Samsung Galaxy F15 5G Review – A Solid Budget 5G Phone?

Samsung Galaxy F15 5G Review – A Solid Budget 5G Phone?

Let's be honest. Shopping for a budget phone is miserable. It's a soul-crushing journey through a sea of gray plastic, terrible screens, and cameras that look like they're smeared with Vaseline. You're forced to make compromise after compromise, trading battery life for a good screen, or performance for... well, anything else.

You sit there, scrolling through online stores, and every phone seems to have one fatal flaw. "This one's great, but the battery is tiny!" "This one has a huge battery, but the processor is from 2018!"

It’s exhausting. And it feels like companies *want* you to be frustrated, so you'll just give up and spend three times as much on their flagship.

So when the Samsung Galaxy F15 5G landed on my desk, I was... skeptical. That's the polite word. Here's another budget 5G phone from Samsung. Great. What did they break this time to get the price so low?

But then I picked it up. And the first word that came to my mind wasn't "cheap."

It was "heavy."

First, Let's Talk About the "Thud"

This phone is a brick. And I mean that in the most loving way possible. At 217 grams, it's not a "svelte, disappears-in-your-pocket" kind of device. It’s a dense, substantial, and honestly, kind-of-satisfying slab of technology. It has that old-school Nokia-like "thud" factor. You drop this, you're worried about the floor, not the phone. (Don't test that, by the way. It's still plastic.)

That weight isn't for nothing. It's the first clue to this phone's superpower. Tucked inside this colorful plastic frame is a **6,000 mAh battery**.

Let me repeat that, because it's the whole reason this phone exists: Six. Thousand. Milliamps.

The Battery That. Will. Not. Die.

I can't overstate this. I tried to kill this battery. I really did. I ran a "day in the life" test that would make a flagship phone weep.

1. Woke up, scrolled through social media and news for an hour.
2. Listened to podcasts on my commute.
3. Answered emails and Slack messages all morning.
4. Watched two hours of YouTube videos during lunch (at full brightness).
5. Used Google Maps navigation for 45 minutes in the afternoon.
6. Played about 30 minutes of Call of Duty Mobile (more on that later).
7. Took a bunch of photos and videos.
8. Made a 20-minute video call.

By 10 PM, I looked at the battery percentage. It was at 42%. It's absurd. This is, without a doubt, a **two-day phone** for a normal person. For a light user? You might be charging this thing twice a week. It completely changes your relationship with your phone. You just... stop thinking about charging. "Battery anxiety" is no longer part of your vocabulary.

My genuine reaction: This is the new "college student" or "parent" phone. This is the phone you buy for someone you love who *always* forgets to charge their device. It's a public service.

The only downside? When it *does* finally die, it supports "only" 25W fast charging. And no, **there is no charger in the box.** That part still stings. You get a USB-C to USB-C cable and a SIM ejector tool. That's it. So you'll need to buy your own 25W Samsung-compatible charging brick to get decent speeds. Don't even try to charge this 6,000mAh monster with an old 5W brick; you'll be waiting until next Tuesday.

Wait... This Screen is on a *Budget* Phone?

Okay, so it has a monster battery. That must mean the screen is terrible, right? That's the compromise.

Wrong. It's a 6.5-inch **Super AMOLED with a 90Hz refresh rate**. This is the *other* big surprise. It's bright (enough for outdoor use), it's vibrant, and those deep, inky blacks that only AMOLED can deliver are here. Scrolling through Instagram or Twitter is smooth and responsive thanks to that 90Hz refresh rate.

Is it perfect? No. It has a "waterdrop" notch for the selfie camera, which feels very 2019. The bezels, especially the "chin" at the bottom, are chunky. But who cares? I'm watching movies on an AMOLED screen that cost me next to nothing. This is a massive win.

I did read some user reports about the screen using low-frequency PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) for dimming, which can cause eye strain for very sensitive people at low brightness. Personally, I didn't notice it at all, but if you know you're sensitive to that, it's something to be aware of. For the 99% of us, this screen is just... fantastic for the price.

The Reality Check: Performance and Cameras

Alright, I'm gushing. I know. It's not a perfect phone. The compromises are here, and they are exactly where you'd expect: in the processor and the cameras.

How Does it Actually *Feel* to Use?

The F15 5G is powered by the **MediaTek Dimensity 6100+** chipset. This is a perfectly *fine* processor. It handles all the basics with no problem. Email, web browsing, YouTube, Netflix, social media... it's all smooth. The One UI 6 (on top of Android 14) is good, and Samsung promises an *insane* **four years of major OS updates and five years of security patches.** That is industry-leading and absolutely unheard of at this price. That's a huge, huge win for long-term value.

But. (You knew there was a 'but').

This is not a gaming phone. It can *play* games, but don't expect a high-end experience. Call of Duty Mobile ran okay on medium settings, but I could feel the phone get warm and saw occasional stutters. More demanding games like Genshin Impact? Forget it, unless you enjoy PowerPoint presentations.

You'll also notice a tiny, split-second hesitation when you open a big app or switch between tasks quickly. It's that "occasional stutter" that reminds you this isn't a $1000 phone. For me, it's a perfectly acceptable trade-off for the battery and screen. But if you're a speed demon who needs instant-everything, you'll be frustrated.

One big annoyance: Bloatware. Oh, the bloatware. I spent the first 20 minutes with this phone just uninstalling a bunch of pre-loaded apps. It's the price you pay for a low-cost Samsung, but it's still deeply annoying.

The "50 Megapixel" Camera...

The back of the phone proudly displays three camera lenses. On the spec sheet, this looks impressive: a 50MP main camera, a 5MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro.

Let's be real. There is one usable camera on this phone: **the 50MP main sensor**. The 5MP ultrawide is soft and muddy, and the 2MP macro is a complete gimmick that you will use once, be disappointed by, and forget forever.

So, how's that main camera? In good, bright, outdoor light... it's honestly pretty great! It captures detailed, vibrant, and colourful photos that are more than ready for Instagram. Samsung's processing is strong, and the pictures look sharp and pleasing.

But the moment the lights go down, the magic fades. Indoors, photos get soft. In low light, they become a noisy, blurry mess. The "Night Mode" helps a little, but it can't fight physics. It's a budget camera sensor, and it acts like one.

Is it a bad camera? No. It's a **perfectly adequate daylight camera**. The 13MP selfie camera is also decent for video calls and the occasional selfie. Just don't buy this phone thinking you're getting a flagship camera experience for a budget price. You're not.

Final Verdict: Who is This Phone Actually For?

I started this review skeptical, and I'm ending it genuinely impressed. The Samsung Galaxy F15 5G is a phone that *knows* what it is. It's not trying to be a flagship killer. It's not trying to be the best at everything.

It's a **Budget Battery Champion**. It's a phone built for the 90% of tasks that people *actually* do, and it's designed to do them for two days straight, without apology, on a beautiful screen.

What I Loved (The Pros)

• The 6,000mAh battery. It's not a feature, it's a lifestyle.
• The 6.5" 90Hz Super AMOLED display. Unbelievable at this price.
• The 4+5 year software update promise. That's true value.
• Solid, "thud-factor" build. It feels durable.
• It has a 3.5mm headphone jack. A HEADPHONE JACK!

What I... Liked Less (The Cons)

• It's HEAVY. 217g is no joke.
• Performance is just "fine," with occasional stutters.
• No charger in the box. A terrible trend.
• Cameras collapse in low light.
• Tons of pre-installed bloatware.

So, is the Samsung Galaxy F15 5G a "solid budget 5G phone?"

No. It's not just "solid." It's one of the smartest, most focused budget phones I've seen in years. Samsung didn't just make compromises; they made the *right* compromises. They cut performance I can live without to give me a battery and screen I can't live without.

If you're a gamer, a power-user, or a mobile photographer, stay away. This is not your phone.

But if you are a student, a parent, or just a normal person who is sick and tired of their phone always being dead... this is the one. This is the easiest recommendation I've made all year.