Samsung Galaxy A35 – Good basic mobile phone

The Samsung Galaxy A35 has grown, in more ways than one. For those who think the flagship models have become far too expensive, Samsung's Galaxy A series offers options in several price ranges. For a long time, the Galaxy A5x models, with the latest being the Galaxy A55, have been the most popular, with a surprisingly good screen and camera at an affordable price tag. However, that price tag has taken a noticeable step up, and maybe it will now be the slightly cheaper Galaxy A35 that gets to take over the role?

In last year's models, the Galaxy A34 and A54, the camera, screen and performance of the Galaxy A34 were a little worse than in the A54, but at the same time not so much worse that it was a problem. This year's Galaxy A35 has become a little better and thus less limited.

If we start with the chipset, it is Samsung's Exynos 1380 that powers the phone. It is the same chipset that was in the Galaxy A54, and the A35 has thus inherited its one-year-old chipset from a more expensive model. It's become common in cheaper variants of top models, but here we're talking about a chipset that wasn't super fast to begin with. In practice, I don't experience peak performance, but at the same time, I also don't feel that the phone feels slow or that I am handicapped by not having a top chipset in it.

Low RAM warning

The variant I'm testing has 8 GB of working memory and 256 GB of storage and has a recommended price of SEK 5,300, so it's not exactly a budget mobile. The cheaper version with 128 GB of storage costs SEK 4,500, but has 6 GB of working memory, which is a bit stingy by today's standards and can make the mobile phone slower at, for example, launching apps than the one I tested.

The screen, and for that matter the entire phone, has become larger than last year's model, and although the black frames around the screen are thinner and the plastic frame is narrower, it is noticeable that the phone has become quite heavy and clumsy. Whether it's worth it for a fifth of an inch of extra screen is debatable. The fact that the back is now made of glass instead of plastic is also not obviously an improvement, but in any case makes the phone feel less cheap than its predecessor.

In any case, the screen is unequivocally good. It is a bright Amoled screen with a small camera hole for the selfie camera, 120 Hz refresh rate and nice colors, a screen that could fit in a much more expensive mobile. With Always-on display turned on, the screen shows time and notifications even when it's off, but it does so with such low brightness that it becomes difficult to see.

Unfortunately, the fingerprint reader is also in the screen, and I often get incorrect readings when I try to unlock the phone. Also, for some reason I can only register three different fingerprints.

Competent camera

The Samsung Galaxy A35 has three cameras. A main camera of 50 megapixels, a wide-angle camera of 8 megapixels and a macro camera of 5 megapixels. The main camera has a slightly larger sensor compared to the Galaxy A34, but it is smaller than the sensor in the Galaxy A55, or for that matter the Galaxy A54.

The main camera is competent and does well for most needs, including photos taken in slightly poorer lighting. The color reproduction can sometimes feel a little flat, but on the other hand is not excessive, and the sharpness is good. The biggest weakness is with high-contrast images, where parts of the image tend to be over- or under-exposed. The wide-angle camera is perfectly fine given the conditions, no autofocus and comparatively low resolution. However, I find it difficult to see any benefit with the macro camera, which has such a low resolution that zoomed-in images from the main camera give better close-ups.

The mobile phone lacks a zoom camera, but uses the high resolution of the main camera, which gives images up to twice the zoom that are sharper than if you enlarged digitally. In the same way, you can take a picture in the full 50-megapixel resolution, which is then more detailed but also a little more sensitive to light. Up to 4x zoom I think you can take useful pictures with it, but after that the pictures become too blurry.

The system could be a reason to choose Samsung over other Android brands. Samsung's interface One UI changes a lot, and often for the better. Samsung also adds a range of services, which are sometimes better than Google's counterparts. You won't find Samsung's new AI functions in the Galaxy A35, but mainly in the more expensive top models in the Galaxy S24 series.

The battery life in the mobile phone is above average, both when it comes to screen time and standby. Samsung doesn't ship with a charger, but if you plug in a charger that complies with the USB PD standard, it can be charged at up to 25 watts, which means it takes a little more than an hour to charge the battery. Wireless charging is missing.

Should it be a Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy A35 is probably the most affordable option of this year's models, which is still good enough for most people. Simply a good base mobile. But you have to put up with the fact that it is a rather large and heavy mobile phone.

Questions and answers

Is there room for memory cards? Yes, the mobile has a so-called hybrid card slot, so you can choose between having two SIM cards in the mobile or one SIM and a memory card.

What is the difference to the Galaxy A55? The Galaxy A55 costs just over SEK 1,000 more, has a faster chipset and better cameras, as well as a metal frame.

How is the speaker sound? Unevenly balanced between left and right speakers, but still quite good.

An alternative

Last year's Samsung Galaxy A54 is now sold cheaper than the Galaxy A35, and has the same performance and better cameras. The only real downside is a year shorter system updates since it's an older model.

Camera example

At two times zoom, you get pictures with more detail than if you zoom in manually in pictures you took without zoom, which shows that the camera's extra pixels are used for optical zoom.