Samsung quietly launched the Galaxy A18 in Europe – we found press releases for France, Norway and Sweden. This is a 4G phone and there is no A18 5G variant just yet.

This phone is a fairly minor upgrade over the Galaxy A17 4G. The biggest change is that Samsung dropped the Helio G99 chipset in favor of the Exynos 1610. You haven’t heard of the Exynos 1610? Well, we hadn’t either and Samsung is not forthcoming with the details.

Anyway, the new model boasts an IP64 rating, meaning that it is dust tight – the A17 wasn’t as well protected as it had an IP54 rating. The 5,000mAh battery is rated for 1,200 charge cycles and supports 25W charging – according to the official stats, you can get to 50% charge in half an hour.

The Samsung Galaxy A18 has a 6.7” Super AMOLED display with 1,080 x 2,340px resolution and 90Hz refresh rate. And it still has a notch for the 13MP selfie camera.

The rear cameras feature a 50MP main (f/1.8, no OIS), a 5MP ultra-wide (f/2.4) and a 2MP macro cam. The camera can record 1080p video at 30fps. The Exynos 1610 didn’t improve on the Helio G99 in this respect.

The A18 launches with Android 17 and One UI 9 out of the box and will receive OS updates for 6 years. It will receive security patches until the end of October 2032.

The new model is slightly chunkier than the A17 – it measures 7.7mm thick and weighs 196g. The A17 was 7.5mm and 190g. The difference is unlikely to be noticeable to the naked eye, but we are wondering what caused it – it’s not like the A18 has a bigger screen or battery.

The Galaxy A18 4G is already available on Samsung France’s online store. There is only one configuration available here, 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage, and it costs €280. There is a microSD slot, by the way. Shipping will start on September 18. You do get to choose a color – you can pick between Gray, Light Blue and Black.

The Norwegian press release puts the price of the 128GB model at NOK 3,290 and adds a 256GB variant that costs NOK 5,190. In Sweden, the two models are SEK 3,290 and SEK 5,190, respectively, but we didn’t find the A18 on the online stores yet.

We have to point out that the Galaxy A17 4G was €200 at launch last year - and that was with a better 6/128GB configuration.

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