That time of the year has come again – and Samsung just released two of their main stars of the show – the Galaxy A35 and the A55. We’re only focusing on the A35 in this review – and it was prepared with the AXBB firmware build number as I only got the March update after finishing this review.
Design
Now, many people will look at the design and say – hey, it looks basically identical to the A55 and you’re actually right. They both have the same shape and size, and they also have this weird bulge around the power and volume buttons Samsung is calling it the “Key Islands”. I actually like this design.
However, the key difference is that the A35 uses a plastic frame. It’s not a problem to me as the phone does look better without the antenna lines as the Lilac color is uninterrupted.
Speaking of the colors, this phone is available in 4 colors and exclusive to the Lilac color is this special reflection. It reminds me of the Note10 series with the reflective color. Some may like this, some may not – it’s really up to your personal preference.
If we’re getting it in the Iceblue color, then it’ll look like this. It’s a very light tinge of blue. And if we look at it from the back, it kinda looks like the S24+ as well, but the S24+ is a lot thinner.
Screen
The Galaxy A35 uses a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate and 2340×1080 pixels in resolution, pretty typical for a mid-range phone nowadays. The color accuracy is actually great, covering 100% of 99.77% of sRGB and 87.33% of DCI-P3 color gamuts, while having an extremely low ΔE number.
The maximum brightness is at 990 nits and that’s actually very good. It is tested using the vivid color profile and there is no vividness slider.
Now, the screen is one of the major points of controversy with this phone because of its thick bezels. I’d argue that it is better than the A34 with that V-shaped drop, but if we are comparing it with other phones within the market at the same price point, yeah this bezel is definitely thick.
Performance
Now, many people might say that the Galaxy A35 is a rebranded A54 and I can definitely see why. It’s using the same chipset as the A54 – the Exynos 1380.
This chipset is a year old now and all the games that we’ve tested in our gaming tests have already optimized for it. I will also safely say that the chipset’s performance is at its peak already.
Even while it is thermal throttling, we can still get very close to 30fps at the low or lowest graphical settings – and the result is not the best, but it’s okay. The thermal limit of this phone is at 47°C and that means it’ll be toasty if we are playing games on this phone for an extended period of time.
Camera
There are a total of 3 cameras on this phone but I’d consider only two of them to be usable as the macro camera… even though it is a 5MP camera, the quality is horrible and it does not have autofocus.
As for the other two cameras, let me show you how they look. I took this phone to Taiwan and of course, I took a lot of pictures with it. It’s still considered “winter” in Taiwan and the weather was chilly and somewhat cloudy.
To have a look at all the pictures and video taken with the Samsung Galaxy A35, watch our video at the top of this review.
Battery life
The battery life is also the same as last year – it has a 5,000mAh battery and can last for about 12 hours and 35 minutes in our standardized battery life test – which is to be expected. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, honestly.
Charging speed
The charging speed also remains the same as the previous generation as it can only accept 25W maximum via USB-PD PPS, and it takes around 82 minutes to charge from 15% to completion.
Oh – the A35 also has the battery bypass feature, and you can watch our video here to know more about it.
Software
The software in the Galaxy A35 is an interesting one. It is running on the latest Android 14 with One UI 6.1, and it has all of the features that we had previously – but the new Galaxy AI menu is not found in the settings menu.
What important feature it does, is Samsung Knox. It’s a platform that is built into Samsung phones that we don’t directly interact with it, but it protects us from the background, out of our sight. For example, if you want a private folder for your darkest secrets, then you can use Secure Folder.
It’s like a sandbox within the main system and you can login a separate Google account, download apps, and save files that are only accessible in that Secure Folder.
In collaboration with McAfee, we can also turn on something called App Protection which acts like a malware scanner in our phone, and we can also turn on the Auto Blocker feature. It prevents any sort of sideloading and honestly, I think this is a magnificent feature and I turned it on for my mom’s phone so she wouldn’t accidentally install anything sent over by a scammer.
Samsung also promised 4 generations of Android OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches – and it still has the longest software update policy for a phone around this price range.
Few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention before we end this review. The Galaxy A35 has a USB 2.0 port but there is no display output via that port – which is to be expected. It also lacks no audio jack, but there is a microSD card slot or dual SIM support.
And just like before, the A35 is certified for IP67 dust and water resistance.
Should you buy the Galaxy A35?
Then the question comes – should you buy the Galaxy A35? Honestly speaking, the retail price of RM1,699 is rather high. My advise is to not buy them at full retail price unless there are actually gifts that are useful to you, or wait for a discount as Samsung phones are perpetually going on sale anyway.
Some of you also asked if the A35 can last for 4 years – and I think it can. Day-to-day usage is good, but it might not run the latest and greatest, highest-end games smoothly. Samsung has a track record of providing timely updates and combined with its software update policy, this phone is going to last for 4 years, if the phone is kept in good condition.
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