Samsung Galaxy A17 5G review: Sleek but samey

Best Prices Today: Samsung Galaxy A17 5G

Despite being one of its most important series for sales figures, Samsung snuck the Galaxy A17 onto the phone market almost like it wanted no one to notice. 

Nevertheless, the Galaxy A17 is here and will challenge to be the go-to budget Android smartphone for many people around the world. We’ve raided the piggy bank at Tech Advisor towers to buy one so we can test it out on your behalf. 

Note that the Galaxy A17 comes in both 4G and 5G models, but I’m testing the latter here. Aside from connectivity, there are a couple of other minor differences between the two, which I’ll point out as we go. 

The A17 5G comes in at £199 for the only model available. That’s the same as the Galaxy A16 5G (and the A15 5G), and we’ve already seen it on sale for £169 multiple times. Oddly, it’s not available in the US yet. 

So, is it the best budget phone of 2025? Let’s find out. 

Design & Build 

• Signature Samsung style 
• Slightly thinner and lighter than the A16 5G
• Plastic back

Samsung has always done a good job of making its cheaper Galaxy A phones look and feel good. At a glance, you often wouldn’t notice that one is an A-series and not a flagship S-series. 

The A17 5G looks much like its predecessor with a few small tweaks. It retains the familiar style of Samsung phones, though it’s a little thinner and lighter this year.

At 7.5mm and 192g, it feels suitably svelte and lightweight, especially compared to some rivals and similarly sized flagships, which regularly exceed 8mm and 200g.

Once again, the phone features no metal in its external construction. A plastic frame and glass fibre back are paired with a Gorilla Glass Victus front. Still, the phone feels nice and I like the shimmering effect of the back panel in the stylish Blue colour. 

Grey and Black complete the fairly business-like lineup of colourways, and the phone retains its IP54 rating for basic dust and splash protection. It would be good to see Samsung improve this next year. The IP68 found on flagships offers protection against water submersion and all dust particles, so there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Elsewhere, Samsung has swapped the individual porthole-style cameras on the back for a “linear camera cluster” akin to the Galaxy A36 and A56. I prefer the old style, but the phone still looks good overall. 

I like the shimmering effect of the back panel in the stylish Blue colour. 

Last but not least is the Key Island 2.0, which Samsung says is “revamped” but I’m not sure how exactly. It’s still just the intentional bump where the power and volume buttons sit. 

It’s a nice feature and helps you find the buttons, which is important as the fingerprint scanner is embedded in the power button. 

Screen & Speakers 

• 6.7-inch, 90Hz AMOLED display 
• Teardrop selfie notch 
• Lacking stereo speakers 

Things are unchanged in this department from the A16 5G, meaning you get a large 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate and a Full HD+ resolution. 

As we noted last year, the colours are vibrant and the refresh rate helps to keep things smooth. You might want 120Hz, but that’s not necessarily the best choice on a budget phone with regard to performance and battery life.

The display presents excellent contrast and gets decently bright, so you’ll be able to use it in a wide range of situations

Oddly, the phone is stuck at 60Hz by default with the excuse of battery life, but this defeats the point of having it. Make sure you change the Motion smoothness setting to High in the display section of the Settings menu for a far superior experience.  

The display presents excellent contrast and gets decently bright, so you’ll be able to use it in a wide range of situations. I measured it at 357 nits with a professional colorimeter at full brightness and adaptive measurement switched off, but it can theoretically hit 800 nits in high brightness mode (HBM). 

The downside to the screen is that Samsung has stuck with a chunky bezel, particularly the chin below the panel, plus a teardrop camera notch that looks dated. These are the kinds of things you don’t notice at a glance compared to Samsung’s more expensive Galaxy phones, but may be reasons to splash out on them.

If you want a cheap Galaxy phone, though, these are fine to live with, and they do become less obvious after a week or two. If you want a more premium experience, then you should consider the CMF Phone 2 Pro, which has a thinner bezel, higher brightness, a pinhole camera and a 120Hz refresh rate. 

Another thing the same as the A16 is the lack of stereo speakers. You’ll have to rely on the mono speaker at the bottom edge, which produces sound with reasonable clarity but lacks any real depth.

It’s another thing I’d like to see improved on the A18, as it shouldn’t cost Samsung much to add, creating a better experience for media consumption. 

Specs & Performance 

• Samsung Exynos 1330 chip 
• 4GB of RAM 
• 128GB of storage 

The similarities to the A16 continue when we look at the core specs. The phone still has the entry-level Exynos 1330 processor with just 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. However, this is the main upgrade compared to the 4G model, which features the more basic MediaTek Helio G99.

Other markets appear to have multiple models to choose from, including those with more memory and storage, but just one is available in the UK. If previous generations are anything to go by, it’ll be the same story for any potential US launch.

Frequent pauses and stutters in transitions are things you’ll have to get used to

The saving grace for storage is that you can make use of the Micro-SD card slot to add up to 2TB more, though this will take up one of the Nano-SIM slots, so it’s only a dual-SIM phone if you don’t need to use a memory card. 

Disappointingly, the UK model I’m testing does not support eSIM, which is a big shame in 2025. 

It’s no surprise to find that I found performance to be the same as the A16. That is to say, it runs ok when there’s nothing too complicated going on in the background, but frequent pauses and stutters in transitions are things you’ll have to get used to. 

As mentioned above, make sure the screen is making use of the 90Hz refresh rate so that the user experience is smoother. 

You shouldn’t expect much from a budget phone when it comes to gaming, but I was surprised to find that Asphalt Legends ran pretty well, even when I upped the settings to 60fps and some higher quality options. Just don’t expect the likes of Genshin Impact to run smoothly – that’s not what the phone is designed for.

Delving further into the spec sheet, I’m still struggling to find anything different to the Galaxy A16 5G. This phone is still limited to Wi-Fi 5 (albeit dual-band) and Bluetooth 5.3. You may not notice, but it just goes to show how little Samsung has done to this device. 

Samsung Galaxy A17 5G benchmarks

Cameras 

• 50Mp rear main camera 
• Ultrawide and macro lenses 
• 13Mp selfie camera 

The Galaxy A17 5G comes with a triple rear camera system and, of yeah, it’s the same as the A16 5G. Three rear cameras might sound exciting, but don’t get your hopes up too much. 

The 50Mp main unit is joined by 5Mp ultrawide and 2Mp macro cameras. The latter is really just there to bump up the numbers, as we’ve seen from so many budget phones over the years.

With a bit of patience, you’ll get photos perfectly good enough for sharing on social media, with good detail and colours

Sure, the main camera can take decent enough photos, but that’s mainly the case if you enjoy shooting during the daytime and ideally outdoors when the weather is good. 

When the conditions are favourable and with a bit of patience, you’ll get photos perfectly good enough for sharing on social media, with good detail and colours. 

Shooting in lower light has improved with the addition of OIS (optical image stabilisation), which is one of the only upgrades I can find on the entire spec sheet. This is also found on the cheaper A17 4G’s main camera. 

You should still avoid using the zoom options in the camera app, though. You might get away with a simple 2x (these are just digital crops), but the 4x and 10x options are just a totally pointless, grainy mess. 

As mentioned already, the macro camera is really just there so the phone seems fancy with a triple rear array. You can see some examples below of how mediocre results are.

The 5Mp ultrawide is ok if you really need it, but the A17 realistically only has one rear lens that’s worth using, and even then, only when the lighting is good.

Meanwhile, the 13Mp front-facing camera is pretty decent, again if you have good enough conditions, and has a slightly wider view option if you need to fit more in, but it’s not a huge difference. Selfies are solid, but unspectacular.

Battery Life & Charging 

• 5000mAh battery 
• 25W charging 
• No adapter included 

I’m very much sounding like a broken record at this point, but the battery and charging specs are identical to the A16 5G. Samsung really hasn’t put much effort into upgrading this phone. 

You get a reasonable but not outstanding 5000mAh battery and 25W charging, which used to be fast, but very much isn’t these days.

You can get two days of lighter use from the Galaxy A17 5G, which is solid but not exactly groundbreaking

Once again, you can get two days of lighter use from the Galaxy A17 5G, which is solid but not exactly groundbreaking. The phone does see an improvement in our regular PCMark for Android Work 3.0 battery benchmark, now hitting 12 hours and 24 minutes.

That’s up exactly two hours on its predecessor, but still doesn’t stand out as a particularly impressive result. 

When it comes to charging, you can get the A17 5G to 28% in 15 minutes and 54% in 30 – if you have the right charger. Samsung doesn’t include one in the box, just a cable. 

Picking the right charger is harder than it might appear, as simply getting one which is USB-C and 25W or higher isn’t necessarily enough. For example, I used a 67W charger by Xiaomi and only saw 16% in 15 minutes and 32% in 30. 

It doesn’t help that Samsung doesn’t even mention 25W charging on the official A17 page, let alone the charging type. Learn more about USB-C charging speeds and standards in our full guide. 

Software & Apps 

• Android 15 
• One UI 7 
• Upgradable and long support 

A year on from the Galaxy A16, there’s another number on the software versions, so you get Android 15 and One UI 7 – the latter being Samsung’s user interface over the top of the core Android OS. 

One UI 7 is a fairly big update compared to version 6, with a simplified and cleaner look, along with various background improvements to make life with a Galaxy phone more enjoyable.

Samsung’s UI has never been my favourite skin, but I got on with One UI 7 just fine and features like the Now Bar help. This is a small bar at the bottom of the lockscreen (see above) to provide you with real-time or fresh information, such as what music is playing or a sports score. 

There are also nicer animations (though the A17 struggles with some) and natural language search in the settings. There are also some features, such as Galaxy sharing and Samsung Pass, which can make it easier to send files and not have to remember your passwords. 

The A17 doesn’t come with any Galaxy AI features at all – not even basic tools such as Writing Assist

However, there’s typically a Google version of all these apps and features already installed on the phone, so you may well want to use them instead. In my opinion, they are all better.

Gemini is included in the suite of Google apps, giving you access to one of the best AI assistants around. This is fortunate because the A17 doesn’t come with any Galaxy AI features at all – not even basic tools such as Writing Assist. It’s one of the major differences compared to more expensive Galaxy phones.

You can access Gemini with a long press of the power button on the side, and Circle to Search is also included here, which is just a long press of the home button away.

Aside from Samsung’s mostly duplicates of Google apps, there is a bit of bloatware here, but nothing too bad. A selection of Microsoft apps, along with the likes of Temu, Spotify, Monopoly Go and ClearPay, can almost all be uninstalled if you wish. 

My A17 received the update to One UI 8 (based on Android 16) towards the end of testing (seen in the photos). It’s a more subtle update than the jump from One UI 6 to 7.

It’s impressive to see Samsung get it out to such a cheap phone quickly, and the A17 5G will be supported for a total of six years for software updates. And that includes OS versions, not just security patches. 

While it’s a big plus point, it also means that predecessors that are only a little way into their lifespan remain tempting options. 

Price & Availability 

It’s a good job, considering how similar the Galaxy A17 5G is to its predecessor, that Samsung has kept the price the same. 

At £199, it’s comfortably in the budget category, and it’s the same price as even the Galaxy A15 5G from 2023.

There’s just one model here in the UK with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though there appear to be others with higher capacities in other markets. As mentioned earlier, the phone isn’t available in the US yet, but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t appear soon. It’s likely to come in at $199. 

You can buy the Galaxy A17 5G in all three colours from Samsung’s official store, as well as retailers like Amazon, Argos, AO, Currys, Laptops Direct, Very and more. 

If you don’t need 5G, then the Galaxy A17 4G is available for £139.

Check out our list of the best budget phones right now.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G? 

Typically, our answer to this question for Samsung’s hugely popular budget Galaxy A phones is a big yes. However, it’s not that straightforward this time. 

While it’s good to see Samsung keep the same price as two generations ago, there’s been almost no innovation or improvement to this phone compared to the Galaxy A16 5G. 

In fact, in almost 15 years of reviewing phones, I can’t think of another phone so similar to its predecessor. Samsung has changed the look of the camera module on the back, added OIS to the main camera and made the handset a little thinner and lighter. 

But when it has the same screen, processor, core camera specs, battery, charging, memory, storage (and I could keep going), this doesn’t feel worthy of an annual refresh. 

And while I like the new blue colour and Samsung offers long software support, the latter is true of the Galaxy A16 5G. It begs the question: why would you buy this newer model?

Ultimately, it may come down to availability, with the Galaxy A16 5G already discontinued from Samsung’s official store. Discounts on the A17 5G are also likely to be common, but if you see its predecessor at a significantly cheaper price, it remains a better value purchase.

If you don’t need 5G, then the Galaxy A17 4G could make for a bargain at £139 and the CMF Phone Pro 2 is well worth a look if you’re not tied to Samsung.

Specs

• Android 15 with One UI 7
• Six years of OS and security updates
• 6.7-inch, FHD+, AMOLED, 90Hz, flat display
• Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Exynos 1330 processor
• 4GB RAM
• 128GB storage
• MicroSDXC card slot (up to 2TB)
• 50Mp, f/1.8 main camera, OIS
• 5Mp, f/2.2 ultrawide camera
• 2Mp, f/2.4 macro camera
• 13Mp, f/2.0 front-facing camera
• Mono speaker
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth 5.3
• 5000mAh battery
• 25W charging
• 164.4 x 77.9 x 7.5 mm
• 192g
• IP54
• Colours: Black, Blue, Grey

Best Prices Today: Samsung Galaxy A17 5G