Samsung Galaxy A53 5G Review: A Phone That Delivers on Its Promises

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G Is A Budget 5G Phone That Doesn’t Sacrifice Quality.

How much storage does your smartphone have? If you’re like most people, you don’t even know the answer to that question, and you probably never will unless you look at it yourself. 

That’s exactly what I did with the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, which has 64GB of storage, but only about 50GB of that space can be used by the user (it comes preloaded with some applications). 

For me, this was totally worth it because it allows me to store all my data on my phone without worrying about how much space I have left.

A Closer Look

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is an entry-level phone with a lot of promise and more than a few upsides. 

Featuring a clean design and great build quality, it brings to mind some of Samsung’s higher-end offerings, but in reality, it does not have what is required to measure up with other high-end phones. 

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The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G has all that you would expect from an entry-level phone like its 6.5-inch HD+ display, Minimum of 4GB RAM, 128GB and goes up to 8GB Ram, 256GB internal storage, 64MP rear camera, and 32MP front camera. 

It also has 5GHz WiFi and dual VoLTE support making it stand out from most phones in its price range.

With a powerful processor, decent build quality, and a lightweight OS, it’s easy to see that Samsung has created an ideal entry-level phone. 

The hardware isn’t as robust as what you find in most high-end devices but that really is to be expected with a budget device like this. 

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G also comes with a massive 5,000mAh battery which delivers up to 15 hours of use between charges. 

Overall, it’s one of the better phones for its price tag. Just don’t expect it to blow your mind. This is an entry-level phone after all.

The Price

At under $400, you’d think that Samsung would use less-than-premium materials to save money. The  Samsung Galaxy A53 5G doesn’t do that. It costs $349 on Amazon at a discounted price. 

It feels like a solid phone with no wiggle or gives in any of its buttons and it has a screen that shines despite only being HD+. 

While there are other phones at $400 (and below) out there, very few of them come close to delivering as much value for their price as does Samsung’s newest budget phone.

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is, at its core, a solid phone. It feels good in your hand, it has decent (if not premium) materials and there are few signs of cost-cutting when you look at it. 

It’s fast, too — never once did I find myself feeling like an app or page took too long to load. However, if you want a phone that delivers on its promises — namely a sturdy smartphone with a great screen — then you’ll be happy with what Samsung offers here.

The Design

There’s no denying that Samsung knows how to make great phones. In fact, we loved their flagship phone last year so much that it ended up being our best smartphone of 2021. 

This year, they’ve taken a similar approach with their new Galaxy A7 line, which consists of three phones: The Samsung Galaxy A50, The Samsung Galaxy A70, and The Samsung Galaxy A80. 

For many people looking for an upgrade or simply just replacing a broken phone (I know you’re out there), these might be considered mid-range phones compared to some of those $1,000+ flagships out there. 

But are they? Let’s take a look at all three models to see how they stack up against one another… If you’re looking for a large display, The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G has got you covered. 

In fact, it’s right there in its name. This is essentially what makes it a more premium model than their other phones in terms of design because most flagships have been trending toward smaller display sizes. 

Of course, with a larger screen comes less screen-to-body ratio. But seeing as these are mid-range devices that won’t come cheap, I’ll be honest and say that I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!

The Display

The Samsung Galaxy A50 features a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and an aspect ratio of 20:9. 

The screen looks bright and vibrant, though it’s not quite as pixel-dense as competitors like Apple’s iPhone XS Max or Google’s Pixel 3 XL. 

It also doesn’t get as bright as some competitors, which isn’t great in direct sunlight—but most phones have that issue nowadays, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise. 

The colors are nice and punchy for an AMOLED display, with just a touch of oversaturation—which is more than I can say for many rivals right now.

The Super AMOLED display of Samsung’s latest entry to its Galaxy A series of phones packs a punch, delivering crisp and colorful visuals with great contrast and clarity. 

Even when compared to other recent flagships, like Apple’s iPhone13 Pro or Google’s Pixel 3 XL, it has great screen real estate thanks to its aspect ratio of 20:9. 

The full HD+ resolution looks crisp and handles most media well—though it isn’t quite as dense as some rivals. It can also look a little dim in direct sunlight, but that’s just par for the course these days.

Software & Performance

The Samsung Galaxy A series is well known for providing cutting-edge specifications at affordable prices, and with its latest phone, Samsung has definitely kept up with that trend. 

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G comes with an Exynos 1280 processor that provides solid performance even when you have multiple apps running in the background. 

More importantly, it doesn’t lag during casual gaming. As expected from a modern high-end smartphone, it also has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (expandable to 512GB via microSD card). 

When you get into business-centric features, things start to feel a little more wobbly. The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G isn’t equipped with 3xCA (3 carrier aggregation) support so you don’t get as much speed out of it as phones that do. 

It has decent battery life, but not enough to really make it stand out — you can easily go an entire day with normal use. 

If data speeds are what you want from your phone, though, then there are other options at lower prices that will serve you better than Samsung’s budget-friendly offering.

The Samsung Galaxy A series is not known for being a device built with gaming in mind, and while that continues to be true with its latest phone, it’s still able to handle most modern games quite well. 

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G comes with a Mali-G68 that allows you to play Asphalt 9 at medium settings smoothly. Other basic games such as Subway Surfers and Candy Crush run without any issues too. 

On top of that, Samsung has included a number of entertainment-focused features in its latest offering, including an FM radio and bundled earphones that are tailored toward music listening.

Camera Quality

The Samsung Galaxy A53 has a 64-megapixel primary camera that takes photos with average quality. 

Color accuracy, dynamic range, and low-light performance are all excellent; however, you’ll occasionally find some artifacts in your shots. 

Photos taken in bright daylight are sharp, with impressive color and white balance. For close-up objects or macro shots, though, it performs well enough but doesn’t quite match up to phones such as Google Pixel 3 or Huawei P30 Pro. 

Videos shot on the rear camera are surprisingly good at showing depth of field and color fidelity is again excellent—both of which improve your end product by a noticeable margin compared to other smartphones out there in 2022.

However, low-light shots tend to be a bit grainy and sometimes have noise—the digital counterpart of grain that reduces image clarity. 

The noise is noticeable when you enlarge a shot, but not enough to degrade its overall quality. 

The front camera is a 32-megapixel affair that performs fairly well in daylight conditions, although it doesn’t quite match up to what we saw from Huawei P30 Pro in our review earlier. 

It does a decent job with photos and selfies, but it struggles with low light due to its lower megapixel count.

Value & Features

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G offers a lot for your money. The 5,000 mAh battery is average (albeit with Quick Charge 2.0) and can easily last you more than one day depending on how much you use it. 

It has a twin camera system that performs well enough indoors but struggles in poor lighting conditions; there’s no front camera flash to help deal with selfies either.

It is a dual-SIM phone that allows you to use two different carriers in one device. It has a dedicated slot for two Nano-SIM cards and offers 5G connectivity in both slots; it’s also available with a microSD card for added storage if you need it. 

You get standard specifications as well, such as Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/A-GPS, Wi-Fi, USB Type-C, and so on. 

The phone also supports NFC so you can make payments using Samsung Pay; it’s not an Android One smartphone but runs an older version of Android instead.

The phone has a dedicated Google Assistant button that lets you access your digital assistant without unlocking your device. 

Samsung has added its own Bixby app as well to handle voice commands and other basic functions, although it is not as robust as Google Assistant. 

Lastly, there’s Samsung One UI running atop Android 12; OneUi 4.1, it features a refreshed Material Design interface but is largely unchanged from Samsung Experience based on Android 9 Pie.

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Heat 

One of my biggest pet peeves with Samsung’s modern lineup is how hot their phones can get. The majority of phones today have gotten more powerful, and they perform just as well as flagships that cost twice as much. 

But when they heat up, it just kills your experience in using them to their full potential because you don’t want to burn your hands on a phone that’s going to throttle its performance right in front of you. 

And yes, some other Android phones have similar issues, but I feel like Samsung struggles more with it than others. 

Hopefully, we start seeing better cooling solutions from them soon so phones can be pushed harder without having to worry about explosions or melting backs.

The heat Performance of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is great, and it doesn’t seem to throttle at all while gaming. So there’s that. 

If you want to watch a video or play a game without having your phone heat up, then Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is a great choice for you. 

Despite that, I still haven’t seen any weird GPU throttling while playing games or even while benchmarking it with GFXBench. It did get hot though, so hopefully, Samsung can improve upon that with future phones.

Also, check our full review of the new Samsung Galaxy S22+ and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Battery life

The battery life of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G can be one of its most important factors for many people, especially when it comes to phablets. 

The Samsung Galaxy A53 does a good job of offering up decent battery life, even in heavy use cases. However, those who need extra power may have to look elsewhere due to the limitation of a 5,000mAh cell. 

On average, you can expect around 11 hours and 30 minutes of screen-on time while watching videos or playing games over WiFi with brightness at 50 percent. 

This is pretty good for a mid-range phone, but if you need more than that you’ll want to consider another device like an iPhone or other flagship models from Samsung.

While you can get a good battery life out of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, you may also be able to find devices with better battery life for your needs. 

For instance, if screen-on time is important to you, then look for devices with bigger batteries and smaller screens that give you more battery capacity per square inch. 

Most people won’t have trouble with battery life from Samsung’s mid-range phone though as it has one of the best among phones at its price point. 

If you need something larger or something else altogether, Samsung also offers other options like their S series phones and some others.

Overall Verdict – Should you buy it?

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is a solid phone in most respects. It has good battery life, and a great display, and it offers quick performance for a smartphone of its class. 

If you want something decent but don’t want to spend too much money, then it’s a good choice to consider. But if you can afford to splurge a little more, then there are better options available that offer more value for your money.

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is a good phone, but it isn’t an outstanding one. While its performance and display are impressive, there are better choices available in its price range. 

The Huawei Mate 30 Pro offers similar performance but has a much better screen, while something like the Poco F1 offers so much more value than even most phones that cost twice as much. 

If you need your phone to have support for 5G connectivity then you might want to look at the new Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, It’s a great choice for today’s buying.