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  • You've heard of the Galaxy S line...know you, the Galaxy S10, the Galaxy S9...those flagship

  • Samsung phones where you pay top dollar for top specs.

  • Samsung has another line called the A Series.

  • It's a group of mid-range smartphones that are mostly sold outside of the United States.

  • With the Samsung A lineup we hit that sweet spot of power and price.

  • This particular phone is the Galaxy A50, sold both inside and outside the United States

  • for around $300.

  • Today we're going to find out if Samsung takes any shortcuts on the mid-range phones.

  • Let's get started.

  • [Intro]

  • While Samsung flagships might be subtle and conservative, this A50 is one of the loudest

  • most obnoxiously colored phones I've ever seen.

  • And I love it.

  • Let's start with the scratch test.

  • I have I set of Mohs mineral picks that help discern between different materials.

  • Plastic scratches at a level 3.

  • Tempered glass scratches at level 6.

  • And sapphire scratches at level 8 or 9.

  • This Samsung A50 is using Gorilla Glass 3.

  • And with no included screen protectors or protective coverings, we start seeing scratches

  • at a level 6, with deeper grooves at a level 7.

  • Pretty standard results these days with tempered glass, even with the most expensive flagships.

  • The A50 has a cute little teardrop notch up at the top hiding the front facing 25 megapixel

  • selfie camera.

  • And it's got a little earpiece grill up here too.

  • One interesting thing that I haven't seen in a long time on this A50 is thin strips

  • of protective plastic that surrounds the outside edge of the phone.

  • With most smartphones these days having metal bodies and anodized exterior coatings that

  • are very durable, manufacturers don't need this extra shipping protection.

  • But this Samsung phone isn't made from metal.

  • The frame is made from plastic, covered in a thick chip-able coat of glossy paint.

  • The buttons are all made from plastic as well.

  • Plastic is definitely most cost effective to work with than metal is.

  • And Samsung does need to save as much money as possible when trying to sell this phone

  • for less than $300.

  • The top is also made from plastic.

  • And over here on the left side, there's no Bixby, but we do have the SIM and SD card

  • tray with a 512 gigabyte capacity.

  • Gotta love that.

  • Apple charges $300 just to upgrade the internal memory, and Samsung is over here selling the

  • whole phone for that price.

  • Down at the bottom we have a headphone jack and USB-C port.

  • So far this phone is a winner.

  • Heading over to the cameras, we have a 5 megapixel depth sensor, a 25 megapixel main camera in

  • the center, and an 8 megapixel ultra-wide camera at the bottomall protected by

  • the same piece of glass.

  • When I first pulled the Samsung A50 out of the box, I thought for sure it had a glass

  • panel on the back.

  • But as we know, the razor blades can't hurt glass.

  • This psychedelic back panel is made from plastic.

  • I'm impressed Samsung could pack so much reflective color into this one plastic panel.

  • One thing that's been on my mind a lot lately since my personal phone is now over two years

  • old, and I'm debating buying another one, is that there's really no reason to ever buy

  • a thousand dollar phone.

  • With so many powerful feature-rich mid-range smartphones on the market right now.

  • The only reason to ever spend that much money on a smartphone is if you A) use it for work,

  • or B) if your hobby is buying rapidly depreciating fashion statements.

  • Smartphones lose their value pretty quick.

  • The easiest way to save money is buying last year's thousand dollar phone for $500 this

  • year.

  • Or, you know, just buying a mid-range phone.

  • My chameleon buddy agrees with those economics.

  • Smartphone prices change faster than this guy changes color.

  • What should we name him?

  • Let me know down in the comments.

  • Now we know the Samsung A50 is entirely scratchable.

  • But never fear, dbrand is here.

  • Let me tell you a story.

  • About a year ago I was pretty bored so I tweeted dbrand and said if they changed the name of

  • their Carbon Yellow skin to Bulletproof Banana, I'd skin my own personal phone with it.

  • Well, they did change the name, and so for the past year my personal phone has been covered

  • in this bright neon yellow skin.

  • So whether you like bulletproof bananas, or would rather a more chill looking mature skin

  • like Swarm, dbrand's got you covered.

  • Skins can prevent scratches or hide scratches that are already there.

  • I'll put a link for dbrand down in the description so you can customize your own phone.

  • And thanks to dbrand for sponsoring this video.

  • We'll get our cold blooded chameleon friend out of hiding.

  • These little lizards prefer living in warm habitats.

  • So we'll heat things up with the flame test.

  • The Samsung A50 has a 1080p display with almost 100 more pixels per inch than Apple's cheapest

  • iPhone XR.

  • Apple's budget phone costs twice as much as this one.

  • The AMOLED display lasted 30 seconds under the heat from my flame and even after the

  • heat was removed, there was hardly any effect left on the screen.

  • Makes me wonder if Samsung has fixed the burn-in issue I'm having on my old Galaxy S8.

  • You might think a budget phone like this wouldn't have any of the cool flagship features like

  • bezel-less displays or under screen fingerprint scanners.

  • But this guy is rocking both.

  • This time around it's an optical fingerprint scanner instead of an ultrasonic like we saw

  • in the Galaxy S10.

  • But you know, the average person would never be able to tell the difference between the

  • two - only the super smart good-looking people who watch my channel...like you.

  • This optical fingerprint scanner still functions just fine under the level 7 deeper grooves.

  • So now it's time to move on and see what this plastic phone can handle with the bend test.

  • The bend test can check the build quality and the construction of a phone to give us

  • an idea of how it will hold up over the next two or three years.

  • Bending from the back gives us a pretty substantial flex in the upper third portion of the phone.

  • I've never had a Samsung phone break on me yet, but this A50 might very well be the first.

  • Everything is still working.

  • I'll flip it around and try from the backside.

  • Listen close.

  • [Cracking sound] Something snapped, but both the front and year of the phone look completely

  • intact.

  • No exterior cracks, so whatever broke was on the inside.

  • It's still living, so I'll try another bend.

  • The A50 retains its shape and functionality and survives my bend test.

  • I'm impressed.

  • A phone doesn't have to cost a lot of money to be structurally sound.

  • We'll have to open this thing up and check the insides to see what cracked.

  • I bet some screw popped out of place or something along those lines.

  • Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already so you don't miss the teardown.

  • And feel free to customize your own phone with the dbrand link in the description.

  • Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.

  • And thanks a ton for watching.

  • I'll see you around.

You've heard of the Galaxy S line...know you, the Galaxy S10, the Galaxy S9...those flagship

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