Samsung Galaxy A17 5G Hands On Review

The Samsung Galaxy A17 5G is a lower mid-range phone that delivers a smooth, dependable experience for everyday tasks.

For its $399 price, it provides several standout features, including a Gorilla Glass Victus screen and a main camera with OIS, which are rare for this price. It also has an excellent Super AMOLED display and a long-lasting battery.

While its processor is not a powerhouse, the phone's biggest selling point is a best-in-class six-year software commitment, which offers excellent value.

PROS	CONS
Gorilla Glass Victus screen Vibrant Super AMOLED display OIS on main camera Excellent all-day battery Six years of updates	Underpowered Exynos chipset Slow charging speeds Dated waterdrop notch

Price

The A17 5G costs $399, putting it in the lower mid-range tier with other devices like the $399 Xiaomi Redmi Note 14, $249 OPPO A40 4G and the $319 Motorola Moto G34 5G.

It's a step up from the most basic, entry-level smartphones like the $99 HMD Key. The central idea is to provide a smooth, dependable experience for everyday tasks, while keeping the price accessible.

The back panel is a glass fibre material which helps maintain a near-premium feel.

The camera array sits nicely on the back. The focus here is definitely the main camera which takes good photos in daylight.

Design

The design is functional and familiar, you can tell it’s a Samsung device as soon as you look at it. Weighing just 192g, it’s light in hand and it has the rounded corner shape we’ve come to expect. The camera array sits nicely on the back in the top left corner, but one downside, albeit minor, is it utilises the now dated V-shaped waterdrop notch for the front camera.

A standout feature is the inclusion of Gorilla Glass Victus on the front display. This is a premium material usually reserved for much more expensive flagship devices and it's nice to see it here. It provides scratch and drop resistance that is almost unheard of at this price point.

The back panel is a glass fibre material which helps maintain a near-premium feel, but the frame is plastic which does take away from that a bit. It has an IP54 resistance rating for protection against dust and water splashes.

Display

The display is one of the phone's best features. It's a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED screen with Full HD+ resolution. While of course it’s not as good as flagship phones, it's a definite step up from the IPS LCD panels found on many phones in this price range. It provides deep blacks, rich colours, and excellent contrast.

It boasts a 90Hz refresh rate, which provides a noticeably smoother scrolling experience than a standard 60Hz display, but it's not quite the 120Hz found in other options in this price range. It has a peak brightness of 800 nits, so you can use it comfortably outdoors on a bright day.

It utilises the now dated V-shaped waterdrop notch for the front camera.

It's a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED screen. It provides deep blacks, rich colours, and excellent contrast.

Camera

It features a three-camera array consisting of a 50MP wide-angle main, a 5MP ultrawide and a 2MP macro. The focus here is definitely the main camera which takes good photos in daylight, capturing vibrant and lively colours with Samsung's signature processing. It also has Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) which is a standout in this price range, helping to counteract hand shake to provide clearer photos and steadier video footage.

While the secondary cameras are less impressive, they do offer some additional functionality. The ultrawide lens can be useful for capturing broader landscapes or group shots in good lighting, while the macro lens allows for some close-up photography.

On the front the selfie camera is a 13MP wide-angle lens that does exactly what it needs to.

Performance

The A17 5G is powered by the Samsung Exynos 1330 chipset. It's fine for everyday tasks like social media and web browsing, but it is not a powerhouse, don't expect to be playing graphically intense games here or doing much heavy multitasking.

It’s available in three different RAM configurations: 4GB, 6GB, and 8GB. For this review we were given the 4GB RAM version and it does feel a bit slow. If you’re looking for a phone that will last you for a number of years, it will undoubtedly suffer from significant lag as operating systems and apps become more demanding. For this reason, it is highly recommended to choose the 6GB or 8GB model to ensure the phone remains usable for its full supported lifespan.

AI/Software

The A17 5G launches with Android 15 and Samsung's One UI 7. The most notable feature here is Samsung's commitment to providing six major Android OS updates and six years of security patches. This is the best software support policy in the Android world, providing a good amount of future-proofing.

In regards to AI, it doesn’t get the full Galaxy AI suite of features, but there are some options here like “Circle to Search” and Gemini Live. But if you were looking for Generative Edit, Live Translate and Writing Assist, unfortunately they’re not supported.

The frame is plastic which reflects the pricerange.

The phone has a large 5,000mAh battery to keep it running for a full day.

Battery

With its large 5,000mAh battery, the Galaxy A17 5G delivers excellent battery life. Thanks to the power-efficient processor and AMOLED screen, the phone can easily last a full day of heavy use, and often a second day on a single charge with lighter use.

The charging speed is one of the phone’s more significant weaknesses. It supports 25W wired charging, which takes around 1 hour and 20 minutes to fully charge the battery. This is acceptable, but it falls behind many rivals from other brands that offer faster charging speeds.