Samsung Galaxy A17 5G Review: Crippling Performance

My baseline scores matched my real-world assessment. The A17 ranks slightly above Motorola’s $200 Moto G in single-core performance, but well below in multi-core performance, indicating that the Motorola device generally has the upper hand when juggling multiple apps. This makes sense, because I don’t remember having such a frustrating experience with the Moto G when I tested it a month ago. Don’t get me wrong, this phone is also very slow and annoying to use, but I wasn’t. This stunned.

The good pieces

I had no problems with the 6.7-inch AMOLED display: it gets bright enough on sunny days and it’s sharp enough. The single mono speaker is serviceable, although it’s easy to block when holding the phone in landscape orientation. There’s a microSD card slot to expand the 128GB of storage, the phone is IP54 rated for rain resistance, contactless payments worked well, and the fingerprint sensor is reliable. The GPS works well, although Google Maps can sometimes crash, especially if you try to do something else while navigating.

I’ve dropped the A17 a few times (drops less than 2 feet), and it held up surprisingly well, so it gets an A+ for durability. If this matters to you, there is No headphone jack here (Motorola keeps it on the Moto G). It’s also great to see that this phone will get six years of software updates, much better than anything Motorola offers at this price. There’s a fair amount of bloatware you’ll want to remove, but the software experience is otherwise similar to other Samsung phones. If you are a fan of One UI, you will feel at home here.

Samsung put a 5,000 mAh cell here, but the battery life is pretty unremarkable. It lasts a full day with average to heavy use, but if you use the phone sparingly it will easily stay alive for a second day. There’s no wireless charging, which isn’t surprising for a budget phone, but the 25-watt wired charging means it’s not very slow to charge.