Samsung Galaxy A55 review

The A series is built for a purpose - to shadow the S series and this time around, the A55 is no different either. It looks pretty darn similar. The full metal wedges with the flatscreen and the weight makes it very flagship-y.

There are differences though - the aluminium on the A55 is a little less polished, there’s an ‘island’ that protrudes for the buttons to rest on, at the back, the camera modules get a different design and there’s just regular glossy glass instead of the entire stained look of the S24. The flagship is slimmer than the A55, however the build quality is top notch! In fact it might just be the best in the segment. 

You also get proper IP67 dust and water resistance which at this price is awesome! The overall build quality and the feel of the A55 shouts premium and could very well pass off as a much pricier offering than what it is.

Okay the display does have thick bezels surrounding it and that’s a bit of a bug bear especially when you consider the fact that it’s a gorgeous AMOLED in there! The screen size is not 6.6in which is an upgrade from the previous 6.4in while the resolution and the brightness remains the same. 

You get a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate that goes as low as 60 to save a bit of that juice. The 2400X1080p resolution makes sure text and other finer details appear crisp even though the PPI count hasn’t seem to have changed. What we really love is that typical Samsung treatment to the contrast and colour. Binging on shows is addictive and way better than some rivals. 

The audio also was surprisingly much better than anticipated. The lower end has quite some oomph and the higher frequency while appearing a bit jarring, still sounds okay. Overall not bad at this price.

The A55 carries forward the same trio from the previous model. There’s a 50MP main unit with a 12MP ultra-wide and a 5MP macro. We really wish Samsung had put in a dedicated zoom lens instead of this macro unit, which quite frankly is just not up to the mark. It’s quite useless in our opinion and after clicking a few shots, you don’t use it at all. The image quality from the macro is quite blah as well.

The 50MP unit comes with image stabilization and this time around it seems Samsung has focused more on making the end image a little crisper and colours a tad more realistic without sacrificing on that typical Samsung punch that fans have come to love. Even the sharpening is subtle and not overdone, so the image looks more detailed and a lot more nuanced. It gets the exposure and dynamic range on point no matter what situation it is in and that’s a win!

The Night Mode does well here too. Capturing a stupendous amount of detail and colour accuracy for this price. The 2X (upto 10X) zoom works here as well and it’s quite impressive for low light shots that would otherwise be a struggle for the competitors. 

The 12MP ultra-wide does brilliantly in outdoor situations where there’s ample light, but anything less than that and you immediately notice the noise creeping in and the pish posh of colours. It’s the same story with other units in the segment though.

What really grated our cheese from the get go was the almost forced step of making a Samsung account at set up and the amount of apps that are ‘suggested’ to download at the beginning . It’s annoying and gives you the impression that you’ve invested in a sub par smartphone. Not nice. 

What’s really nice though is the actual OneUI 6.1 that’s built on top of Android 14. It’s simply superb! It’s neat and clean and intuitive. Samsung has stripped away the AI experience entirely though, so don’t expect any of the S24 shenanigans on here. You do get some pre-loaded apps, but those are easy to uninstall.

Samsung offers four years of OS updates and five years of security updates for the A55 and you also get Samsung Knox Vault which is a hardware based security measure that keeps your data super secure locally.

The A55 gets an upgraded Exynos 1480 chipset based on a 4nm process and AMD graphics! It’s no sloucher. Most apps have no problems or hiccups whatsoever. Everyday tasks are handled fine and switching between apps is also swift. With that being said, the A55 isn’t for hardcore gamers. 

Most AAA titles require you to dial the settings down to medium, especially FPS games like Warzone and Battle Grounds India. We also noticed quite a bit of a heating issue after 25 minutes of playing Modern Combat 5, although it wasn’t alarming levels. Editing videos on VN Editor also was a bit on the slow side, but it got the job done.

The 5500mAh battery is quite a tank. It lasts a whole day and then some, if you don’t continuously play games. What we don’t like is the silly 25W charging speed. It takes 40 minutes to get it to 50 percent and that’s just wild. Samsung doesn’t even include a brick in the box, so you’ll have to get one.

The Samsung A55 offers up the premium feel of a flagship but the rest of the bits don’t seem to be a major upgrade over the previous device. Yes, the camera has slightly improved, the UI is slick and the device feels stunning to hold and use thanks to the premium metal outlay. However, the competition is stiff and the Vivo V30 and the Nothing Phone 2 are priced lower than the A55 if you aren’t that picky about living life in plastic. In fact Samsung’s own A35 also is an option to consider and comes with a few compromises.