The Galaxy A51 is now Samsung’s cheapest 5G phone in the U.S.

Another 5G phone makes the new standard accessible to more. for less.

What you need to know

• Samsung has introduced the Galaxy A51 5G to the U.S.
• It will go on sale on T-Mobile and Metro from August 7th and Verizon on the 13th.
• Samsung previously launched the Galaxy A71 5G for $600.

Samsung has just announced the launch of the Galaxy A51 5G in the U.S this week. The phone, already sold internationally, will join the Galaxy A71 and Samsung Galaxy S20 as the company’s U.S. slate of 5G phones. It will also be the cheapest phone Samsung’s selling with the next-gen wireless standard at $499.99.

It will come to T-Mobile and Metro from August 7, with a Verizon UW variant to follow shortly after on August 13.

The Galaxy A51 is an impressively designed phone, but we weren’t overly impressed with it when reviewing the 4G version earlier in the year.

Writing for Android Central, Harish Jonnalagadda opined:

The A51 will be going on sale in the U.S. and other global markets in a few months, and while there aren’t many devices at the $350 price point, there are a few options like the Pixel 3a. If you’re spending $350 on a phone in 2020, you’ll want usable hardware, and the A51 fails to deliver on that front.

It’s more or less the same as the older version, this means a 6.5″ Full HD+ amoled display, a quad-camera display with a 48MP main camera, a 12 MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 5MP macro lens and a final 5MP telephoto lens. It comes with 6GB of RAM onboard, 128GB of storage as standard, and support for a micro-SD slot. The 5G here is enabled by the Samsung Exynos 980, different from the Exynos 9611 on the 4G model.

It’s not clear whether the addition of 5G and the newer chip will be enough to move the needle on this point of value. Nicer 5G phones like the Motorola Edge and OnePlus Nord already exist for the same price, and if you must have a Samsung, the A71 is a better phone in every way.

Galaxy A51

$399 at Amazon
$349 at Best Buy
$399 at Walmart

If you can’t wait for 5G, Samsung has the Galaxy A51’s 4G variant available for $100 less. We liked the camera and design, but the perfomance didn’t exactly wow us when we reviewed this handset.