As phone launches wind up for the year, we are left with a large pool of devices, each promising a great experience, making it difficult for you to arrive at an option that’s perfect for specific needs. Bigger battery versus compromises on the camera front? Slower processing speed versus decent camera? One phone that has impressed us is Samsung Galaxy F42 5G… with its familiarity. Without promising the sky, the phone offers a few things that work well… a few things that most customers want — excellent battery life, a good camera set-up and just about enough processing power.

Natural colour tones

Usually, Samsung is known for offering a camera set-up that’s punchy but on the F42, it’s more about keeping it all natural. Leaving out the macro camera is a good choice and what you get is a 64MP primary camera, which offers excellent colour preproduction, is fast and it performs well under uneven lighting. Going head to head with Redmi and Realme phones, the F42 keeps artificial layers of “beautification” at bay. There is a night mode which brightens up pictures a bit but more importantly it keeps noise in check. The only compromise here is that it takes a few seconds to capture a night shot.

Colour shift between the main and ultra-wide camera is kept to a minimum while colour accuracy is spot on. Overall, there is good HDR support and portrait shots too come out fine. Video quality is decent while stablisation is as good as on most budget phones.

Multimedia companion

For display, Samsung has gone with a 6.6-inch TFT FHD+ panel. It’s easy to get dragged into a TFT versus AMOLED panel debate but each comes with advantages and hang-ups. The panel on the F42 is one of the best you will find in its category with good colour calibration and for casual viewing, you won’t find it much different from most phones. The screen does get bright while the single downward-firing speaker is loud enough to watch YouTube videos or stream films. This is a 90Hz panel which means scrolling is considerably smoother on Facebook, Snapchat and other scroll-heavy apps.

Let’s talk about performance

Dimensity 700 processor. We have seen this on several phones this year and frankly it’s a good processor to have. It may not deliver games at their highest settings (Samsung is not presenting this as a gaming phone) but most titles are very much playable and what you get is more or less sustained performance without the back panel heating up. For everyday work — scrolling, browsing and camera — there are zero issues with the processor. It’s redundant to throw benchmark figures at you because it’s all about whether a phone suits your needs.

Now, there is support for plenty of 5G bands, which is great but don’t purchase any phone only for 5G because plans are still iffy and by the time the technology is usable in most parts of the country, it will be time for an upgrade. But if you are planning to travel — yes, things seems to appear promising — to a country where 5G is available, then yes, this is a good phone to have.

Having a 5,000mAh battery with Dimensity 700 processor will entail you to long hours of usage. We easily got 1.5 days out of it with seven hours of screen-on time a day. The only quibble is bloatware, and even though most of it can be deleted, why put it there the first place?

Should you buy it?

If not for anything else, the rear panel looks different from other phones; Samsung has done well in terms of designing all its phones this year. The Galaxy F series allows the company to experiment with designs and finishes, and this one is quite good. Like we said, Samsung Galaxy F42 5G does a few things well; it’s a dependable phone for everyday usage.

The 64MP primary camera is sharp and is quick to take a snap

The colours are true to life and there is very little in way of colour saturation

At a glance

Device: Samsung Galaxy F42 5G

Price: Upwards of Rs 17,999

High notes

• Good design

• Decent camera performance

• Supports Samsung Pay Mini

• Excellent battery life

Muffled note

• Too much bloatware