Samsung Galaxy A17 5G review

50MP main camera, 5MP ultrawide

The camera hardware is familiar. We've got the same 50MP + 5MP + 2MP camera setup. The 5MP one is ultrawide, while the 2MP shooter is used for close-up macros. The main camera gains OIS this year, though.

The selfie unit also remains unchanged, offering 13MP resolution.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to retrieve the makes and models of the camera sensors, but we assume they don't differ from last year's.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The main camera captures more than decent photos during the day, with minimal loss in quality when you take it indoors. Colors are punchy and lively, and sharpness is more than satisfactory. However, the dynamic range could use some improvement, but this is likely due to processing power limitations or the 50MP sensor caps.

Main camera daylight photos

We also took a few people shots, and these come out pretty decent.

People photos: Photo mode • Portrait mode

The high-resolution 50MP mode isn't something we'd recommend using, as the quality/file size tradeoff is not worth it.

50MP high-resolution photos

2x crop zoom

The 2x crop zoom photos are decent enough for casual social media posting, but are far from perfect. The 2x photos inherit the good and the bad from the 1x photos, meaning you get a good level of detail and plenty of color, but sharpness deteriorates significantly when zooming, and the contrast and dynamic range leave more to be desired.

Daylight 2x crop zoom photos

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera is pretty basic and offers lower resolution compared to most ultrawide cameras in competing smartphones. Still, the overall quality is comparable. Don't expect very sharp or detailed photos, but the colors are nice and so is the contrast. The dynamic range is even more limited compared to the main camera.

Ultrawide camera daylight photos

Macro camera

The 2MP macro photos are far from impressive. They are not very detailed, contrast is lacking and colors are rather dull. On top of that, the fixed focus makes capturing some close-ups a finicky process of trial and error.

Macro camera photos

Selfies

Even though the selfie camera isn't anything special on paper, it produces likeable selfies with more than decent quality. You can spot plenty of detail, lively colors and a relatively wide dynamic range. Sharpness could use improvement, but given the price of the phone, we can let it slide.

Selfies

Low-light photos

Main camera

The low-light photos are largely unimpressive, showing signs of limited dynamic range, a bit too much noise and low contrast. Colors could use some boost too.

Main camera low-light photos

Luckily, the Night mode fixes most of the issues, introducing more color, improving contrast and sharpness and clearing the noise.

Main camera Night mode photos

2x crop zoom

The 2x zoom mode is hard to recommend at night. The cropping from the already small main sensor amplifies some of the issues we have with the 1x photos - noise, softness and the low contrast. There's no Night mode to help either.

2x crop zoom low-light photos

Ultrawide camera

Not that we expected much, but the ultrawide nighttime shots are a mess. They are fuzzy, lack detail, have plenty of noise, and there's noticeable color fringing. Again, Night mode isn't available.

Ultrawide camera low-light photos

Video recording

Тhe device is limited to recording 1080p videos at up to 30fps, but just like with the A16 5G, we were able to record non-stabilized 4K videos using the Open Camera app, albeit with 1080p-level bitrate (17Mbps).

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

The main camera captures decent-looking videos for 1080p resolution and offers punchy colors, good contrast and a satisfactory amount of detail.

We can't say the same for the ultrawide clip, though, as it's very fuzzy, with clipped highlights, and noticeable color fringing.

The nighttime video is understandably unimpressive as it lacks detail and has very limited dynamic range.

The 4K footage we captured using the Open Camera app is notably better than the 1080p footage captured with the native camera app. It is more detailed with a wider field of view, but it lacks EIS, so walking videos will be shaky.

The EIS is somewhat decent, but it leaves a bit more to be desired.