Samsung Galaxy A03s review

A budget triple camera

The Samsung Galaxy A03s features a triple-camera on a budget – it consists of a 13MP primary shooter, a 2MP macro snapper, and a 2MP depth sensor. There is also a 5MP selfie cam.

The primary camera’s 13MP sensor, according to hardware reading apps, is a lottery across the different markets. It can be either one of these – GalaxyCore GC13053, Hynix Hi1336, OmniVision OV13B10, or Samsung S5K3L6. The sensor sits behind a f/2.2 lens (interestingly, says f/2.64 in the EXIF info), and autofocus is available.

The 2MP macro camera has an f/2.4 lens with a fixed focus at about 5cm distance. The 2MP depth sensor also has an f/2.4 lens. These two are OmniVision OV02B1 and GalaxyCore GC02M1B.

Finally, the 5MP selfie camera has either a GalaxyCore GC5035 or Hynix Hi556 sensor. The press materials suggest f/2.2 lens, while the EXIF yet again shows an F-number of f/2.64.

The camera app is the same you’d find on most Samsung phones these days, well, a more basic version of it. Swiping left and right will switch between all available modes, and there’s an option to re-arrange or remove some of the modes from the viewfinder. Vertical swipes in either direction will switch between front and rear cameras.

The settings icon is located in the upper left corner of the screen and gives you fine control over the cameras. You don’t get separate setting screens for photo and video since the options aren’t that many in total. Like grid lines, location data, etc., the usual stuff can be found there. You can also turn on and off the Auto HDR.

Camera app

There is no Scene Optimizer. Night Mode is not available, either.

The Pro mode isn’t that Pro, as it doesn’t offer shutter speed control.

Photo quality

The 13MP photos from the main camera are likable – they offer accurate colors, great contrast and impressive dynamic range. The foliage looks natural, and the images aren’t over-sharpened.

The resolved detail is enough, but the corners are soft with smeared detail due to the cheap lens. The noise handling isn’t ideal, but while we can see at across the images, it’s not getting in the way that much.

Overall, the photos are good for this entry-level class, even if not that detailed, and most people should be happy with them.

Main camera, 13MP

There is a 2X zoom toggle on the viewfinder, but quite expectedly, it will net you digitally cropped and upscaled photos.

Main camera 2x, 13MP

The Galaxy A03s triple-camera setup also offers a 2MP depth sensor that comes in handy when shooting portraits. The phone calculates a good depth map, and the subject separation is good most of the time, provided there is enough light.

The portrait photos are satisfactory with good colors and contrast. The detail isn’t much, especially in non-ideal lighting. But with this good separation and likable blur, we can see many people sharing such photos across social networks.

Portraits, 13MP

The macro camera has a fixed focus at about 3-5cm distance.

Macro camera, 2MP

The Galaxy A03s more often than strikes the balance between noise reduction and detail left, and the photos look good, with okay detail, tolerable noise, and good contrast. The color saturation is acceptable, all things considered.

Night photos, 13MP

There is no Night Mode on the Galaxy A03s, the only enhancement available is Auto HDR. Without HDR, the images are less noisy, but darker and with blown highlights.

HDR introduces more noise, a lot more at times, but often it’s worth the extra noise, and we’d advise for leaving it act as it sees fit.

Auto HDR • No HDR

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Galaxy A03s. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Galaxy A03s against the Realme 8i and the Redmi Note 8 2021 in our Photo compare tool

Like many other Samsung phones, the selfie on the A03s has a toggle to determine how wide the frame will be. This setting annoyingly defaults to the narrower option and what it does is crop a bit and then upscale back to 5MP. We shot all selfies with the wider at the full 5MP resolution.

The 5MP selfies are, well, passable. The colors and the contrast are good, and the Auto HDR does help with the dynamic range. But the resolved detail is quite poor.

Selfies, 5MP

You can do portraits with the selfie camera, too. Those offer surprisingly good separation and nice blur, but the resolved detail is incredibly low.

Portrait selfies, 5MP

Video capturing

The Samsung Galaxy A03s supports video capturing up to 1080@30fps with its main and selfie cameras There is no 60fps option, no 4K mode, and no electronic stabilization.

The video bitrate is about 17Mbps, while audio is recorded in mono at 128kbps bitrate.

The 1080p clips from the main camera are not good – the detail is mediocre and the colors – washed out.

Finally, check out the Galaxy A03s in our video comparison database.

1080p: Galaxy A03s against the Realme 8i and the Redmi Note 8 2021 in our Video compare tool