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Samsung has so many budgets that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. One of the company’s latest releases is the Galaxy A11, a low-end device with an MSRP of $179.99. However, the sub-$200 price points are fiercely competitive, and the Galaxy A11 New Moto E, Nokia 2.3, and other hard-earned phones from Samsung.
The Galaxy A11 follows last year’s Galaxy A10e and Galaxy A01 at the bottom of Samsung’s mobile phone lineup in the US. It’s a capable smartphone, but there are better options depending on the features you’re interested in.
Design, hardware, and box contents
Most of Samsung’s low-end phones look similar, and the Galaxy A11 is no exception. The device is coated with a plastic sheath with a glossy finish that easily attracts smudges and dirt. I know the idea is to mimic the look and feel of glass, but I really would have preferred a simple matte coating.
The back cover attracts fingerprints and dirt very easily.
The phone has a fingerprint sensor on the back near the top, which worked fine in my tests. It also has three cameras on the back with a primary 13MP lens, a 5MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The flash is on the right side of the camera array.
The Galaxy A11 has a 3.5mm audio jack at the top, which is (thankfully) a regular phone for the price, but Not like this The A11’s updated USB Type-C charging port is common. There are still plenty of sub-$200 phones in the US that use the old microUSB connector, so Samsung gets brownie points there.
At 6.4 inches wide, the Galaxy A11’s screen is slightly larger than the Galaxy S20 (6.2″), but smaller than the Galaxy S20+ (6.7″). The A11’s panel isn’t Full HD, at just 1560×720, but the screen looks decent enough for watching YouTube videos and scrolling through social media. There are no major marks on the camera. Galaxy A10e or A01 — This is the hole in the upper left corner of the display.
Powering the phone is the Snapdragon 450 chipset, which is paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It doesn’t have a lot of memory to work with, and the Snapdragon 450 is three years old at the moment. While the chipset can operate in 64-bit mode, Android on the Galaxy A11 runs in 32-bit mode to reduce memory usage. That means no Pokemon Go.
The Galaxy A11 also lacks NFC, so you can’t use Google Pay, Samsung Pay, or other contactless payment applications. It’s still rare for sub-$200 phones to offer NFC support in the US, but that doesn’t make the omission any less disappointing. Meanwhile, Google Nexus S 10 years ago It was NFC. It should be a core feature of any smartphone now.
Software, performance, battery
The Galaxy A11 comes with a custom Android 10 version from Samsung, also known as One UI 2.1. That said, the software experience is very similar to what you get on the flagship Galaxy S…