Samsung Galaxy M53 Review: Has Samsung bought the best in the M series and is it worth the upgrade over the Galaxy M52?

The Samsung M series is one of the most popular affordable smartphones and carry almost all the specifications needed in the mid-range segment. Last year Samsung launched the Galaxy M52 which brings all the necessary specifications like a good-looking design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 778G chipset, a great set of cameras, and a 5000mAh battery with fast charging.

Now this year, Samsung launched the Galaxy M53 which seems to be the successor to the Galaxy M52. Like the Galaxy M52, you almost get the same specifications except for the newer Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset, a 108MP camera setup, and a slightly newer design. The Galaxy M53 seems to be a mixed bag of everything as it brings some upgrades as well as some downgrades over the Galaxy M52.

So is the Galaxy M53 worth buying? How good of an upgrade is the Galaxy M53 over the Galaxy M52 or is the Galaxy M52 still a value for money mid-ranger in the market? Let’s find out in the full review.

The Galaxy M53 sports a slightly newer design compared to the Galaxy M52 but still, it is a polycarbonate back that does not feel as premium as a glass back which is present on some other smartphones in the mid-range segment. The Galaxy M52 has a glossy back with some design lines running from top to bottom and this back does catch a lot of fingerprints and smudges. 

The back of the Galaxy M52 has a rectangular camera setup that houses the quad cameras with a LED flashlight. On the other hand, the Galaxy M53 has a smooth matte finish that does not catch fingerprints or smudges. Instead of the rectangular camera module, you now have a square-shaped camera module that houses the quad cameras, and just outside the module lies an LED flashlight. 

There is no IP rating as such on the back but it is splash resistant. The Galaxy M53 weighs around 176grams and is 7.4mm thick almost similar to the Galaxy M52. On the sides, there is a plastic frame that houses the power button and volume buttons on the right side whereas the left side houses a hybrid slot that accepts either two SIM cards and one SIM card with another microSD card for storage expansion.

On the top, there is only a secondary noise-canceling microphone whereas the bottom houses the USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, and a speaker as there is no 3.5mm headphone jack. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display with minimum bezels to the sides. Overall, the design looks refreshing but still the polycarbonate back takes away the premium form factor.

The Galaxy M53 sports almost a similar display as that of the Galaxy M52. There is a 6.7-inches Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. As this is an AMOLED display, the colors look punchier with deep blacks and blues and you get great viewing angles. Combined with the AMOLED display, there is a 120Hz refresh rate present that makes everything smoother.

Here the refresh rate is not a dynamic one as it is a standard one where the refresh rate either switches between standard 60Hz or high 120Hz. At 120Hz, everything works smoothly whether it is scrolling through webpages, playing games, etc. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, there is a 240Hz touch sampling rate which is good but other smartphones are providing 360Hz touch sampling rates.

In terms of brightness, this display can achieve a peak brightness of 700nits which is good and easily visible under direct sunlight. The display has two different modes – Natural and Vivid where in Natural you have colors looking close to natural and Vivid provides you with more saturated colors that cover the DCI-P3 gamut scale. You can also set the display temperature to a warmer or cooler tone.

Like the Galaxy M52, the display on the Galaxy M53 is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and supports Widevine L1 so you can stream HD content on OTT platforms but Netflix cannot stream HDR content as of now. However, there is no support for HDR content on Youtube which is a big disappointment as the Galaxy M52 had it. 

Though this is an AMOLED display, there is a side-mounted fingerprint scanner instead of an in-display one but it does work faster and is accurate. Overall, this is a very good display for media consumption. 

The Galaxy M53 sports a powerful Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset which is also found on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 (Review). In terms of daily performance, the smartphone handles all the tasks easily like streaming social media, rendering videos, and playing games. In BGMI, we could achieve HDR graphics with Ultra frame rates and there is support for Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rates.

After long hours of gaming say about to 4-5 hours, the back did feel slightly warmer but felt cooler due to the presence of the vapor cooling chamber that does dissipate heat faster. But when it comes to the CPU throttling test, the Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset could only maintain a sustained performance of around 60-65 percent which is very low as the OnePlus Nord CE 2 with the same chipset could maintain peak performance of 80-85 percent. 

This is not as good as the Snapdragon 778G chipset found on the Galaxy M52 which had a sustained performance of around 85-90 percent. In terms of benchmarks, the scores are good but all these scores are lesser than last year’s Galaxy M52. So technically, the Snapdragon 778G chipset is better than the Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset.

 Even in games like BGMI, the Galaxy M52 could maintain continuous 60fps gameplay which was not the case on the Galaxy M53. In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation and support for around 12 bands of 5G. The Galaxy M53 is available in two variants – 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB UFS 2.2 storage. 

There is also a RAM Plus feature where you can allocate another 8GB of RAM for better multitasking. 

Overall, the performance is good but the Galaxy M53 does seem to be a downgrade in terms of performance and gaming compared to the Galaxy M52.

The Galaxy M53 like all Samsung smartphones runs on OneUI 4.1 built on top of Android 12. As we all know OneUI is very well optimized and provides a lot of features like Secure Folder, Knox Security, and Samsung Pay Mini. Also, a lot of customizations are present which includes different shape and size of icons, wallpapers, themes, and also different styles for the Always-On display.

Since Android 12 is present, you can have control over all the applications and can see which application is using the microphone and camera under Privacy Dashboard. There is a Color Pallete present where the system picks up a color depending on the wallpaper, and the same color applies to the system icons, quick toggles, and also to messaging app. 

However, there is a considerable amount of bloatware present which can be uninstalled. There are a couple of other Samsung applications like Notes app, and Browser that does throw in a lot of notifications. In terms of software updates, here you are assured of another two Android updates and four years of security patches. Overall, the software experience remains excellent if you do not consider the bloatware. 

The Galaxy M53 houses a quad-camera setup that consists of the main 108MP f/1.8 Samsung HM6 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.2 camera which is the similar one also found on the Galaxy M52. The main camera does seem to be an upgrade over the Galaxy M52.

The other three cameras do seem to be a downgrade as the Galaxy M52 has a better 16MP ultra-wide camera, 5MP depth, and macro camera. The images come out with good details and dynamic range from the main camera but the details look slightly softer. The colors look natural without any oversharpening and noise is also very less in the background. 

At night, the images come out with good details and dynamic range but noise is considerably higher in the background. The colors look natural and there is very less oversharpening in the images. With the dedicated night mode turned on, the details come out slightly better but a lot of oversharpening takes place though you have less noise in the background. The low-light performance is not as good as on the Galaxy M52.

The images from the ultrawide camera come out with a decent dynamic range and there is a lot of distortion around the edges when compared to the ultrawide images taken from the Galaxy M52. The Galaxy M52 has a slightly larger 123-degree field of view compared to the 119-degree field of view on the Galaxy M53. However, the colors look natural but still, the details look softer compared to that of the Galaxy M52.

At night, the images come out with a lot of noise in the background and details also look much softer. The images have a decent dynamic range as there is a lot of underexposure in the background. There is also a dedicated night mode for the ultrawide camera that does improve the dynamic range and details look sharper but still the noise is on the higher side.

Samsung has also downgraded the macro camera from 5MP on the Galaxy M52 to 2MP one on the Galaxy M53. As a result, the macro images come out with washed-out colors and the details look much softer with poor dynamic range. In terms of portraits, the main camera does a good job in terms of edge detection and the dynamic range is spot on. 

However, the background blur is not very consistent as it was with the Galaxy M52. On the front, the 32MP selfie camera does a good job in terms of selfies as details look sharper, and compared to the Galaxy M52, the skin tones look very natural and noise is also very low compared to that the Galaxy M52. The dynamic range is excellent and there is no oversharpening in the background. 

The portrait selfies also look good and have good edge detection and dynamic range. In terms of videos, the main camera can record 4K videos at 30fps which comes out with a good dynamic range and lack of autofocus does result in images with softer details and there is very less oversharpening in the background. 

The colors look natural but videos do come out shaky but if you switch to 1080p at 30/60fps, the videos come out with a much better dynamic range and very less noise as EIS works perfectly. The ultrawide camera on the Galaxy M53 can record 1080p videos at 30fps which does seem to be a downgrade compared to the Galaxy M52 which can record 4K videos at 30fps. 

The 1080p videos come out with a decent dynamic range and details come out softer. There is a considerable amount of noise present but turning on the Ultra Steady Mode does improve the stabilization and reduces noise.

The front camera on the Galaxy M52 can record 4K videos at fps and these videos have good dynamic range and details look sharper with natural-looking skin tones since EIS is present, the videos come out stabilized. Overall, the cameras are good on the Galaxy M53, especially the front camera is better than the Galaxy M52 but overall the Galaxy M52 has the better set of cameras.

The Galaxy M53 sports a similar-sized battery as the Galaxy M52 i.e. 5000mAh battery. With OneUI 4.1, the smartphone easily lasted for two days with normal usage that includes casual web browsing, playing games, and also multi-tasking between applications with the display set to standard 60Hz and if the display is set to 120Hz, the smartphone lasted for one and half day.

With heavy usage, which includes gaming for 4-5 hours continuously, rendering videos, and also other heavy multitasking tasks, the smartphone easily lasted for one and half days with the display set to 60Hz as well as 120Hz. The standard screen on time was around 6-7 hours which is good. The Galaxy M53 supports 25W fast charging, but like all Samsung flagships, you do not get a charger inside the box.

This is slightly disappointing as the Galaxy M52 comes with a 15W fast charger inside the box as it also has support for 25W fast charging. Using the 25W fast charger, the Galaxy M53 can go from 0 to 100 percent within 1hour and 35minutes which is very slow compared to other smartphones that come with 65/120W fast charging in this price segment. 

Samsung Galaxy M53 Audio Quality:

The Galaxy M53 sports a single speaker setup similar to the one found on the Galaxy M52. The sound is very loud and clear but still, the audio quality is not as good as stereo speakers. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present also. For enhanced sound output, there is Dolby Atmos present.

Verdict:

The Galaxy M53 seems to be a good mid-ranger that brings almost all the necessary specifications like a good design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset for good performance, and a good set of quad cameras, a larger 5000mAh battery with support for 25W fast charging. However, there are some areas where clearly Samsung has cut a few corners to price it aggressively. 

The build is still polycarbonate whereas other smartphones do come with a premium glass design, the display lacks HDR support, and the performance of the MediaTek Dimensity 900 though being good is not as powerful as the Snapdragon 778G chipset found on the Galaxy M52, except the main camera, all the three cameras are lower in resolution compared to the Galaxy M52 and now this time there is no charger inside the box also. OneUI though being feature-rich has a larger amount of bloatware present.

When you compare the Galaxy M53 with the Galaxy M52, except for the main camera, newer chipset, and design, there are not any such differences. The Galaxy M52 is still a very good value for money mid-ranger to date as it has all the specifications of the Galaxy M53 and also has the better chipset, a better set of cameras and it does come with a charger inside the box which the Galaxy M53 lacks.

So clearly, if you have the Galaxy M52 you need not upgrade to the Galaxy M53 except if you want that main 108MP camera and the newer design. The Galaxy M52 is also slightly cheaper compared to the Galaxy M53. As an overall package, the Galaxy M53 is a good mid-range smartphone to buy and the trust of Samsung makes it even better. 

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