With only a few weeks to what will be one of Samsung’s biggest events to mark the launch of its new premium Galaxy Z series devices, it’s interesting to also look at what the South Korean company is offering in the budget category.

The last one year or so has been a great time to pick up a smartphone on a budget rather than splurging wads of cash on a flagship model. Frankly, save the money for the next foldable phone because third-generation of any new tech mostly turns out successful. We have been using Galaxy A22 (4G) for a few weeks and it ticks a few important boxes.

We won’t bore you with the design because it’s quite standard but there are two things about the offering that stand out — camera and screen. A22 is about anyone who uses the phone to browse the web, thumb through social media feeds, take photos, send emails, stream a few episodes of the latest shows and perhaps play a few games. There is no problem if there is a millisecond delay in loading an app or if a thousand apps can’t be kept open in the background. In other words, MediaTek Helio G80 is an able processor for this device, helping users through all the usual tasks. Making things easy on the eye is the 90Hz refresh rate on the super AMOLED HD+ display.

Colours and all their shades are well captured as seen in this sample shot taken using Galaxy A22

The 48MP main camera is dependable with casual clicks around the city, capturing most of the details while colours are not overstaturated. Also doing justice is the 8MP ultra-wide shooter, which has a good field of view and there is not much of a colour shift when switching from main to ultra-wide. What I like most about the setup is optical image stablisation on the main camera, allowing steady pictures and videos, which is something many phones at this price point fail to offer. But what I don’t like are the Thomson and Thompson 2MP macro and depth sensors. Coming back to the main camera, there is a night mode, which brightens up photographs slightly under uneven lighting. Another quibble: Bloatware, though most of it can be deleted.

In case you want to spend more money on phones, there are several other options, like Galaxy M51. Or, OnePlus has a couple of Nord offerings while Vivo V20 SE too is a capable option. Yes, we are still languishing while working from home, which means we need only a few things from our smartphones. Galaxy A22 is the familiar, reasonably-priced, reliable phone to have on you.

More about it

Device: Samsung Galaxy A22

Price: 18,499 (128GB+6GB)

High notes

• Capable camera set up with OIS

• Super AMOLED display is easy on the eyes

• Good audio quality

Muffled notes

• Unnecessary macro and depth cameras

• Bloatware