Samsung Galaxy A16 SM-A165FZKDMEA Review

The Samsung Galaxy A16 has the best screen you can buy under $150, scoring in the 95th percentile. Unfortunately, its performance is in the 0th percentile, making it the slowest phone we track. It's a gorgeous slideshow.

The Samsung Galaxy A16 sits in a weird spot. For $133, you get a phone with a display that lands in the 95th percentile—that's a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED with a 90Hz refresh rate. It's a genuinely great screen for the money. But then you look at the performance score, which sits at the absolute 0th percentile in our database. That's not a typo. The MediaTek Helio G99 with just 4GB of RAM is the bottleneck here. It's a phone of extremes, with some truly premium features and one glaring, deal-breaking weakness.

Let's be blunt: the performance is rough. Scoring in the 0th percentile means it's the slowest phone we track for raw processing power. The Helio G99 chip paired with only 4GB of RAM is a recipe for stutters, app reloads, and frustration if you try to do more than one thing at a time. Basic tasks like calls and messaging are fine, but open a social media app while music is playing and you'll feel the lag. This isn't a phone for power users, multitaskers, or anyone who gets annoyed by waiting.

At $133, the value proposition is entirely about the screen and the Samsung brand. You're paying for that beautiful 95th-percentile display and the promise of long-term software support. Everything else is a compromise. The performance trade-off is so severe that it makes the phone feel unbalanced. If your top priority is a gorgeous screen on a tight budget and you don't mind a sluggish experience, there's an argument here. For everyone else, that 0th percentile performance score is a hard pill to swallow.

Compared to something like the Motorola Moto G Power at a similar price, you lose the A16's amazing screen but gain much better performance and battery life. The Moto G will feel faster day-to-day. Against the Samsung Galaxy A15 5G, you're looking at a slightly older sibling with 5G connectivity and often similar pricing, making the A16's 4G-only limitation harder to justify. The OnePlus Nord N series also lurks in this price range, typically offering a more balanced performance-to-display ratio. The A16 wins on screen quality alone but loses on almost every other practical metric.

Skip this phone if you're in the US and not on T-Mobile, as network compatibility is limited. Absolutely skip it if you're a multitasker, a mobile gamer, or just someone who gets annoyed by a slow phone—that 0th percentile performance score is a warning. Also, avoid it if battery life is your top priority, as it scores in the weaker 39th percentile despite the large capacity.

We can't recommend the Galaxy A16 for most people. That 0th percentile performance score is a deal-breaker for general use. The stunning display is fantastic, but a phone needs to function smoothly first. This configuration with 4GB of RAM is underpowered for modern Android and One UI. Only consider it if you have a hyper-specific need: you absolutely must have the best possible screen under $150, you'll only use it for one app at a time (like as a media remote or dedicated GPS), and you're on a compatible T-Mobile network. For everyone else, spend a little more or look at the competition.