SAMSUNG Galaxy A50 A505G 64GB Duos GSM Unlocked Phone w/Triple 25MP Camera - Black

I am very impressed by the A50. Coming from a Galaxy S5, the A50 is a big improvement and I had cautious high hopes about size, features and performance. I was not let down.Received model SM-A505G/DS in a sealed Samsung box with a US compatible charger (EP-TA200 15 watt Adaptive Fast Charger) and a rather short 31.25", 79.5cm USB C cable, headphones, clear case, SanDisk brand 64GB Class C (high speed) Micro SD card, and warranty cards (valid in the US only if you live in the US Virgin Islands, LOL). BTW, the USA is not the only country that uses the two blade plug. Many countries use that same design, but run on 240V. Philippians is one that comes to mind. The A505G/DS model is basically the South American variant of the A50.Setup is easy, fully charge the phone, insert a SIM and the included SD card, then power on, choose your language and wait a few minutes. I transferred the apps, data, settings, contacts, etc from the old phone (Galaxy S5) to the new A50 using the Samsung Smart Switch app (had to download and install on the old phone from the app store). Then in about 15 minutes the data was wirelessly transferred and apps installed on the A50. Saved me lots of time.The Finger Print reader works very fast. Other reviews claim it is useless, slow etc. I got unlock response times less than 1 second with two fingers prints registered. Adding a third slowed it down to about 1 full second. So I suspect registering 5 fingers will slow it down more. Also note that the phone comes with a tempered glass screen protector already installed, so don't put a another one on top of it or that could mess up touch response and fingerprint reading.Both hand air gestures and near field are not supported with model A505G/DS. I never used these features on my old S5, so I don't miss them on the A50. More about NFC and Samsung Pay later.Bloatware is practically non-existent. There are only a few Google and Samsung apps that can not be uninstalled, but can be disabled. The major offender is Bixby. I know of no one that wants or uses Bixby. There is nothing like all the junk you get with a branded phone. IE games, sports apps, shopping apps, etc that take up lots of memory and just can not be deleted unless you ROOT your phone.The initial 100% charge lasted about 4 hours of WI-Fi , LTE and constant changes to settings, screen savers, install/uninstall, downloads, etc until it was down to about 40%. I finally let it run down to 25% and put it on to charge. An hour later it was back to 100%, and that charge lasted the whole next day of constant use, testing every feature, etc. Every time the battery is recharged, it lasts noticeably longer, and this is typical of a new LION battery.I was very worried that the 4G/LTE bands would not match Cricket Wireless (Cricket is owned by ATT ). The seller listed the bands the phone supports in the Q&A section above, and Cricket Wireless uses LTE Bands B2 (1900 PCS), B4 (1700/2100 AWS 1), B17 (700 bc), and B30 (2300 WCS). Bands B2, B4, and B17 are supported by the A50 so 4G is working for me even though I am on the fringe of a LTE area getting only 1 or 2 bars tops while having connection on 3 of the 4 Cricket bands . Speed test showed consistent 5 to 6 Mbps download speeds even with such a weak signal. When it was raining hard, the phone was getting H+ (3G). Note that these bands only apply to the A505G/DS model. The other popular foreign model is A505F/DS and it supports entirely different set of LTE bands. So if you are on a ATT based GSM system, you need the A505G/DS model.The back of this A50 is the "iridescent" version, about as rigid as the S5 plastic back, and collects fingerprint smudges like you will not believe. But it looks really cool. I'm using a Wallet Case, so the back does not matter to me.The 4GB of ROM are enough for my use, as even with multiple apps running at once, no more than 2.5GB have been used. After deleting the installed apps I didn't want, and transferred and/or downloaded more apps, the internal memory shows 39GB free. And that includes what the OS uses. Plenty of room for more apps. All the data, photos, video, etc are on the SD card.A few hours after setting up the phone, an update was downloaded that took about 15-20 minutes to install. Says it improves finger print reader performance, and makes apps and the OS more stable, as well as other things. So far the phone performs flawlessly.The CPU in this phone is very fast. 8 cores, 4 up to 2.31 Ghz, and 4 up to 1.74 Ghz as measured by the GPU-Z app. Graphics are fast too, and the screen looks great. Haven't tested the camera yet, but so far the few pics I took look very good. When I get home in a few days I'll see how good the pics look on a 27" 4K monitor.The audio app works great, has an equalizer and other other features.The included headphones are the hard plastic style, not foam buds. So unless you want to press each piece into your ears while listening to music, they are pretty much only good for phone conversations.The Bluetooth 5.0 is awesome. I only have 4.1 headsets, but the distance 5.0 gives is amazing. Left the phone in the family room, and walked outside. That put 1 interior wall, and one outside wall between me and the phone. I was able to walk about 50 feet from the house before the music broke up. I am able to walk all over 2,500 sq ft ranch with the phone in the middle of the house and not even one hickup in the playback. Also transferred a few files from the laptop (BT 4.1) to the A50. Worked well. Was an easy way to copy some stuff to the A50.Fast charging works, well, fast. About 1 hour from about 30% to 100%. The charging tester showed that even though the A50 said "100% charged", but it was not. The charger continued to output slowly diminishing amperage at 9.0 volts for about another 15-20 minutes until the tester showed that the A50 was no longer drawing any power from the charger. So I suggest leaving the A50 on the charger about 15 minutes past the Notification that it is 100% charged to actually get a full charge.Hot spot worked with my laptop in the same room. But with the poor 4G signal I was getting performance was barely OK. Video would not play. I suspect this would improve with a descent 4G signal.Phone calls using only WIFI work great. Sending pictures and texts via WIFI worked good too. Using 4G, large photos attached to texts were sent in just a matter of moments.BTW, I just took the SIM card out of the S5 and put it in the A50 and it worked. A few hours later I logged into my Cricket Wireless account and it was showing the EMEI number from the A50.All and all, the phone is doing what I want and doing it better than expected, and with no glitches, freezing, heating up or slowing down. I'm very happy.Update 10/16/2019. In an area that has good 4G, (3,4 out of 5 bars) video phone calls work great. No glitches, no stutter, no voice issues. I have traveled all over town with this phone doing a video chat to Hong Kong perfectly. HK is where my fiance is. Nice.I gave up trying to get Samsung Pay and Google Pay to work at checkout, even though the phone has the sensors (NFC) needed for checkout. I was unable to identify the specific sub APL routine that connects the NFC sensor in the phone to the applications that get installed. That seems to be the the problem. Phone has the NFC sensor, but not a driver to connect to apps that need NFC support for checkout. Anyone know where I can download the NFC driver, please let me know.Anyway, the phone is still working perfectly. I have manually rebooted the phone about 6 times after big installs and big uninstalls. The phone is working great. Perfect. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.BTW, speed tests in a 3/4 bar 4G area hit the Cricket limit of 8Gb/s on downloads. So it is working well on the Cricket system. If you have an Att account, I believe the cap is 10Gb/s download. You will have to test yourself. Upload tests are not working. But I can upload huge pics with no problems. Multiple huge pics attached to a single text message go in a matter of moments. Emails with 6 or 8 big picture attachments are sent in less than 20 seconds. So the LTE is working well.

Highly recommend. I am so done buying phones with carriers and spending around 30$ a month for a high end phone. I have MetroPCS in Miami FL and it works very well. Especially outdoors (my house is known to hinder cell reception). Outside with a weak LTE+ I can hit 59mb/s down and 39 up. On normal LTE I get 21 to 29, though upload says anywhere from 3 to 15. But I never really upload. When I am in a highly populated area in Miami LTE+ on full bars gets me 80mb/s plus (have hit 100 plus a couple times).This phone is a monster. MetroPCS offers the A20 for a very low price for new customers but about 208$ activated for a current customer with in store rebate. The different between the A20 and A50 is large. So paying the extra 30-50$ is worth it.4gb of RAM is pretty high end now (some upper phones are at 6) as many phones of good quality offer 2gb to 3gb (I believe the A20 is 3gb)64gb internal storage is enough for me but you also get a free 64gb microSD. I love microSDs since you can put them in so many things to share so I see this as a major plus (the SD card is class 10 ultra capable of high speed transfer so great quality).The processor is one of the better Exynos sets and much higher than the A20 with a much better GPU. Everything I have done has been lightning fast. The processor upgrade from the A20 is worth the money alone.The screen/display is amazing. Samsung's AMOLED brand always delivers. The front of the phone is beautiful. And it comes with a screen protector on already (i suck at putting them on) with a free clear case that is ok, but better than nothing till you get a better one.Basically this phone is at least on par with a Galaxy S9 and close to the 10. Just in a more plastic shell. Still feels great in your hand. Not heavy very accessible.Battery life for me has been weird but I am a very heavy user who is constantly browsing and reading watching Netflix and YouTube. It lasts my entire day of heavy use so far. Really wish I could open it for multiple battery use .I don't use cell cameras much as I'm in the stone age of social media (hate snap chat and FB) but took a couple photos and they were the best cell phone pictures I have ever taken (in terms of quality).The bad? Things that don't affect me much. The fingerprint scanner and fingerprint functions totally were a hassle for me. I don't like using it but I tried and was very dissatisfied. It was difficult to get my fingerprint read to open anything. So I stuck with the pattern or code.I have not tried face recognition.Overall this phone is a must for MetroPCS users that are interested in the A20 or someone who wants a powerhouse phone without shelling out more than $500.Samsung still has the bloat ware. OneUI is ok. Better than TouchhWiz and some bloat can be frozen. I haven't messed with Bixby (always hated Google assistant).I paid $238 for mine. Wish I did it sooner.Remember to make sure the model purchased will support USA LTE If you are here in the states (some A50 do not. My A505G does) and this is a GSM phone not a CDMA so no Verizon or Sprint.As someone who has had 3 different Notes, the original Galaxy 1 and the 6, this phone is just great. Save your money. Get this phone is a nice sturdy case and you win. An edit to add in the end but better Samsung phones have a great sound chipset and can make music sound so much better than other phones. I came from the J7 Prime and music is so much better on this phone.TL;DR if you are a MetroPCS customer on a budget this phone is a must. Good battery fantastic chipset. Amazing display. Bad fingerprint sensor.