The Samsung Galaxy A57 and A37 were launched late last month. Yesterday, less than two weeks after the fact, the South Korean tech giant held the launch event that the pair of midrange phones. Having access to the phones themselves now, it’s as good an opportunity to get a feel of them both.
It was a strong indication even at the time, but seeing them in person, the two phones are really similar. In fact, it would be near impossible to tell them apart at a glance. Fortunately, despite sharing the 6.7-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display, they are merely similar. Oddly enough, between the two, the Samsung Galaxy A37 has thicker bezels. Granted, once you know what to look out for, this is immediately obvious.
That being said, if you’re not looking at them from the front and with the screen on, it remains a challenge to distinguish the two. One can argue that the translucent bit around the camera island at the back is thicker on one of them, but it’s definitely not as clear as the screen bezels.
While we’re here, I might as well reiterate that two of the three cameras are shared between them. The 50MP main unit and the 5MP macro shooter are in both phones. But while the Samsung Galaxy A57 has a 12MP wide-angle camera, the one on the A37 has been knocked down slightly to 8MP. This may affect overall imaging, which I’ll get to in a bit.
In hand, the Samsung Galaxy A57 also feels just a tad heavier than the A37. It’s a noticeable difference, but not one that you’d immediately notice. Though it would still probably be helpful, as every other design element from here on out is identical between them. Which also does mean that both feel pretty good in hand and while in use. Those with larger hands may even be able to use them one-handed.
As a whole, the two phones are flat on most surfaces. No curves on the screen, nor the back plate. The sides are pretty flat too, save for where the power button and volume rocker are. Here, both phones sport a slight bump and curvature, perhaps to emphasise their presence. It’s definitely enough of a bump that you’d notice them from touch alone, but not enough to be a detriment to reaching either.
Inside, the two phones share a 5,000 mAh battery with 45W charging. But beyond that, the key innards of the two diverge. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy A37 packs an Exynos 1480 chipset, while the A57 has an Exynos 1680 instead. The former also only as 256GB as its storage capacity, giving potential buyers a choice of between 8GB and 12GB of memory. As for the latter, this instead comes with 12GB of RAM, making you choose between 256GB or 512GB of storage instead.
Despite these differences, the two perform mostly identical, as far as swiping and scrolling goes. It’s smooth for the most part, but I did face some hiccups when engaging the camera app. Though I’d chalk it up to the phones working in demo mode, rather than something inherent.
Which brings us to said camera app. As mentioned earlier, the only difference between the two phones is the pixel count of their wide-angle shooters. Though this does bring some noticeable differences in the resulting images. Both have fair enough detail retention in less-than-ideal lighting that’s not quite low-light. But the shot taken by the Samsung Galaxy A57 is noticeably brighter. This is far from conclusive, of course.
Once again, the Samsung Galaxy A37 costs either RM1,899 or RM1,999, depending on your memory capacity choice. As for the A57, Samsung has priced it at RM2,399 and RM2,699, based on the storage amount. And with the help of various rebates, you can being their prices down by between RM100 and RM500.
