Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review – Great smartphone for content creation
Samsung is well-known for its flagship smartphones such as the S series and Z series of foldable smartphones. However, they also offer decent smartphones in their A series, which has caught our attention. We are excited to review their recently launched smartphone, the Galaxy A55 5G. Here is our full review of the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G.
Table of Contents
Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Specifications
| OS: | Android 14, One UI 6.1 |
|---|---|
| Processor: | Exynos 1480 |
| Display: | 6.6″ 120Hz Super AMOLED 2340 x 1080p |
| Wireless Connections: | 5G, Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS, BDS |
| Memory: | 8GB, 128GB |
| Connectors: | USB Type-C 2.0 , OTG |
| Cameras: | Rear Camera: (Main) 50 MP, f/1.8 (Ultrawide) 12 MP. f/2.2 (Macro) 5 MP, f/2.4 Front Camera: 32 MP, f/2.2 |
| SIM Card Slots: | Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by) Shared microSD card slot |
| Battery: | 5000mAh 25W wired |
| Price: | 8GB, 256GB: Php 24,990 |
The Design
You’ll notice right away that the Galaxy A55 5G shares a similar design with its predecessor, the Galaxy A54, and even this year’s S series. However, it features several upgrades compared to its previous iteration. For instance, the display now boasts Gorilla Glass Victus+, and the frame has been upgraded from plastic to aluminum.
One distinguishing design feature is the slightly elevated volume rocker and power button on the side. Apart from size, this is one of the few differences compared to this year’s S series.
The Galaxy A55 5G we received comes in Awesome Lilac, a pleasing light shade of purple that I personally prefer over the previous generation. If this color isn’t to your liking, there are alternatives such as Awesome Iceblue and Awesome Navy available.
As for its buttons and ports, they remain unchanged with the volume rocker and power button located on the right side. The bottom of the smartphone features the speaker grill, microphone hole, and USB-C port. At the top, you’ll find the SIM tray slot, which can accommodate either two nano SIM cards or a microSD card in the shared slot with SIM 2.
The Galaxy A55 5G retains its IP67 rating, making it water-resistant up to 3 feet for up to 30 minutes and dust-tight.
The Display and Speaker
The Galaxy A55 5G got an increase in size having it now a 6.6” 120Hz Super AMOLED with a 1080 x 2340 pixels resolution having it a 390 PPI. It also features HDR10+ and 1000 nits high brightness mode. Aside from its size and better glass protection, there is no other difference from the Galaxy A54.
Having it as your entertainment smartphone, you will splurge with its vibrant display. FYou’ll definitely enjoy watching your favorite shows on it, especially since it comes with Widevine L1 certification, allowing you to stream HD content on platforms like Netflix. Using it outdoors, the screen is bright enough that you can use it without any problems.
For the speakers, it has a dual stereo setup and when using it was loud and clear to enjoy your music.
The Performance
The Galaxy A55 5G powered by an Exynos 1480 chipset which has four 2.75Ghz Cortex A78 and four 2.0 Ghz Cortex A55 and for its GPU it has an Xclipse 530. For its RAM and storage, it has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage and can be expandable by inserting a microSD card in the shared SIM card slot.
Booting up the phone, you will be greeted by One UI 6.1 OS that based on Android 14. We didn’t encounter any issues when we using it throughout the review. It was smooth and opening apps was snappy.
The performance uplift from the new chipset is significantly noticeable, especially for gaming enthusiasts. With its co-developed GPU featuring AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, the Galaxy A55 5G has become quite competitive within its price range compared to other chipsets.
Playing games with it is smooth particularly with esports games like Mobile Legends, CODM and PUBG Mobile. You can somehow set on high graphics for heavy graphic games like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero but expect occasional stuttering. Still, you can tweak down its setting to minimize its stuttering and get more immersive gameplay experience.
As for its thermal performance, it has an excellent thermal stability as it can maintain its chipset to have great performance even during long gameplay session.
The Camera
The Galaxy A55 5G has triple rear camera setup consist of 50 megapixels main camera, 12 megapixels ultrawide camera and 5 megapixels macro camera. As for the front camera, it has 32 megapixels. Both rear and front camera are capable in recording 4K @ 30 fps videos but the rear camera has a gyro-EIS for stable video recording.
Right from the get-go, we noticed that the ultrawide camera has 12 megapixels, which is higher than the commonly used 8 megapixels. We will evaluate the images we captured to see if this results in superior image quality.
The main camera produces decently nice images with great detail and vibrant, natural-looking tones in the daylight shots we captured. In low-light environments, the camera activates its dedicated night mode to enhance the images we captured, delivering detailed and clear photos with good contrast and natural colors. When shooting at 2x zoom, we observed similar results, though occasionally there was slight noise noticeable in our images.
The quality we got from the ultrawide camera of the Galaxy A55 5G is really nice compared to the commonly used 8 megapixels camera from other smartphones in the same price range. You will see how clear and sharp the images we took, however their are slight problems with its dynamic range but nevertheless it still a better image quality compared to other smartphones that uses 8 megapixels ultrawide camera.
Taking selfies with the Galaxy A55 5G 32 megapixels has two modes which its zoomed in that is cropping the image and zoomed out. Both modes have excellent selfies you will enjoy as it has detailed and sharp images with good natural looking colors and the background is not blowing out in its exposure.
The Galaxy A55 5G offers a great video recording experience, with its 4K videos well-stabilized and displaying sharp, vibrant colors. It’s a solid smartphone choice for content creators.
The Battery
The Galaxy A55 5G has a 5,000 mAh battery which we experince great battery life as it lasted throughout our busy working day. We also ran a PCMark battery benchmark test with 50% screen brightness and from 100% battery life and we got a result of 13 hours and 9 minutes which is great result as other smartphones that has 5,000 mAh battery capacity have difficulty in reaching 10 hours score.
On the other hand, it is sad to learn that its charging capability is slow in todays standard. It is only 25W compared to other smartphones that have higher charging speed. It took us over almost an hour and 30 minutes when charging the phone from 20% to full charge which is really slow compared to other phones that can charge under an hour. Another turn off is that there is no included charger which is sucks that you need to buy if you need it compared to other smartphones that are in the same price range they still include a charger and the chargers are higher wattage.
Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G is an exciting smartphone with modest upgrades across its specs and a more premium design. The chipset, camera, and overall design are significant improvements from the previous generation. However, its price point might shake things up as the competition in its price range is intense. If you can get it for less than its SRP, it could become a much better deal.
The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G is priced at Php 24,990 for its 128GB+8GB model. It is available through Lazada, Shopee, Samsung Authorized Retail stores, and the Samsung website.
