On the Samsung Galaxy A55 test bench - it is not guaranteed to win in this class

Five hundred is not a small amount of money for a phone, and at least I expect a lot in return. If I look at the competition, the fairly high price doesn't do it any favours. The POCO X6 and X6 Pro are much cheaper, but then there are the Redmi Note 13 and the Xiaomi 13T, especially the latter crushing everything in front of it in this class. The Samsung Galaxy A55 has a tough task ahead of it. Will he pass it successfully or will he have to concede to the competition this year?

Samsung Galaxy A55 price in Slovenia?

• Samsung Galaxy A55 5G 8/128GB: €499
• Samsung Galaxy A55 5G 8/256GB: €549.9

Available in yellow, lilac and two blue versions.

Samsung Galaxy A55 - just a minor refresh of last year's phone?

The more I looked at its specifications, the more I was surprised that there are no major changes from last year's Galaxy A54, which was a good phone, but you still expect the successor to be much better or fill its gaps.

The iconic Samsung design remains, which is good and bad. I have nothing against it, it is minimalistic, recognizable, but slowly getting boring. From afar, you really don't know if you're holding this year's or last year's phone, an A-series phone or an S-series phone. We should do something to distinguish them from each other by at least one element.

But I praise the choice of materials – glass on the back and aluminum in the frame – which make the phone feel very premium. It's even protected by the newer Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ (screen only), which is always a welcome addition. Again, IP67 is available for water resistance (up to 1 meter for 30 minutes) and to prevent the ingress of dust and other foreign objects.

But it is surprisingly larger than its predecessor. This time we have a 6.6-inch AMOLED screen (previously 6.4 inches) and as a result the phone is also a little heavier (213g vs. 202g). The brightness (1000 nits) remained the same, as did the resolution (1080 x 2340), the image density worsened (390 ppi vs. 403 ppi), which no one will notice.

Of course, there is also a 120-Hz refresh rate and support for HDR10+ content. The display was already very good last year, and it is the same this year, but I would have expected them to at least improve the brightness, as others have done. However, I would not defend myself if the black edges around the screen were narrowed down, which are quite concrete, too big for my taste and for such a phone.

The under-display fingerprint reader is fine, but not flashy. Faster (and also more convenient) is face unlocking, which is relatively reliable.

Exynos will suffice for most

The chip is upgraded to the Exynos 1480, which is about 15 % better and also more efficient than last year's 1380, which can be seen in the longevity of the battery. This is easily enough for a full day of moderate use, leaving you with about 40 % for the next day. Charging is still slow at 25W, no wireless charging. Thanks to the new processor, we also got the new Xclipse 530 graphics core, which performs relatively well in mobile games, but less so in more demanding games on emulators.

There is no serious overheating, the phone is only pleasantly warm to the touch during serious tasks, so there is no fear of noticing any stuttering or slowing down here.

There is only 128 GB of space (256 GB is also available), which is becoming insufficient in 2024. If we take into account that, on average, pictures are currently around 5 MB in size and that 4K footage crosses the gigabyte limit very quickly, we can very quickly fill up a drive that is already from the beginning, the system needs about 20 GB of the available 128 GB. There's a microSD card slot, which is great, though I'd expect the starting configuration to be 256GB rather than 128GB.

But something happened that I did not expect from Samsung. Even though we are in the middle class, Samsung has always had an aversion to the software cover. By default, it only had Google apps installed and some of its own (which could also be considered a gimmick, but at least the apps are useful), and we always found some unknown games and similar third-rate apps from the Chinese. This year, however, Samsung also added some unnecessary games, and when the phone is installed for the first time, we are greeted by a process for adding such games, which we cannot avoid, which is very atypical for Samsung. In short, Samsung has also succumbed to adware that you will have to get rid of manually.

Otherwise, the operating system is polished, transparent, attractive, just as I am used to from One UI in recent years.

It photographs well, but there are no excesses

They just copied and pasted the cameras from last year (I feel like I'm repeating myself all the time). As with the POCO X6, you will only use the main lens. The macro and ultra-wide cameras are simply too poor to recommend.

The main 50 MP camera is reasonably good. I like the daytime photos and the fact that the Samsung colors are no longer overly retouched like in previous years for example. I also used the main sensor for macro shots, where it performs better as a macro sensor. Portrait photos are just fine, I did notice edge issues at times, but nothing alarming. The stabilization also did a good job of ensuring that the quality of the photos was not affected by the vibrations.

We can record in 4K resolution (30 fps), the quality is good as long as there is enough light, which also applies to classic photography. Indoors and after dark, there is a drop in detail and darker colors.

The front camera will suffice for a selfie, but I wouldn't use it for vlogging, even though it supports 4K recording.

Samsung Galaxy A55 – boring but reliable

I know no one wants to hear that a phone is boring, but that's how I felt with the Galaxy A55. There is nothing terribly wrong with him. It has a very good screen, the look will appeal to many people because it is the same as the premium Galaxy S series, the build quality is also excellent and the performance will be enough for the group of users buying in this class. The phone will serve you well until your next purchase and I'm sure it will always be reliable too.

But none of the above gets my heart rate up when I read it. Competing phones can also do all this for a significantly lower price. Yes, software support is definitely on Samsung's side, and in the long run I'm betting more on optimizing Samsung's OS, I'm just not sure it's enough to convince me to buy it.

In the POCO X6 test, I already pointed out that Samsung has the advantage that it will definitely be available from operators for a long time, which is an important factor for most people who buy phones on a contract basis. And, of course, on their side is the loyalty of users who swear exclusively by Samsung phones every year. These users are not few.