Forget the flagship – this midrange Galaxy checks all the right boxes at less than $200

ZDNET's key takeaways

• Samsung's Galaxy A35 5G is a well-rounded smartphone that's on sale for $198
• You'll love the two-day battery life, amazing screen quality, and four years of software updates
• The biggest issue? Performance tends to vary from day to day and can lead to overheating

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I'm surprised how much I enjoy using the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G. The 2024 midrange phone in Samsung's lineup isn't necessarily anything special — it looks like any other Galaxy phone from recent years, and it doesn't have any flashy features. Still, the mission of mid-range phones is not to make waves; it's to provide a balance between performance, quality, and price. This phone achieves that balance well.

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Some would argue this isn't the best $400 phone on the market, but it's certainly one of them, and the screen is the main reason. 

The Galaxy A35 5G features a Samsung Signature Super AMOLED display measuring 6.6 inches diagonally. The display has a Full HD+ resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth motion, and 1,000 nits of brightness, making it easy to see in direct sunlight. Plus, it's protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is a nice perk.

One of the best perks of the Galaxy A35 is the battery size. Clocking in at 5,000mAh, this thing can easily last two days on a full charge. During my testing, I only plugged in the phone three times, and that was with moderate use. Unfortunately, there are no wireless charging capabilities, and the charging speed is capped at 25W, so it might take some time to get to 100%. Still, it's nice having multi-day battery life on any smartphone, let alone one that costs $400.

Another thing I wasn't expecting to say after spending some time with the A35 is that the cameras aren't that bad. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that at least two of them are good, which is almost impossible to say for most sub-$500 Android phones.

The main 50MP camera is perfectly capable of taking some nice pictures. Colors aren't overdone as much as on older Samsung phones, while contrast and exposure remain generally on point. The A35 is okay at maintaining shadows, for better or worse, while photo quality generally dips when the lights get low. It's not terrible by any means, but extra grain and noise are hard to avoid unless there's a ton of external or natural light in the frame.

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I'll also give credit to the 13MP selfie camera, which is perfectly suited for Snapchat or Instagram Stories. Unfortunately, the other cameras on the back of the device are disappointing. The 8MP may be ultra-wide thanks to its 123-degree field of view, but it's grainy and low-quality in almost every lighting condition. Meanwhile, the 5MP macro camera is washed out, and it is impossible to capture anything usable — unless you're in broad daylight.

You can't buy the Galaxy A35 5G expecting movie-quality videos, but at least you can shoot in 4K, albeit at 30 frames per second. In addition, I like Samsung's camera app, which is well-optimized and easy to navigate.

Some other notable features include a fast, reliable in-display fingerprint scanner, IP67 water- and dust-resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the back, and a microSD card slot for expanding your storage whenever you want. The A35, however, stumbles in performance. The phone isn't slow, but it's not always fast either. It's equipped with an Exynos 1380 octa-core processor that's fast enough for everyday use, but during my testing, the phone would sometimes slow down so much that it took several seconds to open an app or switch to multitasking.

The device would also sometimes get inexplicably hot during regular use. For example, once I was scrolling through an article with Spotify playing in the background, and the A35 got hot enough that I had to put it down. 

Also: I changed 7 settings on my Samsung phone to significantly improve the battery life

This is a known issue with Samsung's Exynos chips, which have historically fallen behind Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors in performance and efficiency. Luckily, you can rig the A35 with 6GB, 8GB, or 12GB of RAM, so you won't run out of memory during usage — just don't push the phone too hard.

ZDNET's buying advice

It's hard to find a midrange device that balances the smartphone experience well, but the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G does a pretty good job. While performance and camera quality fall behind in some areas, the rest of the phone is good (especially that gorgeous screen) for the price.

There are other solid alternatives, like the Pixel 8a or the excellent OnePlus 13R, that offer a similar experience. However, they are significantly more expensive. As mentioned earlier, the Galaxy A35 is on sale for less than $200. The OnePlus 13R, in comparison, costs triple that amount.