One of the most popular and affordable smartphones to get if you are interested in crypto mining VerusCoin (VRSC) is the Samsung Galaxy A03s that is also easier to find and also widely available as a locked phone with some no-contract operators at great prices (you can use it for mining without activating a SIM card and getting a phone plan). With a regular price in the $50 USD range for locked phones available on Amazon from Tracfone, Total by Verizon and Simple Mobile and often going for as low as $30 USD when in promotion like it was for the Amazon Prime Day for example it is great way to get it for even less. It is definitely a great device to get you started with mobile crypto mining or if you want to give it a try before deciding should you get into it anyway, offering decent performance with a low power usage and with a killer promo price if you manage to snag a good deal. So, let us see what can you expect from the Samsung Galaxy A03s if you are interested in mining VRSC…
The Samsung Galaxy A03s has been launched in 2021 as a lower-end device with Android 11 operating system (updates to Android 13 are currently available) and decent hardware inside, though nothing too fancy. The device uses Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm) chipset and has an 8-core ARM processor inside (4x 2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 and 4x 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 cores), uses USB Type-C 2.0 interface that supports up to 15W charging and has a 5000 mAh non-removable battery inside. The model we have from Tracfone is with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage, though there are apparently other variations with different memory amount, so make sure to check which one you are getting. The device has a 64-bit processor and an operating system running in 64-bit, unlike some other smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A13 5G that are simply no good for use as crypto mining devices at all. Considering the price point for locked A03S devices and the specs you are getting they actually do make a lot of sense to be used for VRSC mining, especially when you take a look at the performance numbers and power usage as well.
What about the most important thing here, namely the performance you can expect from the Galaxy A03s? Well, it is really great for a smartphone you can get for $50 USD or even $30 USD at times… of course if you are getting a Samsung Galaxy A03s that is not locked to a specific mobile operator it will cost you more, but you don’t need unlocked smartphone to mine with it if it is the only thing you are going to be doing with it. The average hashrate when mining VerusCoin (VRSC) with the Galaxy A03s is around 3.6 MH/s with a power usage of around 2.6 Watts measured at the wall (using Userland and ccminer, a bit slower when using VerusMiner), so damn good performance and very power efficient device. Not the fastest out there, however the price you can get it at is really the best thing here and for that price the performance is surprisingly good… almost makes you start thinking along the way of actually building a smartphone mining farm, though going for large scale mining with smartphones does present some unique challenges that still need to be addressed. You might also want to check out the Alcatel TCL A3 and TCL A3X Smartphones as they can offer similar performance for a lower or similar price point as the Samsung Galaxy A03s, although these devices do come with their own specifics as well, so make sure to check our review.