Samsung set a high bar in the mid-range space a couple of years back with the Galaxy A52, and it's been improving it each year, mostly with minor refinements, to stay ahead of the competition. The new Galaxy A54 5G follows this trend following the Galaxy A53 5G, although it went beyond the usual spec bump this year. It doesn't follow Samsung's cardinal rule of not fixing what wasn't broken, though, since the design, optics, and even the screen are all slightly different.

I've been using the Galaxy A54 5G for more than a week, and I've been enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. There are a couple of things I wish Samsung would've done differently, but the Galaxy A54 still offers a well-rounded experience without hurting the wallet. The changes made to the Galaxy A54 are all mostly positive, and it's an easy pick if you live in the U.S. where there aren't too many competitors gate-keeping the mid-range market.

About this review: This review was written after a week of testing the Galaxy A54 5G that was sent to XDA by Samsung India for testing. Samsung did not see its contents before publishing.

Samsung Galaxy A54 5G: Price and availability

• Samsung Galaxy A54 5G carries the same $450 price tag as its predecessor
• The phone will only be available in its 6GB/128GB configuration in the U.S.
• Comes in Awesome Graphite or Awesome Violet colors

Samsung's new Galaxy A54 5G officially hits the shelves on April 6, 2023, but you can preorder it at the time of this writing. The Galaxy A54 5G carries the same $450 price tag as its predecessors, but those who preorder it can save up to $250 provided you bring an old phone for a trade-in. Samsung is sweetening the deal by offering a pair of Galaxy Buds Live earbuds for just $50 when you bundle them with the phone during the preorder.

The Galaxy A54 5G will only be available in Awesome Graphite and Awesome Violet colorways in the U.S. The Awesome Violet finish that we got to test looks beautiful, but you can't go wrong with the classic black colorway either.

Design and build quality: A substantial makeover

• Phone has Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and back
• Samsung has ditched the camera island in favor of individual cutouts for the cameras at the back
• Carries an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance

Samsung's Galaxy A54 5G is a lot different from its predecessor, and it all starts from the design. The new phone now matches the look of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S23 lineup from the back. The company also ditched the camera island from the Galaxy A53 in favor of a more minimal look, with three individual lenses protruding from the back. I wasn't a huge fan of it when I first saw the renders, but I've grown to like it over time. Samsung appears to be going for a more cohesive design, and the Galaxy A54 certainly looks like it's part of the Galaxy S series with this new back.

The Galaxy A54 also now features Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and the back. It makes it more durable but also more premium-feeling in the hand. The Galaxy A53 had a plastic back, even though it was made to look like a glass panel. The Gorilla Glass 5 back panel also adds to the overall weight, so the Galaxy A54 is a few grams heavier than its predecessor. I like the overall fit and finish of the Galaxy A54, and it feels quite premium with its iPhone-esque glossy back and matte frame. The Galaxy A54 also comes with an IP67 rating, meaning it can handle the occasional splashes of water. You can also put it in shallow water for about half an hour, but we obviously don't recommend that.

Display: Brighter than last year

• Phone features a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display
• It supports FHD+ resolution and up to 120Hz refresh rate
• The display is brighter than its predecessor and features Samsung's enhanced Vision Booster technology

The Galaxy A54 features a 6.4-inch OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. It has the same 1080p resolution as its predecessor, but the new display gets brighter. Outdoor visibility was one of the main complaints people had with the Galaxy A53, so it's good to see Samsung addressing that by cranking the peak brightness to 1,000 nits from 800 nits. The new display is a hair thinner than the one we saw on the Galaxy A53 5G, but it's taller. To put things into perspective, the Galaxy A54's 6.4-inch panel sits between the 6.1-inch and 6.6-inch display of the Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23+, respectively.

It's a rich and vibrant panel overall, and the fast 120Hz refresh rate keeps things looking smooth at all times. You also get an in-display fingerprint scanner that's quick to respond and authenticate your fingerprints. I'd say it's a touch slower than the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor found on the Galaxy S23, but it's quick enough to not make me want to ditch it altogether. The bezels around the display, as you'd expect, are slightly thicker than what you get on the flagship models, and there's a small punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera, but neither are dealbreakers.

Performance: Runs almost as well as a regular Galaxy S23

• Galaxy A54 is powered by Samsung's Exynos 1380 chipset
• Can only buy the 128GB variant in the U.S., but it supports expandable storage via a microSD card.
• The Galaxy A54 5G ships with One UI 5.1 based on Android 13 out of the box.

Samsung is once again using an Exynos processor for its Galaxy A-series phones in the U.S. — specifically an Exynos 1380 processor as opposed to the Exynos 1280 processor we saw inside the Galaxy A53. This particular chip is a 5nmk octa-core chipset with four Cortex A78 cores and four Cortex A55 cores. The variant I received for review comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.

The overall performance of the Galaxy A54 5G has mostly been good so far, but don't go into this expecting any extraordinary results. It's an improvement over the Galaxy A53's Exynos 1280 chip, but it's still very much a mid-range processor that has some hiccups.

There are some instances when the Exynos 1380 will remind you that you're using a less expensive phone.

Samsung has done a pretty good job optimizing the One UI software, so I didn't really notice the processing differences coming from the Galaxy S23, for the most part. A lot of modern mobile games also ran smoothly during my tests, and scrolling through webpages and social media felt fluid thanks to the responsive 120Hz display. Unfortunately, there were some instances where the Exynos 1380 will remind you that you're using a less expensive phone. The occasional lag when you open an app or the keyboard not popping up on time takes away from the overall experience. These things didn't happen often enough to make me question the phone's performance, but it was frequent enough not to mention.

Here's a quick look at the Geekbench 6 numbers for those of you who care about the benchmark numbers. The Exynos 1380 is clearly not as powerful as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy on the Galaxy S23, but that's not really a surprise.

I am also adding screenshots to show the results of a couple of other benchmarks I ran to test the performance of this phone. The Galaxy A54 5G was able to complete the coveted 'Wild Life Extreme Stress' test in 3DMark with over 99% stability. It even managed to score decent numbers on the CrossMark test. Here, take a look:

I'd like to point out though that the phone never felt like it was overheating. It only got slightly warm after I was done running a bunch of benchmark tests. That means you don't have to worry about performance throttling unless you are gaming for hours in a single sitting. My review unit, as I mentioned earlier, came with 256GB of storage, but keep in mind that you'll only be able to buy the Galaxy A54 with up to 128GB of storage in the U.S. That shouldn't affect your purchase decision because you can expand the storage up to 1TB with a microSD card.

Samsung has done a pretty good job optimizing the One UI software, so I didn't really notice the processing differences coming from the Galaxy S23.

One of my favorite things is that the Galaxy A54 ships with the same software that you get with the Galaxy S23 series devices. That's right, the Galaxy A54 ships with OneUI 5.1 out of the box which is based on Android 13. The overall software experience is similar to what you get on premium flagships, save for the DeX functionality that's reserved for Samsung's premium phones.

It's still a Samsung device, though, so you'll have to deal with features like pre-installed apps and the dynamic lock screen service, which you'll have to manually disable deep inside the settings. These, however, are just minor annoyances that you can easily deal with. I also love the fact that the Galaxy A54 — just like the premium Samsung flagships — will get four years of Android OS platform updates and five years of security updates. That's a huge advantage when you consider those who tend to invest in mid-range phones usually hold onto their phones for many years before upgrading.

Cameras: Decent, but not in low light

• You get a triple-camera setup
• Samsung has ditched the 64MP camera in favor of a new 50MP sensor
• You also get a 32MP selfie camera on the punch-hole cutout on the front

The Galaxy A54 brings a different set of optics to the table compared to its predecessor — and at first, they seem like downgrades. You now get a triple-camera setup as opposed to a quad-camera system at the back. It sports a 50MP f/1.8 main camera coupled with a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide and a 5MP f/2.4 macro sensor. This might seem worse than the 64MP f/1.8 standard wide sensor from last year's phone, but the fewer megapixels are less likely to play a huge role here. The 50MP standard wide camera also has a bigger sensor, bringing the pixel size from 0.8µm up to 1.0µm. This should translate to better low-light photography, which is always a welcome change. Notably, Samsung has also ditched the 5MP depth sensor, which I didn't miss whatsoever.

As for taking photos, you can expect some good images, with vibrant and saturated colors as long as there's enough light. Both the ultrawide and the macro sensors also capture some good photos in bright light. The quality takes a noticeable hit in low light, especially in the case of ultrawide shots. You can use night mode to salvage the shots, but the results won't be as impressive as what you'd get from a flagship. Here's a quick side-by-side comparison to show you how much difference the night mode can make in your shots:

The night mode image on the right is obviously better than the one on the left, and the mode works well when you don't have any moving subjects. You can't use night mode while using the ultrawide or the macro sensors, though, so you'll sadly have to deal with lower-quality photos. I switched to the macro mode just once to take a sample for this review, and I frankly don't see myself using it ever again. I would much rather have a telephoto lens for portraits, but that's not an option. Selfies are handled by a 32 MP, f/2.2 sensor, and they look pretty good provided there's enough light in the scene. I am attaching a bunch of camera samples below that should give you a good idea of what to expect from the Galaxy A54's camera system.

Video recording on this particular phone tops out at 4K 30FPS, and you only get to pick between 30FPS and 60FPS in 1080p resolution. The selfie camera also tops out at 4K 30FPS resolution. It's not necessarily a dealbreaker, but keep in mind that you can't do 4K 60FPS videos on your phone using any of the four cameras. There's nothing to write home about the quality of the videos themselves, but they should be enough for casual users to capture short videos and clips for social media.

Battery life: Still the same good battery

• The Galaxy A54 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery.
• It tops out at 25W wired charging and there's no support for wireless charging

Samsung hasn't changed the battery inside the Galaxy A54, meaning it has the same 5,000mAh battery as its predecessor. A 5,000mAh battery unit inside a phone like the Galaxy A54 that isn't as powerful as the flagship phones will last you for a long time. I was easily able to get more than a day's worth of usage from this phone even with the refresh rate set to 120Hz. I consider myself a moderate user when I am not running benchmarks or playing games all the time for testing, and I was ending my days with almost 50% battery left in the tank for the next day. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on the usage, but you can expect a good battery life overall.

The fact that the Galaxy A54 5G has a good battery life is a relief because the last thing you want to do is connect this phone to a charger and wait for it to charge painfully slowly every single day. Samsung hasn't updated the charging speed, meaning the Galaxy A54 tops out at 25W wired charging. It took me almost two hours to fully charge the Galaxy A54 to 100% when the battery dipped into the single-digit percentages. There's no support for wireless charging on this phone either, so you're essentially stuck with slow wired charging for which you'll have to buy a charger separately.

Long story short, I'd say light users can get through two days between chargers, whereas moderate to heavy users will have to charge it every day to avoid running out of battery and having to wait for hours before it can fully charge.

Should you buy the Galaxy A54 5G?

You should buy the Galaxy A54 5G if:

• You want a reliable phone that won't burn a huge hole in your pocket.
• You want a phone that'll stay relevant with good software support for the next few years.
• You want a phone that can last you an entire day on a single charge.

You shouldn't buy the Galaxy A54 5G if:

• You want a phone that can take excellent photos and videos.
• You want a phone with flagship-grade performance.

Minor charging complaints aside, Samsung has done a good job with the Galaxy A54 5G. It's a cut above the rest in the mid-range segment and, dare I say, it's inching closer to the flagship territory. The design, as I mentioned, has started growing on me and I like how Samsung is trying to differentiate its phone from others with a cohesive design. For $450, the Galaxy A54 5G offers an excellent display, a decent set of cameras, and reliable performance for day-to-day usage. I wish Samsung would've improved the cameras even more or at least add a telephoto lens instead of a macro. I also wish it supported faster charging, but it seems like wishful thinking considering even the Galaxy S23 tops out at 25W charging.

There's not a lot in the name of competition for the Galaxy A54 5G in the U.S., so you're mostly limited to buying either this, the Galaxy A53 5G, or the Google Pixel 6a in the Android space. The Galaxy A54 5G and its predecessor have a lot in common, but I'd say the newer phone is better overall unless you get an unmissable deal on the Galaxy A53 5G right now. The Pixel 6a is cut from an entirely different cloth, but it's not nearly as powerful as feature-packed as the Galaxy A54 5G.

The only thing I would trade the Galaxy A54 for is the newer Pixel 7, which — believe it or not — is often available for as low as $450 from various retailers. If not, then the Galaxy A54 seems like the Android phone to beat in the mid-range category this year.

FAQ

Q: What colors does the Samsung Galaxy A54 come in?

Those interested in buying the Samsung Galaxy A54 in the United States will have the choice of two colors: Awesome Graphite and Awesome Violet. The Awesome Graphite is the standard black color, whereas the Awesome Violet essentially has a lighter shade of Violet with color-matched side rails.

Q: Does the Samsung Galaxy A54 support wireless and reverse wireless charging?

The Samsung Galaxy A54 doesn't support wireless or reverse wireless charging, meaning you can only charge it using a wired charger. This isn't really a surprise considering it's a budget phone, and these features are usually reserved for more premium Galaxy S-series phones. For what it's worth, the Galaxy A53 or the previous models didn't have support for wireless or reverse wireless charging either.

Q: How many software updates will the Samsung Galaxy A54 get?

The Samsung Galaxy A54 is promised to receive four OS upgrades and five years' worth of security patches. It runs One UI 5.1 based on Android 13 out of the box, meaning it will be updated through Android 17 or whatever Google decides to call it. Five years of security patches also ensure it will be supported until 2028. We'll update this space in case something changes.

Q: Does the Samsung Galaxy A54 have expandable memory?

Yes, the Samsung Galaxy A54 has support for expandable memory. The phone comes with a microSD card slot using which you can add up to 1TB of storage to it. It's good to have expandable storage because you can only buy it with 128GB storage out of the box.

Q: How much warranty does the Samsung Galaxy A54 come with?

The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with a standard warranty service, meaning it's pretty much the minimum that's mandated by the law in your country. In the United States, you get a one-year limited warranty for the Galaxy A54, so you can get it repaired if anything happens as long as it doesn't break due to external factors or abuse. In some counties like Europe, the minimum mandated warranty is two years, so you can expect Samsung to cover it for that duration by default. It goes without saying that dropping the phone, spilling liquids on it, or purposefully damaging it in any other way aren't covered by the warranty.