Tldr: Good phone for this price, noticeably better than older A13 and I wish more people would include context to their reviews. Glad I bought mine.I'm leaving a long and detailed review because I got tired of reading through reviews that seemed contradictory, or said something was "bad" but without any context. If I made a poor choice buying a phone I'd likely be stuck with it for some years. I'm hoping this helps others like myself who are reading the reviews.Ok, so the most important context is what phone I'm coming from over to the A17 5g. My old phone was Samsung A13 5g. My opinions of the new phone will be largely based on how they compare to the previous phone I used. So it's budget phone to budget phone, with the A17 having approximately 3-4ish years newer tech (or same tech but cheaper.) Both phones are being used on metro PCS (T mobile) network.So I've now had the A17 for exactly one week. I primarily use my phone for android auto, text, checking email, web browser, occasional YouTube and maybe once per week on some games. I don't use it for heavy loads like massive file transfers or rendering video. It's fairly light use overall.So far, the things I've been most pleased with are the screen and software/system layout. The screen has decent color and brightness and is MUCH better than the A13. Both screens claim to run at 90hz but the change from the old 270 PPI (I believe stands for pixel per inch or some equivalent) to 385 PPI feels massive. Much cleaner image from text to images. The change from LCD to AMOLED gives much better contrast with deeper colors. The software and system layout are a bit harder to describe in detail. It's more of a personal/ascetic preference. Things look and feel a lot cleaner. There are added optional features like side slide tabs to house shortcuts for certain apps. Another feature is top down swipe from the right for system shortcuts and from the left for notification, so they are smashed together.Another improvement, though less so than the screen and software changes, is in the speed and responsiveness of the phone. This one also needs to be put in context a bit. I'm sure some would complain about it while coming from a more expensive and technologically superior phone. I have my own bias, as I'm coming from an inferior phone which had over 3 years of use (slowing it down over time.) I also use it for mostly light tasks. That being said, I am pleased that the phone is noticeably more responsive than my old one. Most of the lagging happens on start up (goes away after a few mins while the phone is connecting a bunch of apps and putting out/requesting info like date/time/location.) When I booted it for the first time, that was the worst lag I had. It will also slow down if you have several apps running at the same time. I feel like that's obvious, but some people genuinely don't know that if you hit the home button to leave an app, you need to bring up multi view and actually swipe the box away to close it fully. If you never close apps and never restart your phone on occasion it WILL slow way down. While using the phone for max 1 or 2 things at time it runs perfectly fine, and is better than the A13.Battery life is good. I went from appx. 5000mAh to 5000mAh phones, so besides the slight degradation in the old phones battery life it should be the same. 5000mAh for my uses feels excellent overall. It can go for a full 2 days without charging. Charging speed itself seems improved, but that's never mattered too much for me so I can't comment much. Seems fine though, roughly 1.5h charge from mostly dead to full. That's using a 25w fast charger block and appropriate USB c cable. I didn't use the cable that came with the phone so I can't comment. It didn't come with a charger block, by design. Your mileage on charge speed will vary based on what you're using to charge the phone with. The phone can't charge at full speed if you're using a 5w charger from 15 years ago.I don't have much to say about the camera. I rarely take photos and when I do it's usually quick snap shots of paper instructions or to share location. I believe (though I'm not sure) the A13 was also 50mp front camera but either the the other 2 lenses have been upgraded or they improved the camera software, because pictures do look a bit cleaner. It's not night and day or anything, but it looks better to my eye. Camera is also faster to adjust light and contrast when first focusing on a object, as compared to the old A13.Build quality seems a little improved. They are both budget phones and how build quality "feels" is inherently subjective but to me it does seem a little better.A quick note on activating this new phone...this may only be an issue I personally had, but in case this helps someone else I'd like to include it. I had a bit of trouble switching my physical SIM card out of my old phone and into the new. The metro app was telling me the phone wouldn't be compatible unless I changed phone plans (which is BS.) I had to call customer service and they opted to use the eSiM feature, rather than swapping the physical Sim. I noticed they also used the new phones 2nd SIM number to activate it, while i had tried using first. If you're having trouble perhaps check the phones info from the settings menu, and then try eSIM activation using the 2nd address. It worked fine for me after this.Samsung has a quick transfer feature if your previous phone was a Samsung. It basically copies over everything from your old phone, including apps, pictures, contacts and even text message history ect. It took 3 or 4 attempts (it didn't want to connect and dropped the connection once at 30% complete.) Luckily if it disconnects part way through, it will pick up where it left off, without needing to restart. Once it finally had a stable connection it took me about 6 minutes, it will vary based on how much stuff you have to move over. You need to download an app to do the transfer, but it will prompt you and take you to it's link.Summery: I find it pretty impressive how nice this phone feels both compared to its older model and for its price point in general. I found it frustrating that people would say this part or that was crap or great, but without giving any context to what they based that opinion off of. In my opinion, based on how cheap this phone is and compared to its older model (A13) this is an awesome phone so far, being one week in. Screen is a big improvement, system software and layout is better (IMO) and they seem to be making incremental improvements to things like the camera and overall build. For this price point I find it really impressive what you actually get. If you're coming from an older mid range phone I expect it will either be inferior or about the same. If you're coming from another phone in the 200 range it should be decent to good. For less than 200 and for what I use it for though, I'm very happy I bought this phone.

It’s good and cheap ✅

Got this for my wife after the battery in her Motorola phone blew up like a balloon. It's a decent phone. Camera is better than her old one. Glad that it has a SD card for her pics. Sometimes it's a bit laggy when she tries to unlock it. Works fine once it wakes up. All in all, I'd say it's a good value for the money for people who don't need a super high end phone.

I was a Moto user. Before moving over to Android, I was among the 0% that used a Windows Phone. My needs have been modest, so the idea of shelling out nearly a thousand or more for a phone never crossed my mind. What is important is ongoing support, which rules out every cat-sat-on-a-keyboard brand. It’s also the reason why I switched from Moto over to Samsung; offering 6 years of OS and security support (from initial release) on an entry-level class device is a HUGE PLUS. In the case of this A17, that’s all the way into August 2031.This is NOT a fast phone by any means, however. Playing media and general browsing? Sure. Playing video? Fine. Lots of videos at once like on some social media platforms? Not so much. Taking videos? It's only 1080p. More immersive games? I wouldn’t bother. Between the processor and the 4GB of RAM, some patience will be necessary, especially for folks running lots of apps. There is more underlying “bloat” here; turning off the animations under developer mode along with unneeded services improves the experience a bit, however.The A17 phone case I purchased separately for this arrived labeled as an A26; the glass screen protector as an A16, so apparently this phone shares a very similar design with those models. No 3.5mm jack but there is a micro SD slot which it shares with the SIM tray. The AMOLED screen is a huge plus; great contrast and sharpness, which is NOT common in this entry-level class. It does have NFC for tap to pay, but no wireless charging.Will this win any benchmarks? No. Folks expecting sports car performance at an economy car price will be extremely disappointed. This does not nor will not compare to phones that cost more. However, if your needs are modest, there’s no need to spend $$$ either when this will do the job.---Edit: Just for added confirmation about ongoing support (or lack thereof), the Moto G17 that was just released at the end of January 2026 does NOT promise ANY OS updates at all. That's a stark contrast to the A17 here with a promise of 6 years of OS and security updates.Edit 2: Wireless Android Auto connectivity has become tedious with the aftermarket generic Android head unit on my vehicle, with the phone often forgetting to connect. The real culprit is that those units are often running hardware and an OS older than what they advertise; it may say 15 on the surface but underneath, it's actually running like 10 or even older. Getting a USB wired-to-wireless CarPlay/Android Auto adapter fixed that; the phone has remembered to connect every time since. For less than $10, it was worth taking that chance.

For me this was an upgrade from an a12. Very big improvement lots of storage space for more apps, easy change over from one phone to the other.

I can't believe my new A17 is slower and shows a worse performance than the A13 I replaced. But it does! It's ridiculous how long it takes for a page to load - just ordinary browsing and shopping, no gaming or high performance apps. In addition, unlike the A13, it freezes all the time. Going way back, I can't remember having a phone that froze. I'm pretty unhappy with it. Really just one upside: It was cheap.

I love itI must admit this upgrade for a 5-year old 4G phone is quite remarkable.I don't think I can properly rate, since this was quite a leap in tech.Good screen , good battery life.Very happy

I find it as snappy and any of my past phones. It is slower during the setup phases as it is doing lots of setup work but once complete it is fine. I do wish the battery life was better.