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 does it no favors. 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 I still expect the successor to be much better or fill its gaps.

The iconic Samsung design remains, which is good and bad. Nič I have nothing against it, it is minimalistic, recognizable, but still boring. Nextč really moreč you don't know whether you have this year's or last year's phone in your hand, 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 selection of materials – glass on the back and aluminum in the frame – which make the phone look 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 bigger 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 (213 g vs. 202 g). The brightness (1000 nits) has remained the same, as has the resolution (1080 x 2340), the image density has deteriorated (390 ppi vs. 403 ppi), which no one will notice.

Naturally, there is also 120-Hz refresh and support for HDR10+ content. The screen was 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. But I wouldn't defend myself if they narrowed down the black edges around the screen, which are quite concrete, too big for my taste and for this kind of phone.

ÄŒThe 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 #141

The #140 chip has been upgraded to the Exynos 1480, which is approximately 15 % better and also more efficient than last year's 1380, which can be seen in the battery life. This #141 will suffice for a full day of moderate use without any problems, and you will have approximately 40 % left for the next day. Charging is still slow at 25 W, there is no wireless charging. Thanks to the new processor, we also got a 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.

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, images are currently around 5 MB in size and that 4K recordings cross the gigabyte limit very quickly, it can be very we quickly fill up the drive, which from the very beginning needs about 20 GB of the available 128 GB for the system. There's a microSD card slot, which is great, though I'd expect the #141 to have a starting configuration of 256GB rather than 128GB.

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

On the other hand, the operating system is polished, transparent, attractive, just as I have been 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 have a tendency to repeat myself all the time). As with the POCO X6, you will only use the main lens. The macro and ultra-wide camera are simply too poor to recommend.

The main 50 MP camera is reasonably good. Like to me are daily photos and the fact that Samsung's colors are no longer excessively retouched, as for example in previous years. I also used the main sensor for macro shots, where it performs better as a macro sensor. Portrait photos are quite fine, at times I noticed problems with the edges, 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 some kind of selfie, but I wouldn't use it for vlogging, although it supports 4K recording.

Samsung Galaxy A55 – long, but reliable

I know no one wants to hear that the phone is boring, but that's the experience I had with the Galaxy A55. There is nothing wrong with him excessively wrong. 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 who buy in this class. . The phone will serve you well until the next purchase, and I am sure that it will always be reliable.

Nič from the above, it doesn't raise my pulse while reading. Competing phones can 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 that'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 longer 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.