The Samsung A16

Mar 13 2025

I got a new phone and it barely even feels worth mentioning. It's this year's samsung phone; the one that's affordable by normal people and not just the five richest Crowns of Iberia. Phones have been functionally identical for at least the last decade, and the only reason I got it is to jog forward a few steps on the planned obsolescence treadmill. In most tangible ways it's worse than my last phone, a $40 prepaid android phone from walmart, and the one before that, a "ruggedized" samsung phone from 2017.¹ This is my first "modern" phone, in the sense that it has no headphone jack, an ugly notch in the middle of the screen, and a bizarre array of cameras on the back. I thought it was worth talking about my experience in a "pro and con" kind of format.

Artist's impression

+ I can't deny that it is much faster and more reliable than my previous phones. It's nice not to have to wait 15-30 seconds for important apps to launch, like a taxycab app when I need a ride, or the grocery store app when I want to look at my shopping list. I can login to websites because the browser app doesn't crash when I switch to another app to get a 2FA code. It's functional for more than just basic Mp3 and ebook use.

- However, it's not totally fair to call this an improvement, because my phone from 2017 could still do all of those things too if apps didn't become more resource-intensive for no reason, and if samsung didn't force me to install software updates that made the phone worse.

- No replaceable battery. I know this has been the norm for years, but I've managed to avoid it by getting slightly weird phones like the Galaxy Xcover 4. I actually did replace the battery in that phone when it stopped holding a charge, and I was glad to be able to do so. The knowledge that I might have to replace the entire phone when the battery starts to go is a bummer.

- No headphone jack. Again, a normal thing I've managed to avoid. I didn't use it that often, but it would be nice to have the option.

- No notification light. My previous phone had a little LED on the front that would blink to let me know when I have a notification. It made it so I didn't have to look at my phone as often. Now I have to use an app called "glimpse notifications" which makes the whole screen turn on when I get a notification from an approved app, but it's not reliable, so I end up having to frequently look at my phone just in case.

- I used to use a program called scrcpy to display and control my phone on my computer when I was home. It worked beautifully with my previous phone, and was the best way to interact with it. It doesn't work with the new phone. Why? Who knows. I turned on ADB debugging in the developer options but scrcpy says it can't find a device. Probably my OS is too old and I need to start using linux, uggghh. It should just work.

+ The OLED screen looks quite good. Much nicer than any of my previous phones. I use everything in white-on-black mode anyway, so I'm glad I don't have to pay in battery life to light up a bunch of pixels I'm not using.

- The screen resolution is 2340x1080, which is absurd for a device of this size. I tried to go into the developer options and change the display resolution to 720p for better battery life and performance, but apparently that's not something they let you do anymore.

~ I was at least able to lower the refresh rate from 90 to 60hz, which improved performance considerably. Dunno why that's the default, it's totally unnecessary.

- No FM radio. I guess this comes with the territory on modern phones, because you need to use wired headphones as an antenna. Again, this wasn't a feature I used that often, but it was nice that the option was there. My $40 TCL walmart phone had these features, why not an expensive big name brand one?

+ Photos do look pretty nice. I don't know why it needs 3 cameras, it looks very silly, but the photos I get do look a lot nicer and clearer than any camera I've ever owned.

- The same dimensional problems all modern phones have: it's too wide to comfortably use one-handed. The vibration isn't strong enough to feel when it's in my pocket. Phones need to be shorter, narrower and thicker. Then they could fit a decent-sized motor in there and it wouldn't hurt your hands when you use it for a long time.

- The phone didn't come with a charger, just a cable. Which is understandable, modern devices don't include them because they assume everyone has a million USB chargers already, right? Well, the cable it came with is type-C to type-C. The number of USB adapters I have with a type-C port is zero. If they're going to change shit, they need to start including chargers again.

+ It has a fingerprint reader on the power button, which is actually super useful. I had disabled any kind of screen lock on my previous phones, which I know is stupid, but even entering a PIN or pattern every single time I wanted to unlock my phone was too burdensome. Now I have security again, which is good, and I can just put my thumb on the power button any time I need to enter a password. Genuinely nice addition, good job phones.

- You can't use a stylus. You haven't been able to use a stylus with any smartphone ever,² so it's not unexpected, but come on, it's been nearly 20 years. This is a problem they should fix.

+ No "AI" "features". It's sad that I need to count this as a positive, but in the context of our current situation I guess it is. If you buy the S25 (The Samsung for Hapsburgs™), it does include a bunch of AI garbage and I don't know to what extent it can be disabled, so score one for the proletariat.

So would I recommend the Samsung A16? Not really, it's probably going to stop working in a couple years and you'll have to buy another one. But if like me you're not able to jump off the treadmill just yet, it's fine. It was $175,³ so when you objectively look at what I'm able to do with it, I guess I can't complain. I just wish I didn't have to keep buying these things 🦝

#phones #review #tech