Samsung Galaxy A15 5G review: Should you buy it?

The Galaxy A15 5G is a plastic phone, top to bottom, and you’ll notice that the moment you touch it. Yet, while it isn’t made of premium materials, I was still surprised by how good this device looks. It’s got the same simple aesthetics as the Galaxy S24 family, with a matte finish on the back, three floating camera modules, and a flat frame. Even when you do get the plastic body in your hand, it won’t pick up fingerprints—it skips the glossy finish that we see on many budget phones. It also feels reassuringly dense and solid.

There’s a small island jutting out from the rest of the frame containing both the volume rocker and power button. This makes them a little easier to find by feel, particularly the power button, which is recessed and includes a fingerprint sensor. It’s not as fast as the sensors on more expensive phones, but it’s been reliable enough for me. Both buttons are plastic, but they feel sturdy. There’s a mono speaker on the bottom edge, which isn’t good enough for music. Even for voice, you’ll have to crank the volume.

The display is the centerpiece here. Samsung has skimped on budget smartphone screens in the past, but not this time. The Galaxy A15 5G steps up to a 6.5-inch OLED screen, offering vibrant colors and deep blacks that blow the outgoing Galaxy A14 5G‘s LCD panel out of the water. It doesn’t quite have the resolution or brightness of the S24 displays, but 1080p and 800 nits is nothing to sneeze at for this price point. You can use the Galaxy A15 5G in fairly bright outdoor light, and it’s still legible. The 90Hz refresh rate also ensures scrolling and animations are smooth.

While the panel itself is good, the way it fits into the chassis looks a bit cheap. There’s a big, LCD-like bezel all the way around the display, with a bit of a larger chin at the bottom. The A15 5G also has a waterdrop display notch at the top for the front-facing 13MP camera. More expensive phones have since moved to hole-punch displays that blend in with the bezel better.

The Galaxy A15 5G packs a capable MediaTek Dimensity 6100 Plus processor. It’s an 8-core chip, but unlike more expensive parts, only two of those cores are the faster variants (Cortex-A76). The six remaining are efficient but slower A55 CPUs. The Galaxy A15 is unencumbered by messaging, browsing the web, and general smartphone time-wasting. It’s just fast enough to make use of that 90Hz screen while scrolling around the OS. You can play some simple games, but heavier 3D games or multitasking will push this phone to its limit — I started to see some lag here.

It may not be the fastest phone, but the Galaxy A15 5G provides “good enough” performance for a long time between charges. The 5,000mAh battery can easily make it two days per charge, but three days is possible if you exercise just a little self-control. The Galaxy A15 5G charges at 25W, which is good for a budget phone. The battery can fill completely in about 90 minutes, but Samsung does not include a plug — check out our best charger picks for some options if you need one.

The Galaxy A15 5G runs Android 14 out of the box, but you might never know it if you don’t check the settings. Android 14 is buried under a thick layer of One UI 6. If you’ve used any recent Samsung phone, the A15 5G will look familiar. The interface is relatively clean without all the add-ons for AI, a stylus, and other features not present on Samsung’s budget phones. There’s also full support for Material You theming. Samsung does have a tendency to bundle too many apps with One UI — streaming video, calendar, health tracking, shopping, and more. There are also Microsoft apps like Linked in and Outlook. If you don’t use any of this, it’ll take a while to uninstall or disable it all.

The software isn’t quite as refined as Google’s Pixel UI or as utilitarian as Motorola’s My UX, but it offers fantastic long-term support. Most budget phones are lucky to see a handful of updates, but Samsung promises four years of full OS updates plus an additional year of security patches beyond that. No other OEM is offering such lengthy support on a budget phone. This is even an improvement over the Galaxy A14 5G, which only gets two full OS updates (one remaining).

You would not expect a $200 phone to have amazing cameras, and the Galaxy A15 5G doesn’t. However, it is more than good enough for a budget camera phone, given the price. The primary 50MP shooter produces 12MP binned images that have slightly over-emphasized colors, but the detail is good for subjects that are well-lit.

Exposures are a bit long, making movement hard to capture, and don’t count on a single shot to get the job done in poor lighting. The camera is very hit-and-miss (mostly miss) at night. In more varied lighting, you’ll notice the Galaxy A15 5G’s dynamic range is lacking compared to more expensive devices, too. But again, this is a reasonable shooter for the price, as long as you don’t expect too much from it in tricker conditions.

The 5MP ultrawide is nothing special, but I appreciate that Samsung added one when 2023’s Galaxy A14 5G only had a depth sensor. There isn’t much detail to spare, so don’t bother cropping. It’s good enough for landscapes or well-lit large group shots, though. The 2MP macro camera makes a return this year, unchanged from the Galaxy A14 5G. It’s still not worth using due to the lack of detail. The 13MP selfie camera is also the same. It takes decent enough shots of subjects, but any background detail suffers from excessive softness. Finally, video recording is competent but not amazing, topping out at 1080p and 30fps — I would’ve liked to see 60fps for smoother clips.

You can check out some of the full-res photos I took in this Drive folder.

• OnePlus Nord N30 5G ($299 at Amazon): The Nord N30 costs $100 more than the A15 5G, and in return, you get a competent Snapdragon processor, a 108MP camera, and super-fast 50W charging. The software and update guarantee, however, are a marked step down from the Galaxy A15 5G.
• Moto G Power (2024) ($199.99 at Motorola): Motorola’s phone has a slightly faster MediaTek processor, along with double the RAM and a larger display. However, it costs $100 more (but is often discounted) and won’t see as many OS updates.
• Samsung Galaxy A25 5G ($299.99 at Amazon): The Galaxy A25 5G has the same passable software and amazing update promise as the Galaxy A15 5G, but it adds a brighter OLED screen, more memory, and a faster Exynos processor. This boosts the price to $300, but the A25 5G is often on sale, making it a much better buy.
• Samsung Galaxy A14 5G ($199.99 at Samsung): 2023’s Galaxy A14 5G is still an option if you can find it on sale for closer to $100. It’s a little slower, and the screen is LCD instead of OLED, but it still has three years of security patches and one major OS update still ahead of it.