Samsung Galaxy A54 5G review: Dapper look, athletic stamina

The definition of flagship has changed in the smartphone space, with brands competing to offer more for less (sort of). Samsung A-series is already a popular choice among the masses and Samsung recently added two new phones to the mix, the A34 and A54, with the latter gunning for a premium experience on a budget. Samsung Galaxy A54 5G does that with panache, and brand loyalty pulls a lot of weight too.

Samsung Galaxy A54 comes in 8GB RAM, 256GB storage configuration, priced at Rs 40,999. It comes in three colours, Awesome Lime, Awesome Graphite and Awesome Violet. Our review unit is the bright lime hue, which is not as bright as the newly-launched OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite but maintains a nice subtle shade to the liking of non-flamboyant users.

Design

Samsung Galaxy A54 goes for a bold and pleasing design. It takes major inspiration from the flagship S23 series, so much so that the A54 we carried looked like an FE edition of the S23 Plus. Samsung is uniforming the floating camera design, which replaces the island packing camera lenses inside. The glossy finish is usually not our favourite as compared to matte glass, but it doesn't look all that bad. Moreover, the fingerprints were not overly visible even after extended use. The rear design of the A54 strikes an immediate appeal, elevating a mid-level design to a premium one.

Unlike the A34, the A54 feels quite solid in hand too. The glass sure feels premium, the complimenting matte-hued frame, which is subtly curved, completes the look and feel factor. Even though the glass back picked a few smudges here and there, we'd advise keeping those oily fingers as they left a more visible mark. The volume and power buttons take their regular position on the right, the USB Type-C port and speaker sit at the bottom and the SIM card tray is on the top. No changes there, no complaints there.

Samsung didn't seem to cut major corners when it comes to designing the A54 as the attention to detail is amazing. The rings around the camera sensors, for instance, are steel finish but reflect to match the phone's colour. Thus adding durability and style. Speaking of durability, the phone gets IP67 water and dust resistance, and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection.

Display

Samsung Galaxy A54 surely has a lot to impress, which continues with display as well. A 6.4-inch Super AMOLED screen with Full HD+ resolution with a punch-hole camera gives a modern touch, which is only expected in this price range. The 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling and interacting with the display as seamless and smooth as it gets. Samsung knows its way around displays, which is reflected in the Galaxy A54.

The A54's display offers vibrant and punchy colours, making viewing on the screen a vivid experience. Since it supports HDR10 and HDR10+ standards, there's a lot of high-quality content waiting to be viewed. But Samsung gave Dolby Vision a miss, which would have sweetened the deal at this price point.

From watching video content, browsing the internet and social media and playing games - the A54's 6.4-inch display is a treat. But it's hard not to notice the bezels around the display.

The display also houses the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which works as intended. We didn't get any false recognition errors. But if you choose a faster way to unlock the phone, the face unlock does it better. For the paranoid us, the fingerprint remained the only choice. We rarely remember the times a passcode had to be entered due to fingerprint mismatch.

Camera

Samsung Galaxy A54 has a triple rear camera setup, combining a capable 50MP primary sensor with OIS, VDIS, f/1.8 aperture lens with 12MP ultra-wide lens and a 5MP macro sensor. For your selfies, there's a 32MP snapper, which does a decent job.

The shots taken from the main sensor are great, they capture a good amount of details, vibrant colours, dynamic range and exposure. Shooting outdoors in natural sunlight produced the best results, with a slight dip in detailing in ambient lighting, which wasn't all that evident. Samsung has kept the software fine-tuning to a bare minimum, which is to our liking. The results in well-lit scenes are excellent for a phone in this price range.

Portrait mode worked great, with accurate edge detection, soft bokeh and accurate skin tones. Give it more light and your portrait shots can be free from noise. The macro is not the best but delivers to its best capability. We wouldn't go flaunting the macro sensor's capabilities.

The ultra-wide sensor captures a wider area with little distortion. The ultra-wide shots didn't lose out a chunk of colours, if in broad daylight. Whereas in low light or at night, even with the night mode, the results are disappointing. Speaking of, the night mode shines when used to shoot with the main sensor and at 2x zoom. The results are crisp and with impressive colour reproduction.

Finally, the selfies shot using the A54 are decent, and capture good skin tones without artificial toning. The details are caught just right, even in portrait as the edge detection of hair can be challenging at times.

Check out some samples below:

Performance

Samsung Galaxy A54 is powered by not MediaTek or Snapdragon, but Exynos 1380, which is a capable processor on paper. The phone kept up with day-to-day tasks without any strain. The multitasking was handled with ease, and gaming and binge-watching were a breeze. But with extended use, we noticed the phone tends to get warm.

The A54 was used for calls, IMs, social media, internet browsing, camera and emails on a daily basis. Music, gaming and OTT streaming were done from time to time. But it managed it all quite well. The choice of games remained Candy Crush, Call of Duty Mobile and Asphalt 9, which didn't render any issues at medium graphics settings. The A54 is not a gaming-centric phone, so this is the best we could have asked for.

The software on the A54is OneUI 5.1 out of the box, and worked well without any major glitches. What's surprising and a bit annoying is the bloatware and ads for a phone even at this price range. But there's a lot of good stuff in the OneUI too, like the Photo Remaster, theme customisations, dynamic weather widget and more.

Finally, the phone packs some solid speakers. The Dolby Atmos powered stereos can get really loud when they need to, but we preferred earphones and Bluetooth 5.3 established a stable connection throughout.

Battery

Samsung Galaxy A34 is packing a large 5,000mAh battery but only supports 25W charging speed. You'll want to buy an adapter if you don't already have one. But once you charge the phone to full, it will easily last you a whole day and even more depending on your usage. Even with extensive use of cameras and other daily apps, the phone refused to die within a day. It's a solid phone for those who have battery life anxiety.

But all that battery life comes after being patient to let it charge for nearly 90 minutes. That's the price you have to pay. Samsung should have really considered upping the charging speed on the A54, but that's something of an issue even in high-end Samsung phones. Having a phone costing nearly Rs 50,000 that takes more than an hour to charge is just unacceptable. 

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy A54 5G is a solid mid-range phone, which has the right kind of looks, a good camera, a reliable battery and the power to get that stable performance. The design was a winner for us in so many ways, but its camera can surprise in some aspects. Samsung's strong software support of 4+5 years is a nice add-on, which we are hoping will address shortcomings in future updates.

Samsung Galaxy A54 is pitted against some disruptive flagships in the market, but brand loyalty comes to the rescue in that area. The phone aspires to perfection and comes so close.