Loudness wise, it squarely falls into "average" territory.

Display

The 6.4' 60hz AMOLED is nothing noteworthy - it has decent colors (even if a little chunk had to be thinned out for that under-display fingerprint scanner), can develop permanent image retention, and questionable glass. Yes, this note is based off that "OEM" display whose only flaw is the shit glass (with no oleopohobic coating & tempering process) and the wrong notch shape, but at least they got the innards right.

Bootloader unlocking

For the A50S' bootloader unlocking, here's how it's supposed to be:

• Enabled OEM unlocking in developer settings (after enabling it via Settings > About phone > Software information > rapid-tapping Build number). Also backup everything that you need to back up here.
• Boot to download mode : power off, connect to computer, hold power & vol-up buttons, reboot to bootloader in recovery.
• Hold volume up for God-knows-how-long until the screen changes to a warning (or anything indicating bootloader unlocking).
• Accept all prompts for bootloader unlocking. This'll also wipe the phone's data.
• Reboot & set-up the device, and connect it to the internet while doing so.
• Get to developer settings & check if OEM unlocking options exists & are greyed out.

But when I did it, step 3 completely stopped me (no matter how long I pressed vol-up the screen never changed), forcing me to drop this process (by holding vol-down & power for 7 seconds in download mode) & consider the A50S' bootloader not unlockable (maybe if I'm feeling masochistic & overdosed on copium I'll test this out again). Considering I had no plans to incorporate the A50S (especially Lukas' fucked seconds) into my roster, I didn't really mind this. However, since there's some that has UBL'd their Samsung phones (like Ed's S9 as I received it), this sucks. On the bright side, I guess I saved some bucks by aborting all plans of getting any Samsung devices...? (6/8/2024 Update : At least for the planned ones, since I got a S9 without any explicit plans for one.)

Repairability

In terms of repairability, the A50S is mostly in line with most regular glass-backed phones, if slightly easier due to the plastic back (but the plastic body might be a bit tough to pry).

• Back panel demands heat, suction cup, & adhesive-cutting pry to remove and glue to re-attach. On one hand, there's no component (not even the camera bump; though in this case Lukas glued the bump & flash diffuser to the plastic body; both of which were originally supposed to be on the back panel) adhered to it aside from some insulation tapes; on the other hand the back panel is plastic so extra care is required on heating the back for removal, as it may distort from excessive heating.
• The entire plastic body is held on by clips & Philips screws. All of the cover screws are equal in size & length, so you can kinda get away with not sorting them out.
• microSD & SIM reader's soldered on the motherboard, though that's common for every phone nowadays except for ASUS ZS630KL / Zenfone 6 2019 / 6z (AFAIK). It's mounted on the back side of the motherboard, but the tray has to be detached before the plastic body can be pried off.
• For first-time battery removals, the battery is heavily glued to the midframe, making removals a challenge especially without intense heat & isopropyl alcohol. Seriously, get a backup battery, because the first time you try to detach battery from midframe there's a decent chance of you ruining the battery - more than most devices.
• Unlike most glue sandwiches, the power & volume buttons (and their flex cable) are held in the plastic body. They connect to the motherboard using contact pins.
• Every removable component except for antenna cable, buttons, NFC, proximity sensor, speakers, & vibration motor (which uses contact pins) connects using Lego-like BTBs. The motherboard's mainly held to the midframe by one screw below the coaxial cable connector. Speaking of screws, the fingerprint scanner is also held down by 2 screws.
• Headphone jack & USB-C port is on the same board (daughterboard), forcing a replacement of both if either stops working. The daughterboard is held in with some adhesive. Replacing it might cause the fingerprint scanner (the camera-like stuff that connects to the daughterboard as opposed to being fused with display) to demand a re-calibration.
• Display is very much adhered to the midframe (both the glass panel & underlying OLED), so say goodbye to it if you ever wanted to try harvesting the earpiece grille and/or replace the entire thing for the 1st time (if sticking to same display frame). Then again, your display's probably beyond any helping in that scenario, so good luck. I would also like to mention the display has a separate flex cable for connecting it & motherboard.

Repair references for Samsung A50, which also applies to A50S:

• Ifixit page
• JerryRigEverything's teardown
• Wit Rigs' teardown

Custom Development Availability (as of 29/6/2024)

In terms of custom ROMs, the A50S has none. I'm not sure if the regular A50's custom ROM could be installed on the A50S as well (if it's even possible), so if you need a custom ROM, your best bet is probably GSI ROMs... if you can flash it.

The custom recovery's basically nonexistent, which definitely limits any potential aftermarket customizations it could've had. As for custom kernels... I'd just not think about it at this point.

Other issues

For the horrifying issues :

• That. Damned. Fingerprint. Scanner. Seriously, just replacing the daughterboard might make it demand a re-calibration (which is impossible for us end-users since we don't get the tools for it). I kinda understand asking for one if I'm replacing the display (at least for those under-screen fingerprint scanners), but the daughterboard? Good grief. I'd either have a dedicated rear-mounted fingerprint scanner (with separate power button like the Poco F1) or a side-mounted one that also doubles as the power button (like the X3(N/P)). Oh yeah - these under-screen fingerprint scanners can also not work when certain screen protectors were attached.
• No hope for custom stuff - no bootloader unlocking (at least for me).
• I missed this one, but my A50S' previous owner did not. He found some larger videos having some lags & buffering issues in mpv.

Conclusion

The A50S... sucked. My first impressions of it made it clear I should have never accepted it, but if I didn't this page won't be here. Bootloader unlocking is not possible (at least in my case) & if you managed to unlock bootloader there's not much to do on the A50S anyway, and that damned under-screen fingerprint scanner soured me on that thing as a whole.

Oh yeah - if you've reached this point, you should also notice that there's no Invidious (let alone YouTube) links for this one, since YouTube has randomly force-killed Invidious (archive.org) & put a rather hypocritical excuse (This helps protect our community). (29/7/2024 Update : invidious.fdn.fr works for now, so I'll link that for now.)

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