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Our takeEditorialAt under $80 outright at Cricket, the A16 5G is the cheapest Super AMOLED battery champ on the U.S. shelf — accepting a 90 Hz panel, 4 GB RAM, and a dim screen outdoors.
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Samsung
Samsung Galaxy A16 5G
7.0/10 UpPhone score
A 6.7-inch Super AMOLED for $80 at Cricket — the catch is a 90 Hz panel and a 4 GB RAM ceiling.
Screen
6.7"
Chip
Exynos 1330 (5 nm)
Camera
50 MP
The verdict, & two little voices
Should you actually get the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G?
The editor weighs in — flanked by the optimist on her shoulder and the cynic on the other.
“Eighty bucks gets a 6.7-inch AMOLED, day-and-a-half battery, 5G, and IP54 — the rest of the sub-$100 shelf is plastic LCD junk.”
“Eighty bucks buys a 90 Hz panel that stutters next to 120 Hz rivals, dims outdoors, on a 4 GB RAM ceiling.”
Our take
A 6.7-inch Super AMOLED for $80 at Cricket — the catch is a 90 Hz panel and a 4 GB RAM ceiling.
The Galaxy A16 5G is Samsung's 2024 entry-level 5G phone, and at Cricket Wireless it lists outright for $79.99 — the price most people associate with a flip phone, not a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED. The compromises are where you would expect them. The Exynos 1330 is a budget chip with 4 GB of RAM, the panel runs at 90 Hz instead of the 120 Hz that's now standard at $300 and up, peak brightness sits at 800 nits so direct sunlight will wash it out, and the body is plastic with an IP54 rating that handles splashes but not a sink dunk. The 50 MP main camera is fine in daylight, the 5 MP ultrawide is a checkbox, and there's no telephoto — every zoom shot is a digital crop. None of that is a surprise at this price. What you do get is a current 5G modem, a 5000 mAh battery that lasts a day and a half on this kind of chip, and a screen that for media viewing is genuinely good. As a backup phone, a kid's first phone, or a holdover until something better goes on sale, the A16 5G makes sense. It is not a phone for someone who scrolls heavy social feeds all day or runs demanding games.
What we love
- 6.7-inch Super AMOLED with deep blacks and good color, rare at this price
- List price under $80 outright at Cricket — fewer than two months of a midrange installment
- 5000 mAh battery comfortably lasts a day and a half on the efficient Exynos 1330
- 5G with both sub-6 and dual SIM support — useful for work/personal lines or international travel
- IP54 rating handles splashes and dust, which most sub-$200 phones skip
- Clean Samsung One UI on Android 14 with multi-year update support
What we don't
- 4 GB of RAM is the floor for Android 14 — apps reload from memory more often than on 6 GB and 8 GB phones
- 90 Hz refresh means scrolling looks choppier next to anything 120 Hz, including phones in the same price band
- 800 nits peak brightness will look dim outdoors at noon — Pixel 8a hits 2000 nits at $499
- 5 MP ultrawide and digital-only zoom — the camera array is functional, not flexible
- Plastic frame and back, IP54 not IP68 — a drop in a puddle is fine, the toilet is not
- Exynos 1330 is a budget chip; sustained gaming or heavy multitasking will stutter
Full specifications
Display
Size6.7"
TypeSuper AMOLED
Resolution2340 x 1080 px
PPI385
Performance
ChipExynos 1330 (5 nm)
RAM4 GB
Storage128 GB
OSAndroid (14)
Camera
Rear camera50 MP
Rear camera 25 MP
Front camera13 MP
VideoYes
Design
Dimensions164.4 x 77.9 x 7.9 mm (~9.2 mm with camera bump)
Weight200
ColorsBlue Black, Light Gray, Gold, Light Green
Form factorSlate
Connectivity
Wi-FiWi-Fi 5
BluetoothBluetooth 5.3
NFCYes
USBType-C, USB 2.0
SIMDual Nano-SIM
Samsung Galaxy A16 5G on individual carriers
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Frequently asked questions about the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G
What kind of display does the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G have?
A 6.7-inch Super AMOLED at 2340x1080 with a 90 Hz refresh rate and 800 nits peak brightness. The panel itself is the surprise of this phone — at the price, most rivals ship LCDs, so you get true blacks and saturated color that look much more expensive. The 90 Hz refresh keeps scrolling smoother than the 60 Hz you would have gotten in 2022, but it stutters in side-by-side with a 120 Hz panel like the Pixel 8a or even some sub-$300 Motorolas. The 800 nits peak is the real catch: in shaded indoor use it looks punchy, but outdoors at noon you will tilt the phone for a usable angle. Fine for video, fine for messaging, less fine for navigation in a car windshield.
What kind of camera does the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G have?
A 50 MP main, a 5 MP ultrawide, and a 13 MP selfie. The 50 MP main does what 50 MP mains in this tier do: solid in daylight, soft and noisy after sunset. There is no optical zoom, so any zoomed shot is a digital crop on the main sensor — fine at 2x, mushy at 5x. The 5 MP ultrawide is the weak link; it's there to fill the spec sheet, and photos out of it are noticeably grainier and less detailed than the main. The selfie is fine for video calls. There's no dedicated night mode worth bragging about. Treat it as a daylight point-and-shoot, not a phone for a trip.
What is the battery life of the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G?
5000 mAh paired with the efficient 5 nm Exynos 1330. A day and a half of normal use is realistic — light browsing, messaging, an hour or two of video. Heavy use (long video, hotspot, gaming) brings it back to a single day, which is still better than any midrange or flagship at half the battery efficiency. Charging is 25W wired with no charger in the box and no wireless charging at all. From empty to 100 percent takes around 90 minutes; a 30-minute top-up on a 25W brick gets you to roughly 50 percent. Battery life is the dimension this phone genuinely wins.
What processor does the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G use?
Samsung's Exynos 1330 on a 5 nm process, paired with 4 GB of RAM. It's a budget chip, and you feel it in two places: app launches that take a beat longer than on a midrange, and apps that get evicted from memory and have to cold-launch when you switch back. Day-to-day messaging, browsing, and video are smooth. Sustained 3D gaming throttles after 10 to 15 minutes and the back gets warm. For a backup phone or a light-use main, it's enough. For someone who lives in heavy social feeds with sticky video ads, the 4 GB ceiling will bite.
How much storage does the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G have?
128 GB of internal storage with a microSD slot — Samsung kept expandable storage on this tier. After Android 14 and Samsung's preinstalls, around 105 GB is free at first boot. The microSD slot lets you offload photos and music for cheap, which is a real convenience the more expensive Galaxy S line dropped years ago. UFS 2.2 is the spec, slower than the UFS 3.1 and 4.0 in midrange and flagship phones — file transfers and large app installs feel a step slow.
What kind of speakers does the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G have?
Single bottom-firing speaker, no front-firing companion. Loud enough for a podcast in a quiet kitchen, distorted at top volume, and easy to muffle with a hand when watching video horizontally. Stereo phones at this price exist (the Moto G Power lineup), so this is a real point against. Headphone jack is present, which compensates for some of it.
Does the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G support fingerprint or face unlock?
Side-mounted fingerprint sensor in the power button and 2D face unlock from the front camera. The fingerprint reader is fast and reliable, on par with anything Samsung ships at higher tiers — power-button placement is genuinely good for one-handed unlocks. The face unlock is camera-based, not the secure depth-camera kind, so it works for unlocking the phone but not for banking app authentication.
Is the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G water-resistant?
IP54. Rated for splashes and dust ingress, not submersion. Rain on the bus, a kitchen counter spill, dust at a beach — fine. A drop in a sink, a toilet, a swimming pool — not fine. Most phones at this price ship without any IP rating at all, so IP54 is a real win on the sub-$100 shelf, but call it splash-proof, not water-resistant.
