Samsung Galaxy A55 5G Review: A boring update, but still a solid mid-ranger for its price

Ever wondered why a fantastic smartphone like the Galaxy A55 5G seems to be missing from the US market? It's a shame, especially considering its impressive specs and competitive price, which make it one of the best mid-range phones.

Well, most likely the reason is that Samsung wants to nudge buyers towards the pricier Galaxy S23 FE, which boasts a more powerful processor (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1), providing superior performance for demanding tasks like gaming and heavy multitasking.

But the A55 sports a sleek design, versatile triple camera setup (including a telephoto lens), and excellent sound quality, so it has a lot to offer. But is it perfect? Let's dive into the details to find out.

The Galaxy A55 5G is the first generation in Samsung's A5x series to drop all plastic from its build, featuring a new aluminum frame. This makes the A55 not only look, but also feel more like a Galaxy S24/S24 Plus, with the three protruding cameras from the back glass panel, and flat sides that nicely curve at the edges.

The A55 felt comfortable to hold, despite the fact that it is slightly larger than its predecessor, which measures at 6.23 x 3.02 x 0.32in (158.2 x 76.7 x 8.2mm). It is also heavier by around 10g, which is probably due to that new metal frame, as metal is denser, hence heavier than plastic.

Speaking of the frame, we of course cannot forget to mention the new design choice that comes with this year's Galaxy A series, which is the slight bump on the right side that houses the power and volume keys. We were a bit worried that this bump would stick out too much, but that is not the case. In fact, it somewhat adds to ease of use, as it helped to easily find the keys just by feel.

The Galaxy A55 5G comes in four colors: Iceblue, Lilac, Navy, and Lemon. The one we reviewed is the Navy variant, which is this year's darkest hue you can pick with this Galaxy phone. Sadly, the glass back panel combined with the darker color means that fingerprints are always visible, especially in brighter spaces. That said, the frame has a nice polish to it and makes the phone look stylish.

As you probably expect from Samsung, even its mid-range phones come with a very simple unboxing experience. There are no extra thingymajigs.

There haven't been any major upgrades to the display this year. You still get a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, HDR 10 support, and similar brightness levels. The few differences include a slightly larger 6.6-inch screen (vs 6.4 on the A54), and a variable refresh rate mode, which means the phone can go from 120Hz to 60Hz to preserve energy.

Besides the lower one, which has somewhat shrunk in size, all other bezels remain the same. At this point, however, bezels are mostly thin enough to allow for an immersive experience, so we wouldn't worry too much about them.

Protecting the display is Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is supposed to be significantly more durable against scratches and drops compared to the Gorilla Glass 5 that came with the predecessor. Keep in mind that Samsung does not specify whether the back glass panel shares the same protection, though, so better slap a case before it is too late.

All in all the Galaxy A55 5G display is an utter joy to use no matter for what purpose. I had a blast watching YouTube videos and playing some mobile games. Even in bright conditions, such as a clear day with lots of sun, I was able to see the what was on the screen easily, without straining my eyes.

The only improvements we see here is with the color calibration. Samsung has not changed much else, but at least the A55 has more accurate colors compared to its predecessor.

Unfortunately, some of the phone's other aspects, such as the fingerprint reader embedded in the display, are not as impressive. It takes too long for the sensor to recognize your finger, and a good second and a half passes before the phone unlocks. The good news is that it is at least accurate, and we didn't get any misreads during the review period.

The other biometric option you can opt for is face recognition. If you turn on the "lift to wake" and turn off "swipe to unlock" it becomes a bit quicker compared to the fingerprint reader, but not as secure, so you kind of have to pick your poison.

Like we mentioned earlier, the A55 5G's camera stabilization is very impressive, especially for a phone of its caliber. This can even be on of the strongest selling points for the A55. Besides that, everything else about the video recording is the same as when you take photos, from the HDR performance to the color representation.

One of the stronger aspects of the A55 5G is arguably its camera system, although we did expect Samsung to level things up in this segment in 2024. At this price, some competitors come with the same level of image quality and camera performance, even beating the A55 in some ways, such as the OnePlus 12R and its sharper photos.

Nevertheless, the camera system on Samsung's more premium "A" series remains one of the better ones in the market, especially when we factor in the ultra-wide snapper's image quality and ability to shoot at 4K 30fps.

You can find more about our camera score and how we test each phone's camera system in our PhoneArena Camera Score benchmark explainer.

As we mentioned earlier, the new Exynos 1480 chip inside the A55 5G is better in every way compared to the Exynos 1380. That said, there are not significant jumps in performance in the processing speed or graphical prowess.

As far as storage options go, you can pick between 128GB and 256GB. It is still UFS 3.1 storage, which is one generation older than the latest UFS 4.0 storage. Apps loaded quickly, though; at no point was I waiting long and getting annoyed.

If you want to increase your storage you have that option via a microSD card slot, which is shared by the 2nd SIM slot. It supports up to 1TB.

The A55 ships with Android 14 alongside Samsung's One UI 6.1. You have four years of guaranteed software updates and five years of security patches. Sadly, we won't be seeing the same 7 years of software support for Samsung's A series this year, unlike with its flagship Galaxy S24 series.

One UI 6.1 offers a polished and user-friendly experience. Features like lock screen widgets provide convenient access to information, enhanced by the always-on display. Additionally, users can customize their A55's system with a color palette matching their wallpaper for a personalized touch.

There are also utility features like Quick Share enable seamless file transfers between Android devices and Windows PCs, akin to Apple's AirDrop feature.

We did notice there's a lot of bloatware, however, which definitely did not stick with us too well. This is something we typically see from Chinese manufacturers such as Xiaomi or Huawei, so it was a bit disappointing to be met with a bunch of unwanted preinstalled apps when booting up the A55.

In my experience, the A55 lasted a whole day of gaming, video streaming, and browsing social media with about 6-7 hours of screen on time. Even after a day with such heavy usage, though, there was typically around 30-40% battery left.

Now, let's take a look at those benchmark numbers...

The new Exynos 1480 chip inside the A55 5G is not that much better in power efficiency as far as web browsing and video streaming goes, but it did manage to go between 30 and 60 minutes more than the predecessor.

PhoneArena Charging Test Results:

The charging speed has not changed since last year, which is 25W. You will see some slightly different results from our charging tests above, but overall the differences are insignificant. And yes, still no wireless charging with Samsung's A5x series.

Haptic feedback was tight and precise enough for me to be okay with it, but it obviously not on the same level as the company's Galaxy S24 series or even the Galaxy S23 FE.