Samsung’s cheapest new smartphone this year won’t have 5G

Now that Samsung has done launching several mid-range and high-end phones, the company seems to be readying entry-level devices. One such device has appeared online, featuring a MediaTek processor and the Android 13 operating system. And that’s the Galaxy A05.

The Galaxy A05, bearing model number SM-A055F, has appeared in Geekbench’s database (via PriceBaba), revealing the phone’s chipset, RAM, and operating system version. The likely affordable smartphone uses the MediaTek Helio G85 processor (MT6769V) and 4GB of RAM. The device runs Android 13, which means it also runs One UI 5.1.1 (or newer).

The Galaxy A05, thanks to its MediaTek G85 chip, features improved performance. It is a 12nm chip with two high-performance (Cortex-A75) CPU cores and six power-efficient (Cortex-A55) CPU cores. In comparison, the Galaxy A04 and the Galaxy A04s only have power-efficient CPU cores. The upcoming phone also features a more powerful GPU, so hiccups may not appear during day-to-day usage. The phone appeared last week in Bluetooth SIG’s database, revealing Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, an upgrade over Galaxy A04s’ Bluetooth 5.0.

The MediaTek Helio G85 is a 4G LTE-only chipset, which means no 5G connectivity. The device will likely be among the most affordable phones from Samsung, and it won’t bring an upgrade to 5G. Its predecessors, the Galaxy A04 and the Galaxy A04s, also have 4G chips. Maybe we can hope Samsung to bring 5G to even its cheapest phones in 2024.

We expect the Galaxy A05 to go official sometime in Q3 of this year, as its predecessor was launched in August last year.