The experimental charge radius values along Cd, Sn, Te, Xe, Ba and Sm isotopic series have been extracted from isotope shift measurements using different methods to calibrate the electronic factor and mass shift effects. Static and dynamic charge radii have been calculated in the framework of a microscopic configuration mixing approach on the ground of Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov solutions obtained with the D1S Gogny effective nucleon–nucleon interaction. Low-energy spectroscopic observables have also been obtained. The theoretical and experimental results are compared and discussed. It is shown that dynamical effects must be taken into account especially for γ-soft and weakly deformed nuclei.