The era of premium-priced 5G phones may finally be behind us, as Samsung plans to release a refreshed line of budget A-series phones, led by the Samsung A13 5G.

Samsung has announced the affordable Galaxy A13 5G phone, a $249 handset with a 6.5" 720 x 1600 display (90Hz), 50MP main camera, 64GB storage, 5000mAh battery, and headphone jack. Samsung also announced the $159 A03s, but did not provide much additional information about this model.

Obviously, Samsung wants to focus our attention around the A13 5G. This follows last year's Galaxy A12, a $179 4G phone; the A13 5G operates in AT&T and T-Mobile's sub-6GHz band.

A MediaTek Dimensity 700 chip powers the A13 5G. This is the same chip found in many international budget smartphones, including the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 5G, Realme 8 5G, and Honor X20 SE.

While the 64GB of storage available on the Galaxy A13 may not seem like a lot, the phone has a microSD card slot that allows up to 1TB of external storage to be added. Unfortunately, Samsung did not reveal how much RAM the device will have.

On the cost side, $249 remains an excellent price, but up $70 from last year's A12. This is likely due to the overall improved specs that make the A13 5G roughly equivalent to the OnePlus Nord N200 5G. If Samsung can deliver an attractive device with the A13, it may rank in our list of best budget smartphones, with powerhouses like the Google Pixel 4a and iPhone SE.

We hope Samsung will give us more details on what to expect from the $159 A03s phone. All we know is that it will be available next January, that it will have a long-lasting battery and triple camera setup, and that it will work with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

The A13 is more expensive than the A12, but still shows the overall trend of smartphones being cheaper and offering more.