The Galaxy A series has often been considered the toned-down version of the flagship S series. It has been Samsung’s reliable mid-range device that mimics the look and feel of the flagship. Samsung recently launched the Galaxy A55 on 15th March 2024 globally. As a successor of the A54, how does it stack up against its predecessor? More importantly, does it hold ground on par with its competitors? Let’s find out.
Key Specs of Samsung Galaxy A55 5G
Design and Build Quality
The A series has always been replicative of the S series. Users would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two side by side. The A55 follows the S24 with its glass front, aluminum frame, and glass back.
The frame has a brushed finish on the A55 which oddly enough, gives it a more premium look than the S24. The frame around the volume rocker and the power button is slightly raised which aids in the overall ergonomics.
Dimension-wise the A55 comes in at 161.1 mm by 77.4 mm by 8.2 mm with 213 g weight. The overall dimension is a tad bit larger than last year’s A54. The front screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+, the same as that of the S24. In line with the flagship, Samsung has finally introduced a symmetrical display on the A series.
In addition to the highest 256 GB storage, the A55 also comes with a shared micro SDXC slot. There’s unfortunately no headphone jack on the A55 which was expected as Samsung stopped its inclusion in the A series. The A55 comes in Iceblue, Lilac, Navy, and Lemon colors which gives it distinction from the S24.
The Display
Samsung is often touted to create the best smartphone display in the market. The A55 stands up to that hype with its 6.6-inch Super AMOLED, 120Hz, HDR10+ panel with 1000 nits of HBM. The symmetrical display is 0.2 inch larger than the one on A54 with a center punch hole for the front camera.
The resolution of the display comes in at 1080 by 2340 pixels with 390 ppi and an unusual 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The screen-to-body ratio has also seen a jump at 85.8% which is the highest among any A series device to date. With over 16 M color support, the A55 is one of the most vibrant and eye-pleasing devices in the mid-range category.
The Camera
The A55 features a triple camera setup just like its predecessor. The main sensor is a 50 MP f/1.8 with PDAF and OIS. The secondary sensors are a 12 MP f/2.2, 123˚ ultrawide shooter, and a 5 MP f/2.4 macro shooter. The front features the usual 32 MP f/2.2 selfie camera.
It is difficult to differentiate the camera performance of the A55 from that of the A54 as both of them feature identical sensors. The pictures came out great in daylight with good color balance and dynamic range.
The post-processing on the A55 seems to have slightly improved as it shows better exposure and portrait details side by side with the A54. The edge detection in the portrait mode has also gotten better.
Pictures taken in artificial light or low light suffer a bit from softness and grains. The night mode is stable in low light as it does an excellent job of capturing details and maintaining the overall sharpness of the image. The quality of the selfie camera is also as usual. It produces decent pictures with good details in bright conditions.
The videography on the A55 is rated to be 4K at 30fps and 1080p at 30/60fps with gyro-EIS. OIS and EIS both work well to produce stable videos with good exposure.
Processor and Performance
The processor on the Galaxy A55 is Exynos 1480. The proprietary chip from Samsung is comparable with the Snapdragon 778G in terms of performance. The octa-core processor has a chip design of 4x2.75 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55.
The A55 with its updated processor performs better than the A54 on paper. However, the overall performance aggregate is negligible considering both perform on par with each other. The A55 feels slightly snappier with faster opening and closing of apps.
Gaming on the A55 has been okay. Graphics-intensive titles like PUBG, Asphalt 9, and Genshin Impact ran on max settings at the cost of thermal throttling after about 40 minutes of continued play.
OneUI 6.1 has also been optimized better than the last generation. The lack of bloatware and fast animations makes OneUI one of the best Android OS other than the stock OS itself.
In terms of overall performance and features, the A55 will be strongly contended by the OnePlus 12R and Nothing Phone 2a with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Dimensity 7200 Pro chip respectively.
Battery and Charge Time
The battery on the Samsung Galaxy A55 is 5000 mAh. The phone supports up to 45W wired fast charging which can take the device to 50% in 23 minutes and 100 % in 1 hour.
Pros and Cons of Samsung Galaxy A55 5G
Pros:
- Ergonomic design and build quality
- External storage
- Excellent 120Hz display
- Great battery life
- Good camera.
Cons:
- Still on USB 2.0
- No wireless charging.
Official Price of Samsung Galaxy A55 5G
Samsung Galaxy A55 is available in 8/128 GB, 8/256 GB, and 12/256 GB configurations. The prices of the variants are 39,999 INR or 52,882 BDT, 42,999 INR or 56,846 BDT, and 45,999 INR or 60,813 BDT respectively (1 INR = 1.32 BDT).
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G brings minimal upgrades over last year's A54. If you already own an A54, you might be better off skipping this one. The A55 brings the same design, display, and camera in a slightly refined and updated package.
This year, the A55 is expected to face stiff competition from the OnePlus 12R and the Nothing Phone 2a as both offer a tad bit more in a similar price range. But with Samsung, users will be getting the reliability of performance and durability over time.
