Samsung's Galaxy A14 Offers 5G for Under $200

Samsung today kicked off its CES 2023 announcements by revealing the Galaxy A14 5G, an affordable update to last year's budget-priced Galaxy A13 5G. The new phone is just $199.99, which drops the entry point to 5G lower than ever. This phone won't rival more expensive handsets in terms of raw performance, but at first blush it appears to be a solid offering for the price—which is $50 cheaper than its predecessor.

The thing that impresses us the most about the Samsung Galaxy A14 is the 5G support. We still see a lot of phones without 5G support in this price range, so we're happy that Samsung is providing full sub-6GHz 5G support in such an affordable device.

The Galaxy A14 5G comes with a 6.6-inch Full HD+ 90Hz screen, which is suitable for a phone at this price. Most budget-friendly phones come with a 60Hz display, so the higher refresh rate is a welcome improvement. The A14's predecessor had a 6.5-inch screen at 90Hz, meaning the A14 includes only a marginal bump in display size.

The phone is powered by a MediaTek MT6833 Dimensity 700 processor with 4GB of RAM, which is what we'd expect to see from a phone at this price. The outgoing Galaxy A13 5G featured the same chipset and RAM configuration, however, meaning this phone doesn't upgrade the power in any meaningful way. It ships with 64GB of storage in the base model and includes support for microSD cards up to 1TB.

The cameras look solid. The phone includes a 50MP primary shooter, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth camera lined vertically on the back. A 13MP selfie camera is positioned in the display notch on the front. While Samsung carried over the resolution of the rear cameras from the A13, it upgraded the selfie camera dramatically. The outgoing phone had a 5MP selfie shooter, so the A14 should provide better self portraits. Of course, we'll need to reserve judgement until we have a chance to take photos with the phone ourselves.

We expect good battery life from the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G, as it comes with a 5,000mAh lithium-ion cell. The phone also features 15W fast charging (same as the A13 5G) for semi-quick recharging. A power cell this large in such a device should lead to battery bliss.

As always, Samsung's software upgrade policy is among the best. The Galaxy A14 5G offers up to two generations of Android OS upgrades and up to four years of security updates, which is hard to beat for a budget phone.

The Galaxy A14 is not a massive upgrade compared with the Galaxy A13, but it makes some notable improvements while also dropping the price by $50. Overall, it could be the sub-$200 phone to beat, though we'll have to complete a full review before we can make that call.

For those already on AT&T, or looking to switch, the carrier plans to offer the phone for $2 a month for 36 months with no trade-in required. That breaks down to $72 in total for the phone, which makes it a no-brainer budget buy. AT&T-owned Cricket Wireless also plans to sell the device, though for $189.99.

It reaches AT&T and Cricket store shelves on Jan. 13