Samsung Galaxy A55 Review: A Mid-tier Phone that Works

One of the series that Samsung cares about that’s not their Flagship series, is (surprise, surprise!) their mid-tier A Series. While flagships are great to have that best all-rounder experience, not many users make complete use of it and this is where the A series shines by fulfilling the “needs-over-wants” consumers. In this Samsung Galaxy A55 review, we will address what we liked, what’s okay and what could have been improved.

Samsung Galaxy A55 Review

What’s Great?

The Improved Design and Build

I must say that when I looked at the Samsung Galaxy A55, it is so obvious that it has received more love than the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE we reviewed a while back. A lot more refined in the design department with a brushed metal frame and chamfered edges for much more comfortable handling. Both the glasses on the phone are properly Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ protected and it just feels like a more polished phone overall than the other phones that they have made at this price point.

One thing worth noting is that they have gone for a much more “Cupertino” design language if you know what we mean. With matching colours on the metal rails and the back of the phone, the flatter and “can stand on its own” design – it all screams, yep, you know where we are going with this. But remember, imitation is a form of flattery and copying the right thing for a better user experience is one I will take for the win. The Samsung Galaxy A55 is definitely a well-thought-out phone. Samsung, I know this is unrelated for now but please show love to your Fan Edition.  

MicroSD Slot, is that you?

Ah, yes, if it took courage to remove the headphone jack, then I guess removing the MicroSD card slot is an act of Valor? Be it as it may to see the MicroSD card slot in the Samsung Galaxy A55 feels like there’s faith in humanity after all. But that said, for a mid-tier and granted if you do have 256GB storage like the one we review has, it is definitely a nice to have – especially for users who do spend this amount on a phone and do want their phone to last longer and would rather have a physical storage that they could rely on.

Samsung Knox Vault on A Series for the First Time

While this may seem like a surprise, the Samsung Knox Vault is seeing the light of day for the very first time on the A Series. What does this mean for you general consumers, well this we will update in another article and video soon.

What’s the Same?

The Camera

Nothing much has changed with the cameras on the Samsung Galaxy A55 because you do see the same setup as the A54 from 2023: the 12MP Ultra-wide, 50MP Main shooter and to completely forget, the macro camera. There are some improvements worth addressing: for one, we don’t notice the “lag” it has while taking photos in low light conditions. While it does take a while to process, it is nice to notice that the camera has no issue taking photos without missing moments.

The normal 50MP does bring better sharpness, nicer colour control and impressive low-light response with better details overall. This is because of the newer processor. But while it’s incremental, it is pretty alright. The 12MP ultra-wide goes extremely wide at 0.5x (vs 0.6x or 0.7x) – which is extremely wide and takes a while to get used to. This camera has improved in performance from its predecessor but still has those warping issues, and low light performance, despite being a wee bit better, I do wish it was much more improved. You can take a look at all the photos below.

The Display

Another thing I don’t see a reason to comment on, as Samsung has gotten their display right in a mid-tier for a long time. Many phones use an AMOLED display, which also brings the point that you are getting a nice 6.6” FHD+ Super AMOLED display with 1000 nits brightness and upto 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. I liked the display, you’d like it too and it is as good as it gets. Paired with features like Eye Care for lower blue light emissions and so on, you are getting a safer display too.

What’s Okay?

The Performance

The upgraded Samsung Exynos 1480 we see here does bring a marginal improvement to the table and it is a little noticeable when used for day-to-day use case scenarios. The 2.75GHz octa-core processor is capable of handling all of your daily tasks without breaking a sweat as it is for those who care about having a reliable daily phone. During my time, I used the phone mostly for social media, communication, occasional content consumption via Netflix, Spotify and YouTube and some light gaming like Marvel Snaps.

But the GPU – which is worth commenting on because the Samsung Galaxy A55 uses the new AMD Xclipse 530 which is based on the RDNA2 architecture and does outperform the Mali-G68 from a Synthetic Benchmark standpoint. However, when you do plan to game on it heavily, it sure does struggle. In my case, running Honkai Star Rail even on the lowest settings crashed the phone and I could only play light to moderate games that work okay.

If you check out our friends at HiTech Century, they did report that games like Genshin Impact, which happens to be more optimised by Horoverse, work okay in low-to-medium settings. Which in our testing was pretty true. But that said, it is an okay phone if you talk from a productivity standpoint, whereas for gaming, you might want to look elsewhere. I would love to see an A series with the newer MediaTek which does impress me in more ways than one.

Battery Life

The 5000mAh battery on this Samsung Galaxy A55 is far better than the A54 because with a usage time of 94%, we got about 7 hours and 16 minutes of screen on time and the phone lasted all day with no issues whatsoever. With moderate use of 85%, we got about 6 hours and 19 minutes and the phone lasted a little over one day. Finally, I can strongly say that the Samsung Galaxy A55 is the kind of phone you’d want to get stuck with if you wanna go on without your charger.

However, if you want to charge your phone – well, you are stuck with the 25W fast charger which may seem like it takes a good while to get from 10% to 100%.

What Could be Better?

Maybe the Processor…

Personally, other than the Awesome Screen, Awesome Camera, Long Lasting Battery Life, I do want to see the A series touting a better mid-tier processor that could give other phones in this price range a force to be reckoned with. When you have other brands that put in a feisty processor that can handle gaming and other tasks like a champ, I do wish to see the same with the A Series.

And hey, it’s not that they have never done it before. We have seen and reviewed some pretty powerful A series in the past that have evoked the question: “Do you really need a flagship when you have this?” I want that here.

Conclusion

To be frank, at the asking price of RM 1999 for the Samsung Galaxy A55, personally, it is kind of a stretch – given that it is a mid-tier phone, and it may lack in certain areas. That becomes truer, especially when you know that the “unrefined” looking S23 FE went for RM 2000 a while ago and performs much better than this if you care more about gaming and even other heavier multi-tasking capabilities.

But then again, that is, if you come across such discounts. But from an objective standpoint, the Samsung Galaxy A55 fulfils most users who want their phones to do phone things and nothing more – and what we mean by that is, that their phone does daily tasks without giving any sort of hiccups. I know I’d pick the S23 FE over this, but if my budget wasn’t quite there with the likes of the S23 FE, I’d be pretty content with the A55 and since I don’t game on mobile, it works for me.

But that would mean, my endeavour in Honkai Star Rail remains on my laptop or my PC. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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