Samsung has announced the Galaxy A42 5G, the latest in its lineup of more reasonably priced and lower-specced A-series phones. The A42 is now Samsung’s cheapest phone with 5G, selling for £349 (about $455 USD). That puts it £80 below the Galaxy A51 5G, which was previously the cheapest way to buy into Samsung’s 5G lineup at £429 (or priced at $500 USD in the US).
The Galaxy A42 uses the Snapdragon 750G, a middle-of-the-pack processor that was just announced by Qualcomm last month. It’s supposed to be a step up from the Snapdragon 730G, seen in phones like the Pixel 4A, but it isn’t quite as powerful as the Snapdragon 765G, seen in the Pixel 4A 5G and OnePlus Nord.
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The phone has a 6.6-inch OLED display with a teardrop cutout for a 20 megapixel camera at the top, 4GB to 8GB of RAM depending on the model, 128GB of storage expandable by MicroSD, a 5,000 mAh battery, and a fingerprint sensor built into the screen. On the back, there are four cameras: a 48 megapixel wide, 8 megapixel ultrawide, a 5 megapixel macro, and a 5 megapixel depth sensor for creating portrait effects.
It comes in three colors — black, gray, and white — each with a dense grid pattern on the back that darkens in stages as it rises up the phone. The phone launches in the UK on November 6th. The Verge has reached out to Samsung to ask about broader availability.
Samsung’s Galaxy A42 will compete closely with OnePlus’ Nord, which sells for £379, or just £30 more. For that extra £30, the Nord includes a faster processor, more RAM, a 90Hz display, and a second selfie camera, and it’s received generally positive reviews, too. That said, it’s likely the A42’s price will drop — the Galaxy A51 5G is already on sale in the US for $325, or $175 off, which makes it even cheaper than the A42 while the sale lasts.
