At $450, the Samsung Galaxy A53 is a great deal. Image: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
Mid-range smartphones are trending. Every major brand that considers itself a worthy player in today’s smartphone wars has to have a price-comparable price for its flashy flagships. For Google, it’s the Pixel 5a — and soon, the Pixel 6a, if the rumors are true. For Apple, the iPhone SE gives you the same chip as the iPhone 13. For Samsung, it’s the Galaxy A53, which can’t match the performance of its flagship siblings, but still understand what makes Samsung devices so good.
This is good. If you’re going for the mid-range, it’s normal to lower your expectations, and the Galaxy A53 really knocks it out with Samsung’s unique strengths. It has a vibrant display with a flagship refresh rate, a camera system with all the lenses you could possibly need, and the latest version of Android, full of Samsung flavors. Plus, we love the long battery life, and you can be sure this phone will get plenty of software support for the foreseeable future.
Since this is a sub-$500 device, concessions are of course required. This isn’t Samsung’s best-designed smartphone, nor its most powerful. However, if you want to stick with Samsung and are on a budget, the Galaxy A53 is a solid choice.
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
Samsung’s mid-range A-series has all the advantages of using a Samsung phone, including long-lasting batteries and high-resolution displays.
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
Samsung’s mid-range A-series has all the advantages of using a Samsung phone, including long-lasting batteries and high-resolution displays.
What is it?
Samsung’s latest mid-range smartphone
price?
$450
picture
Long battery life and long software update life, like a small Samsung TV in your pocket
dislike
Camera is good but not the best in low light, onboard storage is limited unless you have an SD card, sometimes you’re on a mid-range device rather than a flagship, that’s pretty clear
Not much has changed
The back of the Galaxy A53. Photo: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
The Galaxy A53 doesn’t look any different from its predecessor, the Galaxy A52, although that’s on par with the mid-range device’s class. (Case: The iPhone SE looks the same for both generations.) It’s great to see Samsung try something a little more premium on the A-series. Samsung sent us the A53 in black, which is the only option available for purchase right now. The A53 comes in four colors in other markets, including white, peach pink, and a lovely baby blue.
The back of the Galaxy A53 remains relatively unchanged compared to the A52. There are three main camera lenses: a main 64-MP camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), a 12-MP ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 5-MP macro camera. There’s also a 5-MP depth sensor. I’ll take a more in-depth look at the rear camera system and its performance later.
Featuring a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display with bright, saturated colors and a 120Hz refresh rate, the Galaxy A53 is an excellent flagship spec in the lineup. A53 is ready to watch videos or scroll endlessly in TikTok. The smoothness of the picture is like having a tiny Samsung TV in your pocket. Like the Galaxy S22 series, Samsung does offer an ultra-bright mode that reads in sunlight, up to 800 nits, but only if it detects sunlight. Otherwise, the maximum brightness is about 416 nits.
If you buy the Galaxy A53 in the US, it only has 128GB of storage, though a microSD card slot is neatly embedded in the SIM card tray, so you can add storage for videos and anything else you might need. I’d also like to offer a PSA to bring your own smartphone charger and cable, as Samsung doesn’t include either of these when you buy the Galaxy A53. It’s for the environment!
The Galaxy A53 offers an in-display fingerprint reader, a feature very similar to flagships that can be included on mid-range phones. Photo: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
The Galaxy A53 offers some flagship-level security features. Face unlock is available, and there’s an under-display fingerprint reader as well. Both unlocking mechanisms work fine.
Battery life improvements
This year’s Galaxy A53 deviates from the usual upgrade path using Qualcomm’s latest mid-range chips. Instead, Samsung went back to using its homegrown processor, the 5nm Exynos 1280.It’s an octa-core chip with a Mali-G68 GPU powering it, which is a good sign if you want Pokémon Go Open all day waiting to join the 5-star Raid. It’s paired with 6GB of RAM, though the phone is also available in 4GB and 8GB RAM options in other markets.
In terms of performance, the Galaxy A53’s Exynos processor is on par with last year’s Pixel 5a, which runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G. Its performance on Geekbench (1803) was just two points ahead of the phone’s related device, the Galaxy Tab S7 FE, a tablet with a Snapdragon 750G processor (1801). Geekbench is a synthetic test, so it’s not a perfect comparison to anecdotal use, but it gives us a better idea of how the chip stacks up against what’s out there. For those nerds, we ran a single-core test.
Predictably, the A53 is significantly slower than current flagship Android phones, although its Web XPRT 2015 results are on par with the Pixel 5a and TCL 20 Pro, suggesting it’s a solid mid-range phone.
Despite solid benchmarks, there were a few times I remembered using a mid-range device, especially when I was switching between photography and video modes.Luckily I didn’t feel it when I had fun Pokémon Go, unless I’m in a busy area with lots of Pokémon sprouting around. But even on the most powerful flagship devices, that can lag behind the game. The fingerprint scanner is also not as fast as the now aging OnePlus 9, which I’m currently using as my daily driver.
Where the Galaxy A53 shines is its battery life. Samsung included a 5000 mAh battery for this particular device, and it impressed me from the moment I set up the phone. The Galaxy A53 managed 18 hours and 30 minutes of video playback before fading away. It outlasted the OnePlus 10 Pro, Motorola Edge+, Mi 12 Pro and even its flagship models in our battery rundown test, which required 24 hours of video playback from YouTube at 200 nits, just above brightness The midpoint of the slider. It even surpassed the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which isn’t surprising considering the device’s larger screen and denser processor. However, the A53’s results are on par with the Google Pixel 5a with its smaller 4680 mAh battery, suggesting there’s potential room for improvement in making the most of the phone’s packaging. That’s a small problem, though, the display on the Pixel 5a has a lower refresh rate and doesn’t consume as much power. Regardless, it’s good to know that you can find excellent battery life at the $500 price point.
camera for everyday photography
Now, let’s talk about those rear cameras. Photo: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
I’m impressed with how far smartphone cameras have come over the past five years, and the Galaxy A53 is only slightly behind the trend due to its budget status.
The camera system of the Galaxy A53 is similar to its predecessor, down to the 64-megapixel camera with f/1.8 aperture and wide field of view. As I mentioned before, it does have OIS, which helps stabilize the camera as you move the phone around to sharpen photos in any environment. The aperture also allows the lens to absorb more light for software processing.
Wide-angle photo taken with the Galaxy A53. Image: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
I really liked the daytime photos I took with the Galaxy A53. I had a sunny day at the beach, and the images were sharp and well-saturated. The blue in the sky does look like it was shot in Photoshop, but I appreciate this on my mobile device’s camera as it helps bring the photo to social media. The A53 is also capable of portrait and wide-angle shots, but the latter introduces the same distortion as any 123-degree field of view lens.
If you’re not shooting on a sunny day, Samsung’s saturation engine boosts the contrast, making the scene look dark and dull, rather than neutral and gray. This was especially evident when I took pictures with the A53 at different zoom ratios on a rare rainy day in California. There’s no telephoto lens, by the way, so when you get a solid zoom, it’s not nearly as sharp as you’d pay nearly three times the price for the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Still, the 3x optical zoom helps with framing at close range.
Example of the zoom function of the Galaxy A53. From left to right: Default field of view, 2x, 4x, 10x. Image: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
Selfies taken with the A53’s 32-MP lens look great, and I’m not shy about using it. My kids and I especially love the Snapchat filters integrated into the Samsung Camera app. No login required.
The Galaxy A53 can record video at up to 4K and 30 frames per second (fps). By default, it shoots at 1080p at 30 fps, but you can up the 1080p recording to 60 fps if desired. On sunny days, video can be particularly sharp, and even with the stabilization option turned off, Samsung’s tracking algorithm holds steady as you pan around the scene. I don’t regret shooting video for my kids with the A53.
This landscape night shot with the Galaxy A53 is better than I’ve taken with other mid-range smartphones, although it’s clearly on the lower end of the performance spectrum compared to night shots taken with flagship phones. Image: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
Unfortunately, I don’t have the Google Pixel 5a to do a side-by-side camera performance comparison. However, low-light photo times may be better with the Pixel 5a than with the Galaxy A53, simply because we have generations of evidence that this is where Google has succeeded with its mid-range hardware.
Flagship-level features throughout
When I say “flagship-level features,” I’m not just referring to the hardware. I’m also alluding to the software and Samsung’s attempts to achieve parity between devices. The A53 will get four years of Android platform updates and five years of security updates. That’s a bit longer than what you’re getting with the Google Pixel 5a you buy now. While you may not get software updates as consistently as everyone else at the end of your A53’s life, it’s reassuring to know that Samsung will have your device in mind for a while.
One concession to keep in mind with this device is that Samsung requires you to log into your Samsung account Get creative with your interface – especially if you’re keen to download themes and icon packs from
