Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review: Flagship experience at a lower price point?

Samsung’s Galaxy A55 has arrived in India. It is Samsung’s costliest A series phone in 2024 priced starting Rs 39,999. In this week-long review, With Galaxy A55 Samsung is playing on its strengths, from the striking design to an impressive AMOLED display. But does it truly deliver on performance, battery life, and camera quality? Let’s delve into every aspect of the Samsung Galaxy A55 review.

Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review: Design & Build

The Galaxy-S Series inspires the Samsung Galaxy A55 design. The Galaxy A55 looks so close to Galaxy-S series smartphones that some might have trouble telling it apart from the flagship lineup. The brand has completely done away with polycarbonate for the body of Galaxy A55. Similar to Galaxy S24 (review) and S24+ (review), the aluminum metal frame is flat and has no curves on the edges or rear panel. However, this doesn’t mean you will feel any roughness as the smartphone is smooth and comfortable to hold in hand.

One more tiny design change that Samsung has done to the design of A55 is the ‘Key Island’, a small bump on the right side of the frame housing the volume and power buttons.

The key island ensures that the area around the volume and power buttons stands out from the rest of the frame by raising the frame. Although it is not some significant design change that affects the look of the device, but is undoubtedly seems like a way for Samsung to differentiate mid-rangers from flagship phones.

The Galaxy A55 is the first mid-range Samsung device that Gorilla Glass Victus protects. The rear and front panels are protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+ glass. Compared to its predecessor that had Gorilla Glass 5 protection, this one makes it two times scratch and drop-resistant. The phone comes with an IP67 rating to protect it from water and dust.

In terms of size, Galaxy A55 is slightly larger than Galaxy A54, although the thickness is the same. Due to the size being larger, the weight has also increased by 11 grams for Galaxy A55. The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes in four shades- Awesome ice-blue, awesome lemon, awesome lilac, and awesome navy, out of which I received an Awesome Ice-blue color that looked subtle and mature.

The back panels feel smooth to the touch and have three camera cutouts vertically aligned without any camera module. There is Samsung branding at the bottom and the good thing is the rear panel is not a smudge magnet. At times, it might attract some dirt, but that can be easily wiped off, or cover can be used to avoid it.

In terms of functionality, the bottom edge houses a USB-C port speaker grille and microphone, while the top edge has a SIM tray and a secondary microphone. Overall, the Samsung Galaxy A55 feels good to hold in hand but is slightly cumbersome for one-hand operation. The design is impressive, apart from the huge bezels found on the sides of the display, which look ugly.

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Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review: Display and Audio

The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G flaunts a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED panel with FHD+ resolution at the front. The display comes with 120Hz refresh rate support and 1000 nits peak brightness levels. The display is slightly taller than the Galaxy A54 but does have massive bezels around the display. The phone lacks a dynamic refresh rate option which is a a bummer.

Talking about the viewing experience, the Galaxy A55 display is good for content consumption. Its Super AMOLED panel produces punchy colors and offers wide viewing angles. Its 1000 nits brightness makes the display visible indoors and outdoors. It supports HDR10+ but like all other Samsung phones lacks support for Dolby Vision.

The auto-brightness feature does need some fixation as in an indoor environment, it gets too conservative and lowers brightness levels too much.

Samsung has placed an optical fingerprint scanner in the display that is fast and responsive but isn’t as fast as ultrasonic ones. For audio, there is a stereo speaker setup that offers loud and clear sound but with some distortion at the highest level. There is no headphone jack for using wired headphones.

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Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review: Performance

Samsung Galaxy A55 5G is powered by an in-house Exynos 1480 chipset with up to 12GB RAM and up to 256GB onboard storage. While Galaxy A54 was powered by Exynos 1380, Exynos 1480 is faster and more efficient than the predecessor. The chipset performed at 79% peak performance during the CPU Throttle test. The benchmark scores are quite respectable for a mid-range device.

The smartphone performs well during everyday usage. It can seamlessly handle tasks like switching between apps, watching videos, video editing, downloading files, playing games, calling, messaging, and much more. Graphically intense titles like BGMI, COD, and Real Racing 3 can be run with medium graphics and frame rate settings.

The device starts heating up after 20 minutes of rigorous gaming but it never got uncomfortably hot. Since Samsung doesn’t call it a gaming-focused device, the gaming performance is acceptable. We received the 12GB RAM+256GB storage version which is available in select countries only.

The only slight niggle with the performance is concerning the camera app. While using the camera, I felt switching between modes was slow and laggy. Even when I tried to zoom in 4x or 10x, it took 2-3 tries.

This sometimes leads to missing out on capturing important moments. In terms of connectivity, you get WiFi 6, 5G, a hybrid sim tray, and a microSD card slot as well to expand storage. It supports eSIM too in select markets.

In terms of software, Galaxy A55 runs Android 14-based One UI 5.1 out of the box. It doesn’t come with Galaxy AI Features, but otherwise UI looks similar to what is seen on Galaxy S24 smartphones.

It comes with minimal bloatware and Knox security as well. Pre-installed apps include Netflix, Linked In, Phone Pe, Amazon, Daily Hunt, and some more. These third-party apps can be removed if you don’t need them. Samsung has also promised four years of Android updates and five years of security updates for the Galaxy A55.

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Samsung Galaxy A55 5G REVIEW: CAMERA

The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G sports the same triple-lens setup at the back as its predecessor. It includes a 50MP Primary camera, 12MP ultrawide camera, and 5MP macro lens.

At the front is a 32MP selfie snapper. The main improvements that Samsung has tried to make are through changes to camera algorithms. Let us find out if the brand has succeeded or not.

The 50MP primary sensor takes impressive shots in daylight as well as in low light. Samsung’s AI Image Signal Processing, which claims to better lowlight photography, might be the reason behind this performance.

The photos taken in daylight are detailed with decent color accuracy and good dynamic range. The images taken in real-time look natural and real sans any oversaturation. The primary camera’s autofocus works well and shutter speed is also fast.

There are two modes, 12MP by default and 50MP if you want to switch to. While 12MP mode offers zoom in up to 10x and zoom out to take wide-angle shots, 50MP mode takes photos in 1x only. However, the quality of clicks is slightly better in 50MP mode.

For example, look at this simple shot of dried leaves. The camera captured a fine shot with browns and greens being balanced. It was the evening time when the sun was almost about to set. Still, the shots were full of details and vibrancy.

Talking about zoom quality, it is good until 4x zoom level, but further than that, photos start losing details, especially in lowlight conditions. Although a 50MP sensor is decent enough, you can’t expect Galaxy S24-level photography on this one.

The 12MP ultrawide camera clicks shots with a good amount of color vibrancy. Still, the quality could be better when compared to the primary sensor. The edges sometimes look distorted and on zooming in, some details are also lost.

The third and final 5MP macro sensor captures better images than 2MP lenses found on devices, however, these photographs still lack sharpness and detailing. The photos aren’t as crisp as one would want them to be, and in lowlight conditions, you also find some graininess, which is a bummer. Night mode does help in improving quality a little, but it’s better to use 50MP and 12MP sensors than this one.

There is a fun mode as well that comes with built-in filters for solo and group selfies. However, it would be best if you had an active internet connection to use this mode. It can come in handy for those who need selfies for social media.

The 32MP selfie camera delivers shots that look natural and reflect the real facial features of the subject. The skin tones appear natural, and if you want, you can remaster shots to make them even more beautiful. The front camera also takes decent portrait shots with a bokeh effect.

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Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review: Battery Life and Charging

A 5000mAh battery drives Samsung Galaxy A55 5G. With regular usage that includes calling, WhatsApp, clicking photos, watching videos, reading news and more, the battery easily lasts an entire day, with 12% remaining in the evening.

It was when AOD was enabled all the time. As for charging, don’t expect superfast speeds as Samsung offers 25W charging capability that takes 1 hour to recharge the device from 35 to 100%.

When you need to charge from 0 to 100%, you will need close to 85-90 minutes, which feels slow, considering it is the era of superfast charging speeds. Samsung doesn’t offer an adapter inside the box so that has to be purchased separately.

Review Verdict: Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G?

The Samsung Galaxy A55 is a feature-packed mid-ranger that is a strong contender in this segment. The smartphone comes with a flagship-inspired design, AMOLED display, Exynos 1480 chipset, 5000mAh battery, and 50MP camera, thus offering a value-for-money experience for those who want a balance between functionality and price point.

It lacks fast charging capability, an underwhelming 5MP ultra-wide camera, bloatware, and the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack are some noticeable shortcomings of the device. For those who are looking for a reliable smartphone with a budget of under 50,000, the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G is an option. But if you are looking for a more powerful option you may look for options like Oneplus 12R (review), iQOO Neo 9 Pro 5G (review) and Galaxy S23 FE launched six months ago.