Is the Galaxy A54 worth upgrading over the Galaxy A53 in all aspects?
The Galaxy A series of smartphones are the most popular smartphones that are sold in considerable numbers in the market globally. Last year the
Galaxy A53 (Review) was one of the best-selling smartphones from Samsung as it had some very good specifications like a good-looking design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, an Exynos 1280 chipset, a good set of triple cameras, a 5000mAh battery with fast charging.
However, in some areas, the Galaxy A53 did feel short especially when it came to daily performance and gaming as the Exynos 1280 was not very well optimized and there were some heating issues also. Now Samsung has launched the Galaxy A54 which seems to be another good premium mid-ranger from Samsung as brings some good upgrades over the Galaxy A53.
The design is all new like that of the Galaxy S23 series, then there is the slightly more powerful and newer Exynos 1380 chipset and the main camera is now a 50MP one instead of a 64MP one on the Galaxy A53. Is the Galaxy A54 worth upgrading over the Galaxy A53 and is it worth buying? Let’s find out in the full review.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Design:
In terms of build and design, the Galaxy A54 looks almost similar to the Galaxy S23 series with the back now not having the raised camera module as on the Galaxy A53, rather the triple cameras are placed vertically alongside a LED flashlight and since there is no camera module present, the smartphone will not wobble when kept on a flat surface.
The back is completely flatter and the corners are rounded which makes it easier to hold in hands. Now the back is made up of glass instead of polycarbonate as on the Galaxy A53 but the finish is glossy unlike the
Galaxy S23 (Review) and the S23+ which have a frosted glass finish at the back. The glossy back of the Galaxy A54 does feel slippery and catches fingerprints or smudges.
The Galaxy A54, just like the Galaxy A53 has an IP67 rating thus making water and dust resistant (can survive under fresh water for 30 minutes for a depth of 1.5 metres). The Galaxy A54 weighs around 202 grams which makes it slightly heavier than the 189 grams weight of the Galaxy A53 as the glass back does add to the weight compared to polycarbonate.
Around the sides, there is a polycarbonate frame that houses the power button with volume buttons on the right side whereas the left side remains completely cleaner. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, two microphones and a loudspeaker grille whereas the top has another noise-cancelling microphone with a dual SIM card slot which doubles up as a hybrid slot.
On the front, there is a single punch-hole display with thinner bezels all around except the lower part which has a slightly thicker bezel but the difference is still marginal. In terms of protection, both the front as well as the back are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Overall, the build and design do feel premium and are a good upgrade over the polycarbonate build of the Galaxy A53.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Display:
The Galaxy A54 sports a slightly smaller 6.4-inches Full HD+ (1080×2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. This display is slightly smaller compared to the 6.5-inches display on the Galaxy A53 and it also has 120Hz refresh rate. Since it is an AMOLED display, the colour reproduction is excellent and the viewing angles are great.
The 120Hz refresh rate is an adaptive one where under Motion Smoothness there are two options – Adaptive and Standard where if you set it to Adaptive, the display switches to 120Hz while scrolling webpages, playing games while watching videos but if there are lighter tasks like viewing an image in the gallery, streaming social media, etc. the display switches to 60Hz.
Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, there is a 240Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses. In terms of brightness, the display of the Galaxy A54 can reach a peak brightness of 1000nits which is slightly higher than the 800nits of peak brightness of the Galaxy A53. The display has good visibility under direct sunlight and also there is a Vision Booster Mode which provides perfect colour accuracy on the display.
The display on the Galaxy A54 can be calibrated with two different colour modes – Vivid and Natural where if you set the display set to Vivid or Natural where setting it to Vivid will provide punchier colours on the display and covers the DCI-P3 colour gamut whereas Natural will provide realistic colours that cover the sRGB colour content. You can also set the colour temperature to a warmer or a cooler tone.
Since the smartphone has an AMOLED display, there is an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works fast and accurately. The display of the Galaxy A54 supports HDR on YouTube and Widevine L1 is present so you can stream HD content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. but currently there is no support for HDR on Netflix which Samsung will fix in a future software update.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Performance:
The Galaxy A54 is powered by this year’s latest Exynos 1380 chipset which has: 4×2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 cores with another 4×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores coupled with a Mali-G68 MP5 GPU. The chipset has improved performance and power efficiency compared to its predecessor so, in terms of daily tasks, the smartphone can handle all things easily.
In terms of gaming, the Galaxy A54 handles almost all the games easily but certain heavy games like Apex Legends, and Genshian Impact do stutter at times if you are playing at the highest graphics settings. In BGMI, the smartphone could easily run at Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rates with some minor frame drops noticed. After long hours of gaming, the back feels slightly warmer to touch.
In terms of benchmarks, the scores came out good but are still behind the scores of the
Galaxy A52s (Review) which came with a powerful Snapdragon 778G chipset. The Galaxy A54 did score well in the CPU throttling test as it could achieve a sustained performance of around 80-85 per cent which is good. In terms of network connectivity, there is support for good carrier aggregation and 9 bands of 5G.
The Galaxy A54 is available in two different storage options – 8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB storage which is having UFS 3.1 speeds. Overall, the performance on a daily basis is good but the gaming capabilities are not as good as some other smartphones have the Snapdragon 778G chipset.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Software:
The Galaxy A54 runs on the latest OneUI 5.1 based on Android 13 out of the box. The OneUI 5.1 brings some very good improvements when it comes to transitions and animations, the colour palette now supports more colour combinations, the widgets are now stacked and you can move in between the applications, Modes and Routines are present, etc.
Modes and Routines provide different modes in which you can choose and execute actions, choose different sound profiles, display settings, etc. Like for example when you set up the Driving option, it enables the Do Not Disturb Mode which turns on Spotify automatically. Other options present under Modes and Routines include Sleep, Theatre and Exercise.
Other Samsung-specific features include Edge Panels where you can access your favourite applications located on the panes that come up when you swipe from the right or left side, there are different styles for the clock for the Always-On display section in settings, Samsung Pay is present, and then there is the Secure Folder where you can store images, contacts and other things for safety purpose.
Regarding software support, the Galaxy A54 will receive another four years of AndroidOS updates and five years of security updates which are best in class. However, there is a considerable amount of bloatware present which is slightly cumbersome considering this is a premium mid-range smartphone but these can be uninstalled easily.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Cameras:
The Galaxy A54 sports a triple camera setup which includes a 50MP f/1.8 main camera, a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and another 5MP f/2.4 macro camera. Compared to the 64MP f/1.8 main camera of the Galaxy A53, Samsung claims that it has worked on improving the OIS implementation and a new sensor is present. On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.2 selfie camera for selfies.
The images from the main camera come out with a good amount of details that look sharper and dynamic range and contrast come out well. The colours look vibrant and do not look oversaturated as the white balance is perfect. All the images taken using the 50MP mode have sharper details but do crop in to prevent noise in the background. The HDR images come out with a good dynamic range.
At night, the images from the main camera come out with good details and dynamic range as the Auto Night Mode triggers automatically and this results in less noise in the background, the exposure is very well controlled and the white balance is accurate. The colours look natural and if you use the regular Photo Mode, the results are almost similar to that of the Night Mode with slightly more noise.
The 12MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper but around the edges some distortion is present. Though you get better contrast than the Galaxy A53 and the colours look oversaturated. But during the night, the ultrawide camera does suffer from noise in the background and the dynamic range is just average but with the Night Mode, the exposure is well under-control and the noise is less.
The dedicated 5MP macro camera does a good job in terms of details, the dynamic range is good and the colours look accurate but there is a large amount of noise in the background. In terms of portraits, the edge detection is perfect with proper background blur. The skin tones look natural and the dynamic range is very good.
On the front, the 32MP selfie camera does a good job in terms of selfies that have sharper details and good dynamic range with colours looking slightly oversaturated at times. There is very little noise present in the background but you get good contrast and the selfies do look brighter. The portrait selfies have good dynamic range but the background blur is not perfect and edge detection could have been better.
In terms of videos, both the main and the ultrawide cameras of the Galaxy A54 can record 4K videos at 30fps which is really good. The videos from the main camera come out with sharper details with fewer noise thanks to the presence of OIS and also the contrast and white balance is perfect in the videos. The colours look oversaturated but the dynamic range is very good.
Switching to 1080p at 60fps with the Super Stable Mode turned on, the videos do not have any noise, the colours look natural and the dynamic range is excellent. The videos from the ultrawide camera have good details with slightly higher noise in the background but the dynamic range is good and colours look natural without any oversharpening in the background.
However, in terms of videos taken during the night, the main camera does have sharper details and good dynamic range with less noise in the videos whereas the videos taken from the ultrawide camera come out with slightly washed-out colours and higher noise in the background. The selfie camera can record 4K videos at 30fps and these videos have good dynamic range, sharper details and less noise.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Battery Life:
The Galaxy A54 is powered by a similarly sized 5000mAh battery as that of the Galaxy A53 and in terms of daily usage, the smartphone can easily last for two to three days with normal usage with the display set to Adaptive. In terms of heavy usage, the smartphone easily lasts for a day and a half which is good since the Exynos 1380 chipset is built on a 5nm process and OneUI provides better optimizations to the battery.
The standard screen-on time is around 7-8 hours with normal usage and with heavy usage, the standard screen-on time is around 4-5 hours which is very good. In terms of charging, the Galaxy A54 only supports 25W fast charging which is very slow compared to today’s standards where we have seen brands other than Samsung provide faster 65/120W faster charging speeds on their respective smartphones.
But other than this, Samsung has not provided a fast charger inside the box which is disappointing but you can purchase Samsung’s own 25W fast charger separately which takes around 1 hour 30 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent completely which is fast but still time-consuming.
Samsung Galaxy A54 Audio Quality:
The Galaxy A54 sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds equally good as the Galaxy A53 but this time, Samsung has improved the loudness which does not feel muffled and also on top of it like as always there is support for Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output. However, you do miss out on a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Verdict:
The Galaxy A54 is a very strong contender from Samsung that brings some very good specifications like a premium build and design that resembles the flagship Galaxy S23 series, the 120Hz AMOLED display is great for media consumption and the presence of stereo speakers is a great addition, the performance is good in terms of daily tasks, the cameras are good and battery life is excellent.
On top of it, the software experience is just impeccable as you get a lot of features with good optimizations on the OneUI. Then there is the excellent support for software updates which is the best in class. However, there are some things, still the Galaxy A54 falls short of and could have been improved to make it a perfect premium mid-range smartphone.
When it comes to performance, the Exynos 1380 is good for daily activities but when it comes to gaming, it is not as powerful as some other smartphones that usually have the powerful Snapdragon 888/8 Gen 1 chipset or even the smartphones that have the Mediatek Dimensity 1080 chipset and are priced lower than the Galaxy A54. Then there is no charger inside the box which is a big omission that Samsung continues.
Other than these, still the Galaxy A54 is one of the best premium mid-range smartphones that brings in an eye-catching design, a good display, a good set of cameras, good battery life, and excellent software experience but you do have to sacrifice the flagship level performance and gaming that other smartphones in this segment provide and also compared to the Galaxy A52s that had a better chipset than this one.
Compared to the Galaxy A53, you get a better build and design, slightly better camera performance, no overheating and slightly better performance, and also a slightly brighter display. So considering the Galaxy A53 is also a good option as it is now cheaper but the Galaxy A54 is a worthy upgrade over the Galaxy A53.
