Samsung Galaxy A25 5G A256E 128GB Dual-SIM GSM Unlocked Android Smartphone (Latin Variant/US Compatible LTE) - Blue Black

After reading all the reviews about this phone for several days ... especially the most negative ones, I decided to buy it anyway.When I received the phone, it's condition, printed user guide and packaging, including the charger and usb-c cable appeared "new."Even the plastic bag which it came with stated so. When I powered the unit for the first time it had no problem booting to the setup screen which was in Spanish and indicated that its 5000mAh battery was 50% charged. Although it wasn't difficult to change the language to English, I decided to power it down and wait until it was fully charged before continuing with the setup. This took around 30 minutes to complete. I needed to completely transfer as much of my data, folder, contacts and apps from my old Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime to this Samsung Galaxy A25 5G so I used the free Samsung app from the Google Playstore to accomplish this. The transfer over wifi took a few hours and only left out 5 apps which were relatively unimportant and easilly reloaded to the new phone from the playstore.Trying to save a few bucks, I then tried to switch my sim card from the old phone to the new phone myself. I followed the online instructions provided by Metro by T-Mobile, but this is where I encountered a problem. The IMEI number was not recognized by Metro and suggested I call for assistance. I wondered if the negative comments about this phone not being truly unlocked and not working in North America were true, so I decided to stop at this point and just wait until I could visit the nearest Metro store for help.The following morning, I did so. To my surprise it only took all of under 5 minutes and at a cost of $26.78 for a new sim card plus an activation fee to have me out the door with my old phone number successfully transferred to the new phone. Since then, the Samsung Galaxy A25 5G seems to be functioning just fine. I love how bright and clear the screen is. Its responsive and easy it is to use inspite of the fact that it is light years more advanced that my old one. I'm still learning about all its innovations and how to use it properly. Imagine, within a day of receiving this new phone I went from a smartphone using Android 7.11 OS to Android 14 OS!!! Would anyone believe that had I not needed to switch to an an Android OS of 11+ just to be able to utilize my car's Andro Auto Infotainment System fully, I would still be using my old J7 Prime?!Though not as powerful as the latest Galaxy S or N models, its specs including it's screen, video and multi-camera resolutions, refresh rate, processing unit, tactile response and even its storage expandability are fairly impressive if not respectable at such an affordable prize. If down the road I find anything to dislike or complain about it, I'll be sure to write an addendum to this review. In a nutshell ... I can vouch that this phone works just fine with Metro by T-Mobile cellular carrier in Florida (or at least my neck of the woods, East Central Florida) and can make calls either over wifi or just using cellular data.

My other beloved phone took a swim in the Jacuzzi, so wanted to replace it with something good. Didn't need anything fancy, just something basic that was an unlocked phone. It's bigger than the one I had before, which I like as far as screen size, and I just popped my sim card in it & set it up. I also added a SD card as like to storemusic & photos on that.Battery life is really good, just don't use the dynamic picture option, as that will drain it super fast, but without it, I can play games for a long time before having to charge.It's a USB C connector for charging which I like & has a 3mm headphone jack as I still prefer to plug in my headphones.Overall a very good phone.

Perfect phone for me in many ways, but when "Fast charging" it sometimes just...doesn't. And the battery life is not great so I keep it on Power saving all the time which means I effectively have a 4g phone.Takes great photos though. If I were doing this again I'd look into the battery life better.My son bought one after I did and his does better, so maybe I just got a dud.