Samsung Galaxy A17 5G: What Real Users Say on Reddit

It's crazy that this kind of device has more updates than an S22 or an S23

Pros: Nice design, despite the low budget. Overall decent main camera. Great selfie quality. Solid battery life for video streaming and gaming. Entitled to 6 major OS updates. microSD card slot. Cons: Screen is basic - not very bright, and with no automatic refresh rate switching. Subpar chipset performance. Some competitors support 4K video recording. No stereo speakers.

Water drop notch and huge bezels how is it nice design lol

At current price, the quality of hardware in that phone, but with 6 years of updates, you basically buy the updates, and Samsung gives you a cheap phone to put them in! It'd make more sense with a better chipset, bigger battery, no teardrop selfie, and just 2 OS upgrades + 6 years of security patches.

RAM is more important than chipset really. The Exynos 1330 is plenty fast, even if old. Even the Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 would be fine, if only it had 8GB RAM minimum, with a 12GB RAM version available too.

4GB I agree is woefully inadequate, for a newly released phone. It's the fact a CMF Phone 2 Pro can offer 8/128, Dimensity 7300 chipset, superior display, cameras, far longer battery life, and 6 years of updates, for around $27 more, makes an A17 look seriously overpriced.

4GB RAM and we're into 2026.

The waterdrop notch bothers me; in 2025, it seems obsolete. Even though it's basic, not even Motorola uses it anymore (the E15 and G05, which cost less than the A17, already have a hole-punch). Besides, both the E15 and G05 have stereo audio, while the A17 will be mono. The A25 even had stereo audio, but Samsung added mono audio to the A26. It's not that the phone is bad, but mono audio and a waterdrop notch in 2025 is a bad joke, in my opinion.

You buy the updates that will clog your phone even more.

4 GB of RAM is a scam. At the very least buy the 6 GB variant.

They (Samsung) intentionally won't stop using that drop notch display every year because they want you to buy their more expensive models. The punch hole camera display for A-Series is only available for models A36 and A56.

An upgrade to the Galaxy A17 gives you a more durable screen with Gorilla Glass Victus and a main camera with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) for sharper photos and more stable videos.

Funny it has the exact same specs as a15 and a16. Poor from samsung

For $300+ USD, ain't no one buying this in the US lol

Galaxy A17 5G starts at $199.99. 6.7in 90hz AMOLED, Exynos 1330, 4/128.

I don't know why Samsung still sticks with exynos, I've not heard good things when it comes to the gaming and multitasking performance, at least in this segment. And giving a single speaker is just disappointing. Their updates as usual are solid though. Little surprised about the display too, Samsung's are usually good, no?

The A17 5G just looks like an A14 5G with an OLED to me at least specs wise.

These phones can be usable with 6/8 GB of RAM. But 4 GB make them DOA.

Wait what, in my country it's 150+, not 200.

I get that these are budget phones, but with the crappy processors they put into the A1 series, 4 GB of ram is not enough. The global version comes with either 6 GB and 8 GB of ram. They still lag, but at least you can run more than 3 apps at the same time.

Normal. The device is still learning your usage patterns. The battery will adjust eventually.

E-waste.

Yeah launch price is bad but it'll be great value after a bit of time. Kind of the standard with budget to midrange Samsung these days

The upgrade from A15 to A16 was worth it... It was almost double in performance... The A17 is SLIGHTLY more powerful than the A16. So nobody is buying this if it launches in the US at anything higher than $129.

Current AX7 might not be looking too attractive. Kinda in a sticky spot in the CPU front since lower end SoCs from all chipmakers have stagnated. But Samsung still have control over RAM/storage/build and they look disappointing.

My uncle needed a secondary smartphone to manage tasks on a daily basis so he bought this one. To everyone's surprise, my uncle seems not satisfied with this one, so he basically said that he doesn't know why it takes so much time to process, basically lag-issue. Poor guy is disappointed, never thought Galaxy A17 would be like this.

The upgrades are pretty minuscule. There are three main ones: a new design for the back of the phone, Optical Image Stabilisation for the camera, and Gorilla Glass Victus for a more durable display glass. Everything else is the same as the A16 5G, including the processor.

I've been testing the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G and honestly, it's a pretty mixed bag. The good stuff: 6.7" OLED screen, 1080p, 90Hz – looks great indoors. Matte back design with IP54 splash resistance. Main 50MP camera now has OIS → daytime shots are solid, night mode helps too. 13MP selfie cam is reliable. microSD slot + 7 years of promised updates (crazy for a budget phone). The not-so-good: Same old Exynos 1330 → struggles on the 4GB RAM model. Screen brightness is weaker.

I tried playing Genshin but it already lags from the first encounter and the voice got cut or vibrates sometimes. Still can play, but needed to turn down the settings to be more productive. If it's connection sometimes, it's a lot faster than my old phone.

Trust me its good for playing Genshin. I'm using it. You can play highest graphics with 60 fps.

I wouldn't buy this phone unless I was really in need of a new device and with a really tight budget. Even then I'd consider something else like Oppo or Realme. A17 comes with a 3 year old low end CPU and 4 GB of RAM which is a joke in 2026. IMO, it'd be much better to pay like $50 more for the A36.

Yeah 4GB of RAM is pretty bad in 2026. I'm increasingly intrigued at how 'lower end' phones aren't that bad after seeing my sister-in-law's Galaxy A56. It was pretty smooth and cheap and I'm wondering how long they can get away with charging $1K+ for a marginally better phone.

A56 and A17 are on completely different levels. A5X is the top of A series with some improvements every generation while A1X and A0X are like a recycling machines for leftover parts.

Got the A16 4 months ago and it's the worst pile of crap ever. Response time is so slow and dare you ask it to run multiple apps, it will sh*t itself.

Those phones are slow as shit. Look at a Redmi or Poco for the same price. They're quicker and you'll get more bang for your buck.

Get a Redmi 15 or Poco M7, the A17 are slow as shit.

Oh great, more electronic waste and device/update segmentation from Samsung.

Recently got the A17 and it does the same thing, needs charging 2 or 3 times a day.

I also switched from the A12 to the A17 5G, and I honestly don't notice any difference in battery life. I've been using it for two days and it's still at 54%. I haven't watched any videos or played games yet, just social media and messing around with the settings. I can't imagine needing to charge it two or three times a day.

For me I have had it for a month and it needs to understand your battery usage, it now lasts 2 days with gaming and social media.

Save mode and dark mode if you like it, also turn off GPS if you're not using it and last but not least clear all background apps you're not using! Also update the OS, we got a new one.

I did buy it and I recently had a Samsung tablet and the tablet got better with time and I guess the phone will be good too.