The Samsung Galaxy A55 is a mid-range smartphone that was recently announced in March 2024. It is the successor to the popular Galaxy A54 and comes with several upgrades, including a faster processor, more memory and a slightly taller screen.
Just What’s New?
Design
The Samsung Galaxy A55 takes a familiar design approach for the A-series, borrowing cues from its flagship S-series siblings but with a little bit of deviation to still give it some uniqueness. The A55 boasts a glossy plastic back that gives it a sleek, premium look, available in colors like Awesome Iceblue and Awesome Lilac.
While eye-catching, the glossy finish is a fingerprint magnet, so be prepared for constant cleaning or the use of a case.
The frame itself is a brushed aluminum build of matching color, with a cool design quirk on the right side. While the rest of the frame is uniform, the right side has a chamfered section that mounds up by a little bit, giving more visibility to where the volume and power buttons are. Finishing that style off is the chamfered section having a matte finish that gives off a subtle contrast to the overall design.
It’s a very wieldly phone with a reasonably comfortable grip and offers its style through color and metallic accents that’s shadowed by a very glossy back panel.
Hardware
The Galaxy A55 features a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the Samsung Exynos 1480 processor, which is paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The phone also has a microSD card slot for expandable storage, quite the uncommon trait these days but common enough on Galaxy A Series devices.
On the back, the Galaxy A55 has a triple-camera system that consists of a 50MP main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide sensor and a 5MP macro sensor. The front-facing camera is 32MP for selfies and video calls. This is a similar setup to the Galaxy A54 from last year.
The Galaxy A55 is powered by a 5000mAh battery that supports 25W fast charging.
Overall, it’s your standard hardware upgrades, with the major bump being the available RAM, coming up strong from the usual 8GB to 12GB which is a big plus. As usual, the Galaxy A55 maintains some durability with its IP67 dust and water resistance rating.
Software
The phone runs Android 14 with Samsung’s One UI 6.1 on top. Samsung is promising up to 4 generations of Android OS upgrades and up to 5 years of security updates for the Galaxy A55.
Samsung also is playing it big with Samsung Knox, their built-in security system as many smartphone users worry about keeping their personal information safe. Samsung Knox addresses these concerns by offering a robust security system built directly into Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets. But what exactly is Knox, and how does it benefit you?
It works on multiple levels, starting with the hardware. Knox utilizes a secure chip that isolates sensitive data like passwords and fingerprints from the main operating system. This makes it extremely difficult for hackers to access this information, even if they manage to breach the phone’s software. Think Windows and their TPM (Trusted Platform Module), but on a smartphone. The device is rendered unusable to unknown elements without authentication. We’ll cover more on that in the pieces to come!
Early Verdict
Price at RM 1999, the Galaxy A55 wants to be a solid mid-ranger to content for the under RM 2K market. While it’s always been that way, the price really just went up by RM 100 from the A54, but in return brings a better chipset, 50% more RAM and enhanced security. This isn’t an evolution, but a good refinement. Stay tuned for the full review.
