Samsung launched the Galaxy A53 5G smartphone last month as the successor to the Galaxy A52/A52s. It retains the screen and cameras from its predecessor. VBut gets an Exynos 1280 5nm SoC and packs in a bigger battery. Is it a better upgrade over the Galaxy A52s? Dive into our review to find out.
Box Contents
- Samsung Galaxy A53 5G Smartphone 8GB RAM, 128GB Storage Edition in Light Blue Color
USB Type-C to C Cable
SIM Ejector Tool
Quick start guide and warranty information
Samsung recently started removing chargers from its mid-range phones. So it doesn’t come with a charger in the box.
Display, Hardware and Design
The phone features a 6.5-inch Full HD+ Infinity-O Super AMOLED display. With a resolution of 1080×2400 pixels at around 407PPI, aspect ratio of 20:9. The display looks bright, thanks to 800 nits of brightness. Offers good color reproduction and sunlight legibility is also good. Since it has an AMOLED panel, it offers true blacks. The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
It has a 120Hz refresh rate screen that provides. A fluid user experience with smooth animations, scrolling and gaming. Like other Samsung phones. There is an Eye Comfort Shield that limits the blue light emitted by the screen. There’s also Dark Mode, which looks great on AMOLED screens. You can choose from Vivid or Natural screen modes based on your preference. Or set the white balance manually. The phone doesn’t have the DC dimming or low-brightness anti-flicker mode. That some AMOLED screen phones in this price range have. I haven’t noticed any screen flicker issues on the phone at low brightness.
It doesn’t have a notification LED. But the AOD is always on display with the tap to show option showing. The screen for 10 seconds after tapping the screen. You can set a schedule or set it to always show. Clock, GIF or you can download any AOD from theme section.
At the top, the small punch-hole houses a 32-megapixel camera and the earpiece at the top edge. Punch-holes are small and non-intrusive.
There is a small chin at the bottom of the screen. The phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor that is quick to unlock the phone. But not as fast as a side or rear-mounted fingerprint scanner.
In terms of button placement, the power button and volume rockers are present on the right side. There is nothing on the left side. The hybrid dual SIM slot, primary microphone. USB Type-C port and loudspeaker grill are at the bottom. The secondary microphone is at the top. Since the sides have a plastic frame with a glossy finish. they attract fingerprints easily. It has a good frame quality for the price you pay. The company has removed the 3.5mm audio jack that was present in the predecessor.
At the back, there is a quad camera module arranged in a rectangular array. There is a single LED flash. The phone has a 6.5 inch screen but is compact to hold. It’s 8.1mm thick, making it slightly thicker than the A52s, but the company has managed to maintain. The same 189g weight despite having a larger 5000mAh battery. The phone has a plastic back with a matte finish. That doesn’t attract fingerprints or smudges. Isn’t prone to scratches with daily use compared to other Galaxy phones in the M and F series. It may not look premium. But the design looks attractive and you can use the phone without a case, which is not included in the box.
Apart from the blue color variant we have, the phone is available in black, white and peach colors. It’s dust and water-resistant to a depth of one meter for up to 30 minutes, with IP67 certification, which is good.
Camera
- 64MP camera with Sony IMX682 sensor, 0.8μm pixel size, f/1.8 aperture, OIS
12MP ultra-wide sensor with f/2.2 aperture
5MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture
5MP macro sensor with f/2.2 aperture.
32MP front camera with Sony IMX616 sensor with F/2.2 aperture
You can choose 64MP option from the aspect ratio settings on the top. It also has AR stickers, scene optimizer. portrait video, director’s view, hyperlapse and more modes. There is Live Focus mode for portrait. You can also adjust the bokeh effect before or after the shot. There is a selfie portrait option for the front camera that uses software to blur the background. There is also a wide-angle option for the front camera, like other Samsung phones.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots are good. And the camera captures a good amount of detail. Creates well exposed photos with good dynamic range and detailing. And dynamic range can further be improved enabling HDR mode from the settings. which automatically turns on HDR when needed. Even though the phone has a 64-megapixel sensor. the final output has 16-megapixel resolution. Autofocus speeds are fast and accurate. Ultra-wide shots from the 12MP camera are good in daylight.
Macro shots from the main camera is good, and there is a dedicated macro camera mode which is decent. But there is no touch to focus option in this mode since it is fixed focus, so you have to keep it in 5cm distance. Live focus is good at detecting the edges. Low-light performance is good. which can be improved further with Night mode that offers more details. But you need to keep your hand steady, since it takes two to three seconds to process. Night mode shots are zoomed in, and the output is 12MP in resolution instead of 16MP. 64-megapixel shots have good amount of details, but the colours are not vibrant. Images with flash is good and is not overpowering.
The 32-megapixel front camera is good in most cases. Wide-angle mode takes images in 12-megapixel resolution after pixel binning. While the normal mode takes images in 8-megapixel. Software blur in the live focus mode has average edge detection.
It can record video at up to 4K resolution at 30 fps from both front, rear and ultra-wide cameras. The rear camera can also shoot 1080p 60fps videos. But stabilization only works at 30fps when enabled in the settings. Normal stabilization works with both the ultra-wide and main cameras. But only the main camera has OIS. There’s a separate Super Steady mode. That uses the ultra-wide camera to capture video at 1080p 30fps. It’s smooth, but you won’t see a huge difference between it. The normal stabilization from the main camera.
You can switch between normal. Ultra-wide cameras while video recording is in progress. And also switch between front and rear cameras while recording video. It can shoot slow motion at 720p at 480fps and also has super slow motion. Video quality is good.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 12 with the March 2022 update a few days ago. On top of Android 12, it has the latest Samsung One UI 4.1, hich brings several new features including. New theme options to configure the home screen, icons, notifications, wallpapers and more. Also features redesigned, upgraded widgets with deep customization, microphone. And camera usage indicators, and more
Samsung has guaranteed 4 OS updates and 5 years of security updates even for the top-end A series phones. Which is a good move.
Device maintenance option. lets you manage your device’s battery life, storage, RAM usage and security all in one place. 105GB is free out of 128GB (UFS) on our unit. Of the 8GB LPDDR4x RAM, around 7.39GB is usable and 3.5GB is free when default apps are running in the background. There is also a RAM Plus feature. which uses the phone’s internal memory to increase the RAM by an additional 8 GB in addition to the current 8 GB of RAM. It is enabled automatically. We got a sequential read speed of 515MB/s which is lower than the A52s, so it looks like the phone still uses UFS 2.1.
In addition to the usual set of utility apps and Google apps. The smartphone includes Facebook, Netflix, Spotify. And Microsoft apps such as OneDrive and LinkedIn. You get the option to install apps when you set up the phone, which you can choose not to. It also has Samsung Pay via NFC. It also includes Samsung Pass, Secure Folder, Bixby Voice/Vision, Samsung Cloud, Easy Mode and Samsung Knox support. The phone does not have ads. But occasionally shows notifications of new Samsung products.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor. That instantly unlocks the phone even when the phone is locked. It’s good, but not as fast as a physical fingerprint scanner. You can add up to 3 fingerprints and adding fingerprints is easy. It has support for face recognition. Which doesn’t work well if there’s no light in the room, if you’re wearing a hat or wearing heavy makeup. Both of these are protected by Knox Security.
Music Player and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It includes Equalizer, Dolby Atmos, UHQ Upscaler and Adapt. Which can be enabled from settings. They enhance audio when listening through earphones. And also work with Dolby Atmos speakers. It does not have FM radio support. He said audio through earphones is good. Loudspeaker output from stereo speakers is also good.
The phone also has Widevine L1 support out of the box. So you can enjoy HD content on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar and other streaming apps. There’s also HDR playback support for YouTube, but it doesn’t work with Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It supports 5G SA with support for several 5G network bands in India. Other connectivity options include, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth v5.1 and GPS with GLONASS. It has support for USB OTG and NFC which works with supported payment apps. It has 4G connectivity and has Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and Wi-Fi calling. Vo-Wi-Fi support for Reliance Jio, Airtel and more. And also support for LTE-A or carrier aggregation.
The Galaxy A53 5G has a head SAR of 0.340/Kg which is below the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
It has 2 x 2.4GHz Cortex-A78 performance CPUs and 6 x 2GHz Cortex-A55 efficiency CPUs. It has Power Cool technology to keep the temperature low. I didn’t encounter any performance issues. But the Mali-G68 GPU on the chip isn’t optimized for gaming. In BGMI, you can play games only in smooth, balanced. High graphics options in HD and there is no smooth or extreme fps option. It also lacks HDR graphics option. In COD Mobile, you get only mediocre graphics and very high frame rates. On low graphics, you get the maximum frame rate, but with Genshin Impact, the frame rate was very low.
It gets a bit hot when you play graphic-intensive games. But Samsung has managed to keep the temperature down, so there are few frame drops during gaming. It reached a maximum of 45º in our tests inside Wi-Fi, but this can vary outside on 4G. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Exynos 1280 is not a bad processor, but it needs better optimization for gaming. The Snapdragon 778G even offers better gaming performance than the Snapdragon 695.
Battery health
The A53 finally gets a larger 5000mAh battery compared to the 4500mAh battery in the A52 and A52s. I got over 6 hours of screen time with 1 and a half days of use at a 120Hz refresh rate on most of my daily Wi-Fi and occasional 4G. Adaptive battery conservation and other options will allow. You to extend battery life, but performance may be affected.
Samsung doesn’t offer a charger in the box, but the phone supports 25W charging. With the official 25W fast charger, it takes about 1 and a half hours for 0 to 100% and about 40 minutes for 0 to 50%.
Conclusion
Overall, the Galaxy A53 is Samsung’s decent mid-range 5G smartphone in the A series. But the A52s is still a better choice considering the better performance. It has a 120Hz Infinity-O AMOLED display, retains a 64MP camera with OIS, stereo speakers. Comes with an IP67 rating and packs a large battery. The plastic matte back looks attractive and does not attract fingerprints. Although the phone does not have a glass back. However, Samsung has retained the same glossy frame, which needs an upgrade.
Alternatives
Realme GT Neo 2 is a good option in the price range, but you can also wait for Realme GT Neo 3. The iQOO 9 SE is a good option powered by the Snapdragon 888 SoC. OnePlus Nord 2 is also a good option.
