Although not yet officially announced, Samsung has lifted the curtain on the Galaxy A16 5G, revealing that it will be the company's first budget smartphone guaranteed to have six generations of Android updates along with six years of security patches This means that if you get the Galaxy A16 5G, you can expect it to run the latest Android OS until 2030 Not only is it a contender for best budget phone, it also has a good chance to overtake the Moto G 5G (2024) as our top pick in our best cheap phones under $300 guide

Samsung seems to have jumped the gun a bit on the Galaxy A16 5G listing on a Dutch website (via AndroidPlanet), revealing some notable upgrades over its predecessor, the $200 Galaxy A15 5G This time around, Samsung upped the screen size from 65 inches to a 67-inch Super AMOLED display, slimmed down the design to 79 mm wide (from 84 mm on the A15 5G), and unfortunately eliminated the 35 mm headphone jack The latter improved the A16 5G's basic IP54 rating for dust and water resistance

Under the hood, the A16 5G packs the same 4GB of RAM as its predecessor and a 5,000 mAh battery charged at 25W However, it has a new octa-core processor that appears to be an Exynos 1330 chip (Samsung does not mention the processor name in its official spec sheet) Storage is 128 GB and can be increased to 15 TB with a microSD card

As for the camera setup, we can expect something similar: like the A15 5G, the A16 5G has a 50MP main lens on the back, a 5MP ultrawide lens, a 2MP macro lens, and a 13MP selfie camera on the front It is available in blue-black, light gray, gold, and light green, but availability may vary by market

Also, as mentioned previously, for the first time in Samsung's budget smartphone series, the A16 5G promises six years of Android OS and security upgrades; given that Samsung's flagship Galaxy phones, like the Galaxy S24, are eligible for seven years of updates Considering that Samsung's flagship Galaxy phones like the Galaxy S24 are eligible for seven years of updates, there is no doubt that the A16 5G has the advantage, although it is only one year more

What the cost will be is a bit more unknown Samsung's Dutch website does not list a price, but the French website lists it at €249, the same as the A15 5G We expect the A16 5G to be priced about the same as the previous model, which we estimate to be between $200 and $250 It is expected to begin shipping in the near future

Samsung also just recently announced the Galaxy S24 FE, which seems to have a slight advantage in terms of Galaxy AI capabilities and Samsung DeX support Otherwise, the A16 5G is a much better value