Samsung Galaxy A55 5G review – one of the best value smartphones on the market

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• VERDICT

The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G smartphone proves you don’t have to spend big money to buy a sleek feature-packed phone. The A55 ticks all the boxes – great design, awesome display, excellent camera and a long-lasting battery. At this price what more can you want.

The Samsung Galaxy A series smartphones are among the best value devices on the market right now and that has been demonstrated dramatically with its latest release – the Galaxy A55 5G.

As time goes on, mid-tier phones are only going to improve thanks to the trickle down of technology from flagship devices that are now included in these more affordable products.

If you take a closer look, the features aboard the A55 were considered flagship not so long ago.

The Samsung Galaxy A55 ticks all the boxes for even the fussiest user.

These include a sleek design, a generous and high quality 6.6-inch screen, an impressive camera system and a battery that will last almost two days.

What more could you ask for for a phone that costs less than $700.

Now to be clear, you are not getting all the features of the Galaxy S series like better camera quality and zoom, Galaxy AI, the S Pen or wireless charging.

But that’s not to say it doesn’t still have an impressive list of features – with some appearing for the very first time on the Galaxy A series including improved low light photography and higher security features.

The device has a sleek and premium design with an aluminium frame with a brushed metal finish, flat edges and a glossy rear panel.

The device has a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and compatible with HDR10+.

The screen is an excellent size and has impressively thin bezels so you’re getting more screen instead of a larger device.

On the camera side, you have a 50-megapixel wide main camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 5-megapixel macro camera.

But if you play a big selfie game, the Samsung Galaxy A55 will really deliver thanks to a 32-megapixel front facing camera.

And while it’s not Galaxy S24 quality, it’s certainly not far behind and I defy anyone who can tell the difference between the shots taken on either device.

One excellent new edition to the A55 is the inclusion of advanced AI image signal processing which improves the performance of the camera in low light.

This is a first for Galaxy A series device and is something we only usually see on the flagship Galaxy S smartphones.

It even has a Night Portrait mode and 12-bit HDR video to add some real punch to your content.

Users will also find the cameras are supported with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and video digital image stabilisation (VDIS) so whether you are shooting video or taking a photo it’s gonna look sharp and clear.

Another feature was seeing for the very first time on the Samsung A series is Samsung Knox Vault which offers security for both hardware and software.

It basically encrypts all your information and secures your private data including pin codes, passwords and patterns.

Bottom line, unless you know the password for the phone there is no way anyone can access the data on your device which offers peace of mind if it’s misplaced or stolen.

But the security extends even further with a new security measure called Auto Blocker which can stop app installations from unauthorised sources and offer security checks in the event of potentially installing malware on the device. That’s an excellent level of security for device at this level.

OK, let’s talk about what you don’t get with the Galaxy A55.

The first thing, there is no wireless charging, so you always need a cable to charge the phone rather than resting it on a charging pad.

This might be a nuisance for those who drive cars with wireless charging pads included – unfortunately you’ll have to stick to a charging cable.

But it still does have NFC which is the feature that allows users to make tap and go payments to access credit cards stored in either the Google Wallet or Samsung Wallet

Galaxy AI, which was introduced with the S24 series is also not a feature on the A55.

While there are some elements of AI to help you take better photos and make the device run smoothly, customers who want the full blown Galaxy AI experience will have to move up to the Galaxy S24 range of smartphones.

Another strong feature of the Galaxy A55 is the 5000mAh battery which easily lasted a day and took us well into the second.

This is helped by the onboard efficiency which can turn off apps that you haven’t used for a while to help your battery lost even further.

The new Galaxy A55 5G is available in two colours – Awesome Navy and Awesome Lilac and it priced at $699. It goes on sale on March 25.

VERDICT

The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G smartphone proves you don’t have to spend big money to buy a sleek feature-packed phone. The A55 ticks all the boxes – great design, awesome display, excellent camera and a long-lasting battery. At this price what more can you want.