phones
Ting Tested: Samsung Galaxy A53 5G review
mhobson • June 7, 2022
The recently released Samsung Galaxy A53 5G represents the cream of the crop in Samsung’s Galaxy A Series. This line of phones typically focuses on value rather than groundbreaking new technology. The A53 5G bucks the trend somewhat though by delivering a little of that flagship flashiness without breaking the bank.
Here’s what I thought of the $449 phone after a week of testing.
Display
A smart looking screen is a very important feature when it comes to picking out a new phone these days, and the A53 5G’s display does not disappoint.
This 6.5″ FHD+ Super AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate is arguably the best screen in the Galaxy A Series and actually comes close to the performance of some of their S Series phones. The selfie camera’s punch hole is a pretty typical design feature these days and I found it to be a comparable size to other phones I’ve tested.
The display has no lag when gaming and colors look vibrant, whether you’re streaming videos or browsing photos from the phone’s quad lens camera.
Camera
Along with the impressive display, the A53 5G’s camera set is where this phone really stands out from the rest of the A Series.
The very reasonable $449 price tag gets you a 64 MP main shooter, a 12 MP Ultra-wide lens, a 5 MP Depth lens and a 5 MP Macro lens (for those close ups of flowers and bees come summer). Not forgetting a 32 MP selfie camera to really up your social media game.
The A53 5G gets some sweet photography tech from its bigger S Series siblings too. The phone features optical image stabilization (in case you don’t have the steadiest of hands) and Samsung’s Single Take feature. Single Take lets you come away with a bunch of different styles and angles after just one tap of the shutter.
Performance
As you may have guessed from the official name, 5G is a key performance feature of the A53 5G. Picking a 5G enabled phone is a sensible option in terms of future proofing and it gets you stronger network reliability and faster downloads.
The phone’s processor is also plenty fast. In fact, Samsung says this is the most powerful performance and speed in the Galaxy A Series family.
With 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of built in storage to boot, there’s plenty of room for all your apps, downloads and photos. There’s also room for an additional 1 TB of storage via a memory card slot but I personally found the 128 GB, combined with storing my photos in the cloud, to be more than enough.
Battery
Finally, with this big screen and big camera sensors, you obviously need a big battery too. Thankfully the A53 5G also delivers in this category with a long lasting 5,000mAh battery and super-fast charging for whenever you do run out of juice.
Final thoughts
The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G really pushes the boundaries of Samsung’s A Series. This is a powerful phone for a very palatable price.
With the latest version of Android available out of the box, 5G connectivity and an IP67 water-proof rating, I think that this is a smart buy in 2022.