Samsung’s Galaxy A27 packs the goods, but fails to make an impression.
The Samsung Galaxy A27 is currently priced from Rs 33,999 in India
Samsung recently launched its Galaxy A27 smartphone at Rs. 28,999 for the base 6+128GB variant. Given the ongoing memory crisis, the handset (like every other smartphone brand) was expected to see a price hike sooner rather than later. And Samsung did not disappoint. Along with its F and M series of smartphones, the brand also hiked the price of its A series twice, bringing the Galaxy A27's starting price to Rs. 33,999. A price difference of Rs. 5,000 isn't that big of a deal for buyers looking for a budget-to-midrange smartphone in India. But it changes the devices the Galaxy A27 now competes with, and that may be a problem for this humble mid-ranger.
The Samsung Galaxy A27 feels quite premium. The old waterdrop display has been replaced with a hole-punch camera cutout, making it appear updated and modern. The small bump on the right side of the polycarbonate frame, which houses the volume rocker and power buttons, remains. It still makes finding the power button as difficult as before, because it sits flush with the frame.
The Gorilla Glass Victus+ glass keeps the front and rear panels smudge-free
No sharp corners or edges near the ports. The Gorilla Glass Victus+ front and rear screens keep the handset fingerprint-free. The bottom display border doesn't look as thick as on the Galaxy A26, which adds to the premium look and feel.
One notable downgrade is the phone's durability rating, which drops from an IP67 to an IP64. A drop from 7 to 5 may not sound like much, but it reduces the phone's water resistance. An IP67 rating allows immersion in water, while IP64 is only good for splashes.
The hole-punch display isn't bright outdoors, but we appreciate the thinner border at the bottom of the display
The large display produces saturated colours at the default Vivid display colour profile. Switching to Natural shows more toned-down colours. Viewing angles are excellent, and the phone also supports Widevine L1 for full-HD resolution playback in OTT apps. The device lacks HDR10+ or Dolby Vision support, so it cannot display such content in OTT apps. This is mainly because of the display's brightness. It is bright enough indoors but barely visible outdoors, especially in bright sunlight. This also makes the camera hard to use in these conditions, since you can't really tell what you are capturing.
Casual users won't experience any glaring performance issues on the Galaxy A27. Samsung sent across the 8GB RAM variant of their Galaxy A27 for review. With a standard amount of RAM, we expected no problems. So, we were a bit surprised to see some random stuttering when switching between apps. The rest of the interface worked smoothly to the point that it almost felt fluid.
One UI 8.5 brings an advanced and contextually aware Bixby Assistant
One UI 8.5 also brings a smarter, more aware Bixby that can now pull the latest information from your device and the web and display it right within the app's interface. It is well integrated into Samsung's smartphones, but it doesn't get full access to Google's suite of default apps. As a result, Bixby can feel a bit limited as a voice assistant. And here's where Gemini steps in, helping you find and get things done within Google's ecosystem of apps and services.
The Samsung Galaxy A27's 8+128GB variant is priced at Rs. 38,999. Samsung has retained the hybrid SIM tray where users can swap out their second nano SIM card for 2TB of microSD storage expansion. Dual SIM users will have to cave in and get the 256GB variant, or buy another smartphone.
The processor is more efficient, switching from a 5nm node on the Exynos 1380 to a 4nm node on the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3. Graphics performance has also improved, so games run better than before. However, competitors offer better hardware at a lower price, as shown in the table below.
| Benchmarks | Samsung Galaxy A27 | Motorola Edge 70 Fusion |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 34,999 (8+128GB) | 30,999 (8+128GB) |
| Display resolution | FHD+ | 1.5K |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 (4nm) | Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 (4nm) |
| AnTuTu v10 | 8,70,424 | 11,35,275 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 13,223 | 13,577 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | NA | 1,237 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | NA | 3,373 |
| Geekbench 7 Single | 879 | NA |
| Geekbench 7 Multi | 3,096 | NA |
| Geekbench AI CPU (Quantized) | 1,696 | 1,300 |
| Geekbench AI GPU (Quantized) | 800 | 917 |
| 3DM Wild Life | 3,505 | 4,583 |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 3,606 | 4,683 |
| 3DM Steel Nomad Light | 328 | 434 |
The phone gets hot while playing games, and after about 20 minutes it starts affecting sustained performance. Call of Duty: Mobile boldly defaults to High graphics and High frame rate even though the phone cannot run the game smoothly at these settings. Running the same game at Medium Graphics while maintaining the same High frame rate delivered better results, with stable, sustained frame rates.
The tiny slit for the bottom firing speaker is easy to block
The bottom-firing speaker sounds rich and gets loud, but it doesn't feel immersive. It is also quite easy to block when held in the standard horizontal orientation, especially when playing games. The fingerprint reader is embedded in the power button, and it worked reliably during the review.
There are three rear-facing cameras, but all of them are average at best
The Galaxy A27's camera hardware has been significantly downgraded to keep the phone's price down in these tough times. As expansive as this camera array sounds, the selfie camera has been slightly downgraded from a 13-megapixel sensor to a 12-megapixel unit. The ultrawide camera went from an already basic 8-megapixel sensor to a 5-megapixel sensor. To sweeten the deal, Samsung retained the 2-megapixel macro camera. The sensor selection shows how tight Samsung's margins were for this phone and how much the imaging experience has been downgraded in 2026 to accommodate rising memory costs.
Samsung Galaxy A27 primary camera sample (tap images to expand)
Images captured by the primary camera don't meet expectations for a mid-range smartphone. They lack fine detail, show ghosting, and have a watercolour effect on object textures when you zoom in. Any moving objects in a scene will also appear blurry (even in broad daylight), and there is this odd softness when shooting scenes with contrasting elements even though there's plenty of available light.
Samsung Galaxy A27 primary camera sample (tap image to expand)
In low-light settings, the auto-night mode kicks in. There's a dedicated Night mode as well, but neither can fix the underlying hardware limitations. Photos captured in street-lit settings are soft, lack detail and falter with dynamic range.
Samsung Galaxy A27 ultrawide camera sample (tap image to expand)
The ultrawide camera produces soft and unusable images in daylight. (tap image to expand)
Samsung Galaxy A27 selfie camera sample (tap image to expand)
The selfie camera produces photos with better definition. But the colours go haywire in Portrait mode. The Portrait mode's edge detection is also average.
Overall, the primary camera struggles to expose images and videos correctly. When recording video, its problems only get worse. 4K video recordings at 30 fps capture the best detail, but aren't well stabilised. Exposure constantly keeps shifting when recording video in settings with contrasting lighting. Low-light video capture is decent but lacks detail and shows visible noise.
PCMark's Battery Life test produced a poor score of 12 hours and 43 minutes. With casual use, the phone lasted a day, but heavy users will see the battery deplete by the end of the day, especially if you play games and stream video.
Samsung promises a 45 percent charge in 30 minutes. We plugged the phone into a 100W PD charger and managed to get better results. The phone reaches 49 percent in 30 minutes and 92 percent in an hour, after which charging slows down. The Galaxy A27 takes 1 hour and 28 minutes to a full charge.
Samsung's Galaxy A27 has an AMOLED panel, a capable Qualcomm chipset for basic usage and offers 6 major OS updates. But its camera and battery performance make it hard to recommend at a starting price of Rs. 33,999 (6+128GB). Motorola's Edge 70 Fusion, priced from Rs. 30,999 (8+128GB), is a more refined and polished device through and through. OnePlus' Nord CE 6 Lite, priced at Rs. 28,999 (6+128GB), lacks an AMOLED display but delivers on every other front.
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