The Samsung Galaxy A41 is one of the most popular mid-range smartphones, at least if we look at the traffic figures in our reviews. But the Galaxy phone was also regularly represented in the smartphone sales charts last year. It is now getting a successor: The Samsung Galaxy A42 has become bigger, and it comes with more storage as well as a brand-new Qualcomm SoC. However, Samsung’s mid-range smartphone is also significantly heavier, and the display’s resolution is oddly very low.
However, the biggest improvement is certainly that it now has access to the fast 5G mobile network, but in return, the manufacturer’s price for the Galaxy A42 has also been increased by 70 Euros (~$85) compared with the predecessor.
With the same aspect ratio, the Galaxy A42’s display is half an inch larger than on the predecessor. This is also clearly noticeable in terms of dimensions and weight: While the Galaxy A41 was still relatively compact, the Galaxy A42 is a thoroughly large smartphone that is no longer as well suited for smaller hands. However, the display bezels are narrow, and a small water-drop notch at the top houses the front-facing camera.
Once again, Samsung has come up with a special effect for the back side: It’s divided into four zones that lie underneath each other. The uppermost zone is fully colored, while the zones below it have dot patterns of varying intensity. At the same time, incoming light is still refracted, so that rainbow colors show up. No wonder that the three color variants are called Prism Dot White, Prism Dot Black, and Prism Dot Gray.
The case is quite sturdy; the smartphone isn’t affected by strong pressure exerted using the fingers, and it can hardly be twisted either. However, the back of the case is made of plastic, while the OnePlus Nord offers glass, for example.
Like its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy A42 5G also supports Wi-Fi 5. In our test with the Netgear Nighthawk AX12 reference router, the smartphone achieves slightly lower transfer speeds than the Galaxy A41, but the speed should be perceived as the same in everyday use. Generally, there are smartphones with faster WLAN in this price range such as the OnePlus Nord or the Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G.
The highlight of the Galaxy A42 is, of course, the support of 5G networks. It should be noted here that although the SoC and its 5G modem generally also support fast mmWave frequencies, these are apparently disabled on the Galaxy A42. Consequently, only the somewhat slower sub-6-GHz networks can be used. This isn’t a disadvantage in Europe yet, since most network providers still don’t support mmWave here anyway. However, users who often travel to the USA or other countries might run into network limitations here.
LTE up to Cat 11 (600 Mb/s) for downloading data and Cat 12 (150 Mb/s) for uploading data are also supported. The frequency range is decent and sufficient for Europe, but the Galaxy phone is not a world phone that can access mobile Internet in every country in the world.
