Samsung began ramping up the mid-range series with its latest A series devices launching in Australia. The Galaxy A54 5G is part of this latest series, and the company at the time stated that this A54 5G was the most premium-looking and feature-laden device in the new range. It also brings with it, Samsung Galaxy’s commitment to designing awesome mobile experiences that are accessible for everyone.
So when we were offered an opportunity to review the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G, we decided to take it out for a spin and see if the A54 5G could live up to the hype and commitment of Samsung.
So can the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G handle two weeks of usage and daily life?
What’s in the box?
In the box, you get the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G handset, SIM pin tool, a 1m USB-C to USB-C data cable and the usual quick start guide.
The Design
The Galaxy A54 5G has both front and rear glass; the review unit provided is the Violet colour, which is beautiful.
The front of the Galaxy A54 5G houses the 6.4-inch Infinity-O Display Full HD+ display. Granted, there is a small chin around the top, bottom and sides, but it doesn’t distract the viewing experience after a small amount of time using the device. The display is super crisp with very real colours, and the brightness levels are excellent. Viewing and watching videos and playing games are just as good as they are on my Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The fingerprint scanner is located towards the bottom middle of the screen and is an under-display fingerprint scanner. The front-facing 32 MP camera is located in the top middle of the display.
The right-hand side of the Galaxy A54 5G houses the volume rocker, with the standby/power button located directly under the volume rocker buttons.
The top side of the Galaxy A54 5G houses the SIM/MicroSD card tray on the left hand side with the right hand side is another microphone to help drown out background noise.
The bottom side of the Galaxy A54 5G houses the USB-C charger which is located in the middle, to the right is the speaker grills and the left of the USB-C charger is the second microphone.
Flipping the Galaxy A54 5G houses the 3 rear cameras made up of a 50 MP main wide camera lens, 12 MP ultra-wide lens and a 5 MP macro lens. The camera lenses protrude about 1-2 mm out from the rear glass panel and because of this when laid flat on a table can lead to some wobble. There is also a single LED flashlight located just to the right of the rear camera lenses
Under the hood of the Galaxy A54 5G, you will find it is powered by an Exynos 1380 Octa-Core processor chip set alongside 6 GB RAM and 128 GB onboard storage which can be expanded to 1 TB via MicroSD card.
The only thing that for some people may be disappointed in, is the fact that the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G does not come with a 3.5mm audio jack but for me that was a non issue as I do tend to use my Bluetooth earbuds or headphones when out and about, but its worth keeping that into consideration when thinking about purchasing this device if you prefer having a 3.5 mm audio jack included in your device.
Lights, Camera…….Action!
The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G comes with a triple rear camera set up made up of a 50MP main wide camera lens, 12MP ultrawide lens and a 5MP macro lens.
In terms of the features within the camera app, there are the usual from normal photo, portrait,video to macro, panorama, food, single take, night, pro photo, pro video, super slo-mo, slow motion and hyperlapse. There is also an additional feature called fun which utlises SnapChat filters to create fun photos to share of which I took a couple with the front facing camera.
The photos taken are quite clear and crisp, with detail and colours standing out to how it is in real life and something that can be a bit of a hit and miss with budget and mid range devices.
The shutter was also quite snappy with little to no lag between the shutter speed in capturing the Kodak moment so to speak.
Front facing camera 32MP is quite good and again the colours and picture quality is crisp. The portrait mode is just as good as what it is with my Galaxy S22 Ultra.
However the main Achilles heel is the night photography mode which was a little hit and miss to get a good enough photo, with some noise and grain appearing in these photos but overall still quite a good camera and experience for a mid range device.
Also Macro Mode was also a little hit and miss as trying to get a good enough picture was at times a little frustrating and personally not something I really care about with taking photos in general. I found most of the time these photos seemed more blurry than actually taking it in normal photo mode.
Battery Life, Connectivity and Software
In terms of battery life, the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G comes with a 5000 mAh non-replaceable battery which was able to last the day with some moderate to high usage, going between apps and also watching videos and social media. Taking the phone off charger at about 7 am-7:30 am by the time I got home with moderate to some high usage I was able to at least still have 25% to 30% charge by the time I got home at about 6pm.
Thankfully the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G was able to support 25W fast charging – the only catch is the normal wall charger is not included in the box with the device so you will need to purchase this separately from Samsung or utilise existing chargers which support this function. Also wireless charging is not supported on this device so if you have a wireless charger set up, you won;t get any use from it with this device.
Connectivity wise, the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G comes with Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 ax), Bluetooth version 5.3, NFC capabilities alongside 4G and 5G connectivity capabilities.
The Galaxy A54 5G runs Android 13 right out of the box and Samsung’s One UI 5.1. During the review period there was one monthly security update which was installed during the review period.
The one thing that did annoy me a little was during the set up processes, Samsung put a selection or essential apps to install that included app games such as coin master, monopoly go, callapp, solitaire and a couple of others, and whilst I thought I un-selected these apps, they still were downloaded to the device. I get the reason behind this but it does bug me a little because I have certain apps I prefer to be uploaded to ones I either don’t want or have very little use for.
There was little to no lag in the performance with playing some light mobile games, although some graphic intense games like asphalt 9 I did notice some slight lag but the device was able to handle it without slowing down or freezing. Though the device did heat up a little playing this game and a couple of games or watching youtube or netflix videos but it didn´t overheat or get too hot to handle.
Should you consider purchasing one?
So the big question really is that, is the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G worth considering buying? Well the answer would be yes as it does bring some great value for money from the overall experience, the cameras, performance and battery power all doing quite well.
Yes there were a couple of issues I did experience with the device the overall conclusion would be from me is that if you´re after a new device but didn’t want to totally break the bank or looking for a second device say for work, then the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G is very much worthy of consideration.
My only question is can the Galaxy A54 5G beat or at least lift its weight for when the Pixel 7a is launched given uwe are expecting the new Pixel 7a device to be launched sometime soon, it will be yet to see what the comparisons would be.
The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G comes in violet and graphite colours and can be purchased from the Samsung website and stores alongside retail partner JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Officeworks, Big W, Catch.com.au, Harvey Norman and Optus, though the latter is offered via mobile phone plans. The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G retails for $699.
