Last year, the Samsung Galaxy A52 was a major success. It was a great handset with lots of flagship features offered at a lower price point. This time around, the Galaxy A53 is Samsung’s first attempt at making waves in the mid-range phone market for 2022.
Once again, the Samsung Galaxy A53 may have struck the perfect balance for a mid-range handset. For a price of £399 (at the time of writing), it’s packed full of features and comes with a slick design, making it an excellent value alternative to Samsung’s current range of flagship handsets.
Key Specifications
- 120Hz FHD+ Super AMOLED Display
- Samsung Exynos 1280 Processor
- 6GB of RAM
- 128GB of storage
- Quad Rear Camera: 64MP main, 12MP ultra-wide, 5MP depth, 5MP macro
- 32MP Front Facing Camera
- 5,000mAh Battery
- IP67 Certified Water and Dust Resistant
Design
From a design perspective, the A53 is sure to catch your eye. It comes with a 6.5” screen size, making it larger than the Galaxy S22 and slightly smaller than the Galaxy S22+. Despite its plastic construction, the A53 certainly doesn’t feel cheaply made. The chrome tinted edges are a great touch which really adds to the overall finish of the handset. The A53 retains the same, small hole-punch notch as the A52, and features an under screen fingerprint scanner.
Perhaps what is the one of the most surprising factors is that, despite its larger battery, the A53 weighs the same as the Galaxy A52. It’s even slightly thinner! The fact that the headphone jack has been removed likely contributes to this somewhat, although in an age where wireless earphones are the norm this is not too big of a disappointment for most. Round it off with Gorilla Glass 5 protection and water and dust resistance (IP67 certification) and the Galaxy A53 is, overall, a well-built device.
Display
As for the display, the 6.5” screen features a 120hz refresh rate and FHD+ resolution. It has all the traits you would expect of an AMOLED screen – wide viewing angles, great colours, and deep blacks. Samsung state that the screen can hit a maximum of 800 nits in its high brightness mode. Meaning that you will be hard-pressed to encounter a scenario where brightness would be an issue.
Camera
The A53 comes equipped with the same camera setup as last year’s A52, meaning its certainly no slouch in the photography department. Containing a quad-rear camera consisting of a 64MP main camera, 12MP ultra-wide, 5MP macro & 5MP depth sensor makes it an excellent option for your day-to-day photography needs. Additionally, there is a 32MP front camera with fixed-focus lens that can shoot 4K video at up to 30fps.
While the camera configuration hasn’t changed from the previous instalment, the A53 does feature new sensors which, combined with software changes and tweaks from One UI 4.1, make the A53 cameras an improvement over it’s predecessors.
Performance
Behind the screen, you get to see Samsung’s new mid-range processor, Exynos 1280, make its debut. Samsung claim that this results in an improvement in multi-core process of up to 18% and GPU performance boosts up to 43% when directly compared to the Galaxy A52.
The 5,000 mAh battery (an improvement over the Galaxy A52’s 4,500 mAh battery), ensures that the Galaxy A53 will last the course of the day. Even with heavy use, it will take just over 30 minutes to achieve a 50% charge with fast charging. Although as with all new handsets in the current climate, it is somewhat of a frustration that a charger is not included with the handset. A nice touch is that the A53 benefits from Samsung’s power saving feature which will automatically activate power-saving mode when the battery drops below 50%.
Our Verdict
TORRO predict that, much like the A52, the Samsung Galaxy A53 will be a massive success for Samsung in the mid-range market. Initial impressions appear to be generally positive, indicating the likelihood of the handset succeeding for Samsung. If you were considering picking up a Galaxy S22 but are not wanting to pay the higher price tag, then the Galaxy A53 may well be the next best choice for you. Alternatively, if you’re just looking for a day-to-day phone with a good level of performance and a solid camera, then you would find it tough to find a more appealing option in the world of mid-range handsets.
