Samsung makes great music and dance over its high-end phones like the new Galaxy S22, showcasing all the fun and useful features these devices have. However, if you can’t afford one of these premium phones, you can assume that you can’t take advantage of these tools.
However, this is not the case as many of the more affordable Samsung phones also come with many of the great features showcased in the Galaxy S devices. So if you buy a Galaxy A phone like the mid-range Samsung Galaxy A53 or even the Budget Galaxy A13, you will be able to use many of these functions.
To give you an idea of some of the great features of the Samsung Galaxy S22 that you can use on cheaper Samsung phones, we’re going to introduce you to six of our favorites right now.
1. One-shot mode
With the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, we saw the launch of Single Take, a mode that makes photography much easier, and remains a great feature of subsequent Galaxy S devices.
With the mode, you record a video of your subject moving and recording from different angles, and the AI will choose the best shots and edit them for you.
This allows you to take an amazing photo whether or not you know a lot about photography.
While it was a huge selling point for the Samsung Galaxy S phones, it’s actually available on the Galaxy A phones as well. This lets you take those super-simple shots regardless of whether or not you paid for the high-end Samsung phone.
Admittedly, the AI isn’t that smart on the budget phones, so the pictures don’t match those of the S-series phones, but it’s still a great feature that you don’t have to pay too much for.
2. Device care
If you’re spending a lot of money on an expensive phone, you’ll want it to last a long time – but depending on how you use it, that’s not always easy to achieve.
Fortunately, Samsung phones offer a way to help with this. In the Battery section of your Settings mode, you can find the Device Care menu. Here, you can see how healthy your device is, with a simple score telling you how well optimized the phone is for longevity, and you can also try boosting that score as well.
The menu offers options to optimize storage, memory, and battery life, all to ensure your phone is running as healthy as possible.
Even if you haven’t paid a lot for a Samsung phone, this mode can come in handy – after all, you want your device to last a few years, regardless of whether you paid $400 or $1,400. This menu appears for all Galaxy devices, not just the S series, allowing you to improve the way your phone works.
3. The 120Hz screen
Samsung was one of the first companies to adopt high refresh rate displays on its smartphones, with some Galaxy S phones using 120Hz displays before rivals.
High refresh rate screens make movement smoother, so whether you’re browsing social media or playing games, you get a more pleasant viewing experience.
It’s a feature we initially saw exclusively on high-end phones – the aforementioned S20 was one of the first to use it – but now you don’t have to pay a lot for a premium device to take advantage of it.
Now that the feature has been around for a while, we’ve seen more and more mid-range and budget phones adopt it. In Samsung’s case, this is partially true, as some of its budget devices now have 120Hz displays.
That includes the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G and A73 – they both have 120Hz displays, but don’t cost as much as the high-end Galaxy S alternatives. So if you like smooth moving screens, you can get one without paying too much.
4. Adaptive loading
A great example of a feature first introduced in Samsung’s high-end phones is Adaptive Charging – this mode protects battery longevity by using AI to figure out when to charge fast and when to turn off power. With this, you can keep your phone plugged in for a long time without completely ruining the battery.
This was originally only available on high-end phones in the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note ranges, but it has recently started to appear on more affordable phones as well.
You need to use a Samsung charger for this feature to work, which, we should point out, you won’t get with certain newer Galaxy A phones. You’ll need to buy one online if you don’t have one – and it’s worth it, because in the long run it can keep your phone lasting longer.
5. Power mode
While Single Take is the mode that Samsung displays most often, it’s not the brand’s only useful way to take photos if you don’t want to use the default photo mode.
Another one is the Food mode which, despite its name, doesn’t have to be used just for food. It lets you choose an area of focus, with the rest of the photo having some depth blur – you can select an animal, a pattern or, of course, food, and it will stand out from the photo. The mode also edits the snap with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of saturation to make it pop more.
This mode is not only useful on Samsung Galaxy S phones, but also appears on A-series devices. Since cheaper phones don’t have such powerful cameras, it’s arguably even more useful on these devices, to ensure you get the best shots possible. .
6. Accurate color
Once you’ve taken a photo, it can be fun to edit it so it’s really social media ready, and Samsung’s high-end phones give you the scope to do just that.
The main feature here is the spot color – when used in Samsung’s Gallery app, you can select a color and it will immediately change to monochrome in the photo. This allows you to create some pretty artistic masterpieces if you play around with it.
As you can probably tell from the title of this article, this is another feature available on the Galaxy A and Galaxy S devices. We’ve used it before to take some pretty artistic shots, especially when used to make a black and white selfie background. (but leaving the subject, we, colored).
Thanks to that, in addition to the camera modes we’ve already seen, a Galaxy A phone is as good as a Galaxy S if you’re a prolific Insta poster.