Galaxy A17 trades performance for Android updates, and I don't think it's worth it

One of the first things cut on budget phones is often long-term software support –I’m looking at you Motorola–, but that’s not the case with Samsung’s Galaxy A17, which is promised six years of Android OS updates. But, can anyone actually use this $199 phone for that long?

The Galaxy A17 is Samsung’s second-cheapest mass market smartphone and, by all accounts, will end up being one of the best-selling smartphone globally this year if its predecessors serve as a pattern. And, on paper, it’s not bad. A 6.7-inch 1080p display, 5,000 mAh battery, 50MP main rear camera, 128GB of storage, and a microSD card slot? That’s a lot of boxes to check, especially knowing this thing gets several years of updates.

So, let’s start with the good.

The overall hardware on Galaxy A17 is pretty solid. The entire thing is plastic, of course, but this is a phone that almost every buyer will be throwing in a case anyway. But, even outside of a case, it works – the hardware is grippy enough. My only real gripe is the power key, which is flat to the phone to facilitate the fingerprint sensor. That’s something Samsung has plenty of experience in with its foldables, where it works great, but there’s so little tactile feeling on the Galaxy A17’s sensor that I always have a tough time knowing where I’m putting my finger. Again, something you won’t even notice while using a case. The “Key Island” design also feels a little odd, but it’s easy enough to get used to.

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Then, there’s the display.

A 6.7-inch 1080p AMOLED panel on a $199 phone is a pretty good selling point, and this one gets the job done well. While it’s far from the best-looking display I’ve ever seen, it has good colors, gets bright enough for general use – though not perfect outside, and lacks the usual shortcomings of a budget phone display in that there’s no unevenness to the display, one of my biggest gripes on the Moto G Power (2026) earlier this year.

Battery life, expectedly, is very good and it charges up quickly. And the camera really surprised me because, well, it doesn’t suck.

While Samsung still has plenty of camera woes, this is a capable shooter. The shot that impressed me most was of my dog, Rey, outside on a snowy day. I’d expect any camera to struggle with balancing a dark-colored animal against that harsh white background on a bright and sunny day, but it got the job done.

But really, that’s where the “good” things come to an end.

To cut right to the chase, the performance on this phone is abysmal, and worse than I even expected from a $199 smartphone. The Galaxy A17 is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 1330 chipset, the same chip you’ve been able to find in the 5G versions of the Galaxy A16, A15, and Galaxy A14 5G. In other words, it’s not a new chip, and it absolutely feels that way.

Paired with just 4GB of actual RAM, the Exynos 1330 just cannot keep up with a modern Android experience, at least in my testing. This phone struggles through literally everything. Getting through the lockscreen, opening apps, even pulling up the keyboard seems to drag it down. Once things are in motion it can perform well for a little while, but it feels like you’re constantly pushing uphill and running out of steam every few seconds. And this is just constant. Just opening the notification shade leaves the phone running a bit behind you.

Every action is just on a delay.

Even scrolling through short-form videos (Instagram Reels, in my case), something that virtually everyone does on their phones, is a rough experience. Videos always start choppy and never really feel like they’re playing properly, and it doesn’t really get better over time. But this is arguably one of the most common, and least resource-intensive “tasks” a modern smartphone has to perform, so it’s really not great that the Galaxy A17 struggled to keep up.

And that’s today, with the phone running Android 16 (One UI 8.0) out of the box.

Samsung promises the Galaxy A17 will get six years of Android OS updates on top of that and, frankly, I just cannot imagine using it for that long. If this phone can barely handle its own OS today, how can anyone hope it will be at all usable on Android 20 and beyond. Don’t get me wrong, Samsung should be updating every phone it sells for this long, but that promise doesn’t align with the reality of Samsung using hardware that just isn’t up to par anymore. I’d say that more memory (RAM) would go a long way to improve this, but ultimately, Samsung needs to upgrade this chip. There’s no reason the same 4-year-old chip should still be in use here. Those two deficiencies combined really just make this phone an absolute drag to use.

But, of course, the $199 segment is not a place you expect a phone to perform well. It’s a necessary compromise for this price point. I’ve used plenty of cheap Android phones over the years, but the Galaxy A17 might be one of the worst-performing out of the box I’ve used in quite some time. Budget phones shouldn’t have performance to spare, but they should be usable, and the Galaxy A17 just… isn’t.

So, what’s a better option?

While the lesser memory probably makes a big difference, the base Moto G (2026) uses the same chipset as the Moto G Power I recently went hands-on with, and that phone was perfectly acceptable across the board. You’re trading long-term updates, sure, but – and I don’t say this lightly – I think that might be worthwhile. I’m all for bang-for-your-buck, but not at the expense of a product that you actually want to use. But, really, I’d advocate more for just buying a slightly older device instead. A used or refurbished Google Pixel would do nicely, for example. Back Market, a solid place to get refurbished phones, has the Galaxy S23 for $199 right now. That’s a better buy for this money in my book. You get fewer updates over time, of course, but with better performance and while also saving a device from becoming e-waste. That’s a win-win.

As mentioned at the outset, though, the Galaxy A17 will probably still manage to be one of the best-selling Android phones of the year. It happens time and time again. So, with that in mind, I’d simply ask that Samsung takes another pass on the software here, and brings some further optimization.

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