Samsung Galaxy A54 5G Review: A Phone That Could Have Been Perfect

Samsung dominates the Android market with its various portfolio of smartphones. Whether you need an affordable cellphone or a flagship gadget just like the Galaxy S23 collection that offered like loopy in India, Samsung has you coated. But what if you would like one thing in between? That’s the place the Galaxy A54 5G matches in-a mid-range cellphone that has many strengths but in addition one deadly weak point. In this evaluate, we’ll see how the Galaxy A54 5G stacks up and if it is a good purchase.

Samsung Galaxy A54 5G: Tech Specs

The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G includes a 6.4-inch, 120Hz Super AMOLED show with HDR10+ help. It is powered by a 5nm Exynos 1380 processor and could be configured with as much as 8GB of RAM and 256GB of inner storage (our unit is an 8/256GB SKU). A micro SD card slot can be offered for added storage.

It has a triple-camera setup by way of optics: a 50MP f/1.8 major digital camera with PDAF and OIS, a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide digital camera, and a 5MP f/2.4 macro digital camera.

A 5,000mAh battery powers the gadget, and it helps 25W wired charging. The gadget is available in 4 eye-catching colors: Lime, Graphite, Violet, and White.

Design: The S23’s DNA Runs Here

The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G appears gorgeous, particularly within the Violet colorway we obtained for evaluate. Looking on the cellphone from the again, you’d assume it was the Galaxy S23, because the A54 has the identical design aesthetic as its premium colleagues, with particular person digital camera cutouts jutting from the again of the cellphone quite than having the cameras on an island just like the Galaxy A53. It’s additionally extra curved on the edges, however make no mistake: these are plastic sides.

What is not plastic is the cellphone’s again, which has been changed with a way more premium Gorilla Glass 5 panel that additionally protects the cellphone’s entrance. Though I like the premium really feel that glass-backed telephones present, I used to be at all times anxious about holding the cellphone as a result of it is so slippery.

There had been occasions when the cellphone slipped from my grasp, so investing in a high-quality case is crucial if you wish to defend your brand-new Galaxy. If you occur to drop the cellphone in the bathroom, don’t fret as a result of it is mud and water-resistant (IP67 score).

In phrases of buttons and ports, Samsung positioned the quantity rockers and energy button on the cellphone’s proper aspect, leaving the left aspect utterly empty. The backside part homes the USB Type-C port in addition to a speaker positioned on the precise aspect of the port, which is a good design determination as a result of the speaker is not coated by the hand when held in panorama mode, and it is a stereo speaker with Dolby Atmos help.

What’s not so nice is the shortage of a headphone jack, which I’ll have to simply accept as a result of even mid-range gadgets not often characteristic this historical port. Also, I’m not a fan of the bezels as a result of they’re quite thick, with the underside chin being a bit taller, detracting from the cellphone’s total type and reminding us that it is a mid-range gadget.

Display: It’s Bright, Crisp, and Punchy

I’ve at all times been a fan of Samsung’s shows, and the Galaxy A54’s show is nothing wanting flawless. It’s a Super AMOLED panel, so you may get all the advantages of an AMOLED panel, resembling deep blacks, vibrant colors, and glorious viewing angles.

Samsung upped the ante by bringing the Vision Booster characteristic from the Galaxy S22 collection right here, which successfully will increase the cellphone’s peak brightness to 1000 nits, making the show completely viewable in vibrant daylight.

There’s additionally a 120Hz refresh charge to enhance the expertise, which I’d’ve liked to see if the Exynos 1380 did not wrestle to maintain up with the refresh charge and clean animations (extra on this within the Performance part beneath).

A stereo speaker setup enhances the viewing expertise, with the earpiece appearing as one stereo channel. The audio high quality is crisp and well-balanced, although at most quantity it sounds slightly coarse. The audio can be fairly loud.

Finally, the optical fingerprint scanner on the display is each fast and correct. In addition to the fingerprint scanner, there may be face unlock, which works nicely even at night time, in addition to the usual PIN, password, and sample choices.

Performance: Exynos Just Doesn’t Cut It

Now comes the thrilling half. The Galaxy A54 is provided with a more moderen Exynos 1380 chipset, which is a 5nm chip, which is okay, however as I used to be sceptical about Exynos and its status for poor optimisation and being a stable heater for palms, the identical is true right here sadly.

I’m unsure why Samsung cannot get the synergy between its homegrown chips and smartphones proper, on condition that it has all of the expertise and smarts to take action. When I swap apps or scroll by way of the person interface, the Galaxy A54 stutters and lags.

Swiping proper from the house display to open Google Feed leads to a noticeable stutter that does not scream premium whenever you’re paying a very good value for the cellphone. The animations are additionally tardy, and whereas all the things runs easily after some time, the query is why these stutters happen within the first place.

The 120Hz show, which felt slower to me, was the primary problem I seen right here. To be certain that I wasn’t imagining issues, I in contrast the A54’s show to that of the Nothing Phone, and the comparability proved that I wasn’t. Apart from the A54’s brighter and higher show, the Nothing Phone’s 120Hz show was a lot, a lot sooner as I scrolled by way of a slew of Instagram posts with a single flick of my finger, whereas the A54 required a number of scrolls to realize the identical velocity.

I additionally put in an FPS meter, and certain sufficient, the A54 was working issues at 120Hz, however the expertise feels slightly slower than the Nothing Phone’s 120Hz expertise.

The benchmark checks listed beneath present that the Exynos 1380 performs admirably, however because the previous adage goes, do not choose a e book by its cowl. Real-world efficiency is extra essential than mere numbers, which reveal nothing greater than a tool’s capability to deal with artificial workloads.

In phrases of gaming, I spent a while taking part in COD cellular, and the sport delivered a clean 60fps gameplay, although it can’t be performed at High Graphics and Very High FPS on the identical time.

After that, I switched to Real Racing 3, which made the cellphone fairly toasty, however efficiency wasn’t affected as a result of I may nonetheless play for 15-20 minutes earlier than having to place the cellphone down as a result of it grew to become too scorching to carry. The Exynos 1380’s gaming efficiency is great, although the cellphone does get fairly scorching after some time.

Samsung is already contemplating dropping the Exynos chips from its flagship telephones, and it is reportedly creating a more moderen chip with a customized GPU, so I imagine the perfect plan of action for Samsung will likely be to return to the drafting board to determine the place it is going flawed, and within the meantime launch telephones with chips from different manufacturers resembling MediaTek and Qualcomm.

Camera: A Capable, Versatile Shooter

Samsung’s cameras are identified for producing vibrant photographs which are able to submit on Instagram, and the Galaxy A54 is not any exception. The major 50MP lens shoots photographs at a binned 12MP decision, producing crisp photographs with vibrant colors and good element. To get these further particulars, you may take photographs within the full 50MP mode, however the default 12MP mode is right.

I want natural-looking pictures, so Samsung’s tendency to spice up the colors of the photographs annoys me, however I need to admit that the pictures look energetic, and folks typically want photographs with some extent of oversaturation.

There is a really helpful Best Shot suggestion characteristic that makes use of machine studying to help in getting symmetrical pictures and figuring out how one can modify the angle whereas taking photographs. To allow this, go to Camera Settings and allow the Shot options toggle.

If there may be sufficient gentle, the 12MP ultrawide digital camera produces glorious outcomes. You can depend on it through the day, however as soon as night time falls, all particulars are misplaced and photographs appear to be a water portray with muddy particulars, making them unusable typically.

The 5MP macro digital camera is the household’s black sheep as a result of it solely works nicely in daylight and, just like the ultrawide digital camera, produces some good pictures every now and then, however the pictures lose element and look pale with extreme gentle bleeding in photos that characteristic LED signal boards.

While utilizing the ultrawide and macro cameras, I discovered the Night Mode to be spotty, because it often turned on immediately after I was taking photographs at night time with the first lens.

Portrait Mode, then again, is improbable, with glorious topic separation and a lovely bokeh impact which you could modify to get the proper shot. There are additionally varied background results obtainable if you wish to jazz up your photographs for Instagram tales.

The Galaxy A54 has a formidable 32MP digital camera for selfies, and this lens is the perfect of the bunch. Photos are sharp and vibrant, with loads of element and a large dynamic vary. During video calls, the standard remained constant, so these on the lookout for an incredible selfie digital camera won’t be upset.

When it got here to movies, I used to be initially excited that the A54 retained the OIS that the A53 had, however the outcomes had been slightly disappointing, because the movies I took whereas holding the cellphone with each palms and strolling very slowly resulted in shaky movies, making me marvel if the OIS even labored.

I attempted the Super Steady characteristic, hoping for extra steady movies, nevertheless it reduces video high quality to 1080 30fps, which I wasn’t anticipating. The Super Steady video appeared extra steady, nevertheless it was darker than ordinary, with some particulars misplaced within the combine.

The cellphone caps at 4K 30fps and the footage appears good with nice element in daylight, however you lose out on stability, and the outcomes worsen at night time.

Software: OneUI is Packed

The software program is the Galaxy A54’s robust swimsuit, and Samsung continues to impress by offering 4 main OS upgrades and 5 years of safety updates. Even some flagships do not present this stage of replace dedication, so Samsung deserves credit score for displaying like to its midrangers.

Talking concerning the software program, the Galaxy A54 comes pre-installed with Android 13 and OneUI 5.1 on high. Personally, I’m a inventory Android purist, and therefore you may discover me with a Nothing Phone 1 or a Google Pixel cellphone in my pocket, however after making an attempt out OneUI, I used to be fairly impressed with the characteristic set and the intensive methods to customize your gadget, one thing that barebones skins or Stock Android can not do.

To make clear, I’m referring to Samsung’s Good Lock characteristic, which consists of assorted system modules that I can modify to vary the general behaviour of the system, resembling altering the clock type on the lock display.

This article will not be completed if I discussed each OneUI characteristic, so I’ll simply say that if you would like a ton of options and customizability, Samsung telephones are among the many finest obtainable.

While the OneUI on the Galaxy A54 lacks some premium options resembling Samsung DeX, it nonetheless accommodates a plethora of wonderful options that the goal person will respect.

Battery: It Won’t Die on You

The Galaxy A54 comes with a 5,000mAh battery, which is frequent in lots of mid-range and even funds smartphones today. The massive battery pays off as a result of the cellphone simply lasts a day…after which some.

The Galaxy A54 was my digital camera companion on my trip. It dealt with my sister’s picture craze, 4K movies, Super Slo-Mo pictures, and a few 8K clips with out breaking a sweat. It had sufficient battery to final the entire day and let me see the various photographs I took at night time.

The feeling turns bitter every time I plug the cellphone to cost because the paltry 25W charging velocity simply would not minimize it out in 2023. Samsung advertises its 25W velocity as “fast,” nevertheless it takes greater than an hour to cost the cellphone.

In my battery cost check, the Galaxy A54 went from 0 to 100 in underneath 2 hours, which is uncommon for premium mid-range smartphones. I hope Samsung improves right here by a minimum of bringing a 45W charging velocity, a characteristic it solely reserves for its Ultra flagships, sadly.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy A54 begins at ₹38,999 on Samsung’s web site and different on-line retailers resembling Amazon for the 6/128GB SKU. The asking value may get decreased additional because of the varied alternate affords and financial institution reductions thrown into the combo.

Even so, the A54’s efficiency just isn’t acceptable, as lags and stutters are to not be anticipated from a premium midrange smartphone. I hope Samsung resolves these points, and I’m assured that the efficiency kinks will likely be ironed out, however the entire ordeal mustn’t have existed within the first place.

Talking concerning the competitors, the OnePlus 11R can be a sub-40k smartphone, and it affords the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, a chipset way more highly effective and succesful than the Exynos 1380 current within the Galaxy A54.

Also, Samsung’s personal Galaxy S21 FE is at the moment retailing for underneath ₹35,000 on Flipkart, and at that value, it is a significantly better deal than the A54, because the S21 FE is just about higher in each method than the A54, besides you may miss out on expandable storage and obtain one much less OS improve.

On the intense aspect, the cellphone’s cameras are versatile and click on some good photos, and I am unable to overlook the wonderful show coupled with booming stereo audio system that make the A54 a stable selection for content material consumption. But for now, I am unable to advocate this smartphone till Samsung irons out the efficiency points.

If you continue to make the plunge for this smartphone, your person expertise will likely be first rate, however at this value, you are higher off getting the S21 FE in the event you’re a Samsung fanatic or the OnePlus 11R if you would like the perfect efficiency at non-flagship costs.

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