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Samsung sells a lot ofAndroid phones, with the Galaxy A1x series aimed at buyers on a tight budget. The latest entry is now official at CES, with a $199.99 price tag: the Galaxy A14 5G.
UPDATE: 1/12/23
The Galaxy A14 5G is now available for purchase atSamsung’s website,T-Mobile,andVerizon. It should be available atAT&TandCricket Wirelessstarting January 14.
🎉 The Samsung Galaxy A14 5G is aHow-To Geek Best of CES 2023 award winner! Make sure to check out our full list of winners to learn more about exciting products coming in 2023.
Related:How-To Geek’s Best of CES 2023 Award Winners
The Galaxy A14 5G is the sequel to last year’s A13 5G, and you’d be hard-pressed to notice any differences between the two. Both phones have a MediaTek Dimensity 700 chipset, a 90 Hz refresh rate on the display, a 50 MP (f/1.8) main camera,a useless 2 MP depth camera, a mostly-useless 2 MP macro camera, and a large 5,000mAh battery. The devices also have a microSD card slot and 3.5mm headphone jack, which are becoming increasingly hard to find on modern smartphones.
Related:The Best Android Phones of 2023
The main difference this time around is a more powerful front-facing camera. Samsung has boosted the front camera from 5 MP to 13 MP, which should improve selfies, video calls, and anything else that relies on the front-facing lens. The display is also slightly larger, at 6.6 inches diagonally (up from 6.5"). Unfortunately, there’s still no support forWi-Fi 6Eor 6, just Wi-Fi 5. 5G is supported on sub-6 GHz bands, though, just like the previous model.
The Galaxy A14 5G ships withAndroid 13out of the box, complete with Samsung’sOne UI 5customized layer on top. In a rare move for budget Android phones, Samsung is promising “up to two generations of Android OS upgrades and up to four years of security updates.”
Samsung Galaxy A14 5G
The Galaxy A14 5G might be the best budget phone under $200, with a 6.6-inch screen, Samsungs feature-packed One UI software, and years of promised updates.
Samsung’s guarantee means the phone should receive updates to Android 14 and Android 15 whenever they become available (presumably in 2023 and 2024, respectively), and system security updates for 4 years. That’s still not great, but it’s better than just about every other new phone in this price range – you canget a used second-gen iPhone SE for around $200that might last longer.
