Samsung, the paradox of the Galaxy A16

On July 9, Samsung will present its flagship novelties at the Unpacked 2025 event in Brooklyn: the new foldable Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7, a renewed line of smartwatches and above all the integration of artificial intelligence into the entire ecosystem. These are devices designed to confirm the technological leadership of the Korean giant, yet the sales data tell a less linear story.

According to Counterpoint Research, the best-selling Samsung smartphone in the world in the first quarter of 2025 is not a top-of-the-range model, but the Galaxy A16 5G, which actually placed fifth in the global ranking, ahead of much more ambitious models from the same parent company. A success that raises strategic questions, because it is precisely this model that represents the most evident contradiction within Samsung's product portfolio: an economical smartphone, with technical specifications bordering on the minimum acceptable, which however ends up being the most visible face of the company on the global market.

The Galaxy A16 has been placed in the range between 200 and 250 euros (launch in October 2024, today it is found at 150 euros) and promises six years of software updates. It is a choice that shows attention to sustainability and to the value over time perceived by the consumer. But if from the point of view of software support policies the intent is clear, from the technical point of view visible cracks emerge. The Exynos 1330 processor, which was released at the end of 2022, an architecture that is now dated, and a RAM endowment often limited to 4 GB, slow down the device already today. It becomes legitimate to ask how this device will be able to face Android 17 or 18 without transforming the user experience into a zen exercise.

The strategy appears well thought out, however. In the higher volume segments, where every single euro saved in production has a direct impact on margins, the use of “sufficient” rather than “optimal” components allows Samsung to maintain profitability. Not only that: hardware at the limit contributes to generating a sense of obsolescence after 18-24 months, pushing many users towards replacement, despite the long announced software coverage.

In the writer's extended tests, the A16 shows constant delays even in the simplest operations: opening an application can take from a few tenths to almost a second. These are micro-delays that inevitably affect the overall quality of the user experience (improved by a nice display and a good main camera), even when the A16 is not a backup smartphone. The update to One UI 7 with Android 15 has not changed the situation significantly, a sign that the limitations do not reside so much in the software as in the hardware itself. In the meantime, the competition is not standing by and watching. Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, Motorola, Honor offer more competitive technical specifications at the same price.