The Galaxy A54 is one of the most complete mobile phones for those looking for a Samsung intermediary and not interested in entering the world of top-of-the-range devices. It features a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 120Hz refresh for the display, and offers a body with the same camera alignment as the Galaxy S23.
Inside an Exynos 1380 chip does the job expected of an intermediary and the amount of RAM is marked 8GB, with the possibility of expansion to increase the longevity of the mobile in the hands of the owner. The cameras promise the same prowess in nighttime imaging as the Galaxy S23, but does it deliver all of this?
I’ve spent the last week with the Galaxy A54 in my hands and I’m sharing my experience in this review.
From the outside it’s almost like a Galaxy S23
Impossible not to compare the physical similarity of the Galaxy A54 with the Galaxy S23. The two phones use a flat screen, both have a more rounded look at the corners and offer a camera set with well-protruding lenses on the back, as well as a notch on the front for selfies.
The differences start with the lower LED flash on the Galaxy A54, the back cover without the rough matte texture of the Galaxy S23, and the more protruding screen edges on the simpler model of this duo. All this you only notice when you have both in your hands.
In any case, returning to the model of this review, the Galaxy A54 offers a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED screen, marked refresh at 120 Hz and Full HD + resolution. Even thicker than the edges of the Galaxy S23, on this model they are still thin and feel like they don’t even exist – if you use a dark background, it makes them disappear.
I liked this uniformity of visual identity, but the bump on the lenses bothered me, as I did not like on the Galaxy S23. It is very uneven and the sensation is that the glass of these components scratches in a short time, as well as preventing the mobile from flattening when placed on a flat place – such as the table.
Overall, the grip is comfortable and I loved the glass on the back instead of the traditional plastic of the Galaxy A. It gives a more sophisticated touch, you know?
Looking at the screen, it’s what you’d expect from a Super AMOLED and that means one of the best options within the mid-range segment. Colors are rich without being overwhelming, viewing angles are great too, brightness is high for reading in any light, and 120Hz makes gamers love smoother animations.
Good photos for an intermediary
If there is one phrase that translates very well what the Galaxy A54 can do with cameras, it is: great photos. In general, those looking for a good camera for almost any situation will find what they are looking for in this phone.
Brightly lit images come out with literally no noise, I had no issues reproducing the sunny sky gradient, and the contrast handled everything just fine. The dynamic range also wowed me, working very well on very bright areas and exposing the darkest parts of the same image.
Here the change in color temperature persists when you leave the main lens and switch to ultrawide, where the former has colder tones (blue) and the secondary always reinforces the warm ones (yellow). This is a practically guaranteed dilemma for Android and is also present in competing devices like Motorola, Asus and Xiaomi, but not in the iPhone.
The well-saturated photo signature continues here, but I like more vivid records, and Samsung says most users think the same. Either way, you can change the color depth in the camera app settings and reduce it that way if you prefer.
As with the Galaxy S23, the Galaxy A54 has two night modes. The former is automatic and will always appear in dimly lit locations, requiring a second or two of breath-holding to ensure as much light as possible. The other only enters manually and almost doubles the exposure time.
I was very pleased with the results with the automatic one, resolving a good part of the noise, but still leaving the lights off. The picture isn’t bad or dimly lit, far from it, but the second mode solves this problem and increases the amount of light in the scene even more.
It improves yes, but takes longer with steady hands. More than a Galaxy S23, for example. Oh sure, the cameras on the Galaxy A54 have 50 megapixels for the main lens, 12 megapixels for ultrawide and 5 megapixels for macro, which doesn’t make for all that good photos.
Break the branch, but I’d swap this lens for a telephoto.
Inside the Galaxy A54, his head gets hot
Samsung has chosen the Exynos 1380 to be inside this mobile and is competent when it comes to ensuring consistent performance with a stronger middleman. For everyday life, which involves social networks, not too heavy games, browsing websites and using Waze all your life, this chip lets you open everything instantly and doesn’t make you choke.
While leaving everything running on the Galaxy A54’s chip doesn’t hurt, I did feel some struggle when dealing with heavy loads for a longer period of time. Understand this within a game, which requires hardware for long periods. The Exynos 1380 didn’t choke, but it did get hot and that was no small feat.
It didn’t burn my hands, far from it, but I felt the phone was very hot and that means that performance has to suffer after some time. This is done as a precaution so that the chip does not overheat. I have been playing Genshin Impact for over an hour and have noticed that the frame rate has dropped in the first 20 minutes.
Other than that part, One UI 5.1 comes from the factory and is higher than Android 13. It has the same features as the Galaxy S23, such as great color customization for almost all interfaces, photo editor that can remove people and objects from the scene and RAM Plus, which borrows a few GB to increase the amount of RAM.
Everything remains well-executed, with a clean and organized interface. One advantage of the Galaxy A54 over the S23 is that there is the possibility here to increase the memory with a microSD card.
Finally, Android will be updated for four years and receive security patches for five years. With that, the Galaxy A54 will run up to Android 17 and the loopholes will be fixed by 2028.
Battery as expected
The Galaxy A54 has 5,000mAh and that’s a good sign, as it’s up to the standard for a middle-man. The amount of power was enough to fuel my consumption for a full day and that involved two hours of podcasting, three hours of watching YouTube videos, half an hour of gaming, browsing social media for another hour and some GPS from Google Maps.
If in terms of battery the mobile phone isn’t doing badly, in terms of recharging I thought it wasn’t enough to have 25 watts on the input. Intermediate competitors like the Realme 10 and the Xiaomi Poco X5 drop the port at 33 watts, the Moto G73 also comes close to this. Worse still: Out of the box, the Galaxy A54’s charger sends out just 15 watts, which makes charging even slower—the faster charger has to be purchased separately.
Galaxy A54: is it worth it?
Look, I really liked what I saw and experienced for a week. The Galaxy A54 has a solid and beautiful body and takes good photos both day and night, offers performance consistent with the competition in the same segment, but arrived expensive in Brazil.
Its suggested price is R$ 2,899 for the 128GB version and R$ 3,399 for doubling the memory to 256GB. With this amount you can easily find Galaxy S21 FE in the market and it offers more. The price of this generation of intermediaries is already R$ 600 below the introductory price of the previous version, which is great in a market that does not evolve much.
Even so, I believe the Galaxy A54 will make more sense when it drops around R$500 of the suggested value. For now, if you want a powerful Samsung, go for the Galaxy S21 FE.
Galaxy A54: data sheet
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