Samsung held a small presentation, presenting two models of its best-selling A-series. As part of the presentation, they showed the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G and Galaxy A33 5G. Although in fact there are more devices in the A-series: A73, A53, A33, A23, A13.
A-series are smartphones of the middle price segment, as the target audience, Samsung singles out the so-called digital native generation, which does not part with a smartphone and is used to communicating online, taking a lot of photos and videos.
By the way, to once again emphasize that the devices are designed for those who consume content mainly from smartphones (a trait of young people, old people like to watch it from a computer more), the broadcast on YouTube was carried out in a vertical format. Accordingly, when viewed from a computer, there were wide black fields (I watched from a computer, because it is more convenient).
Table of Contents
A bit of history
Initially, A-series smartphones remained underestimated by Samsung and were significantly inferior to models from Honor, Huawei and Xiaomi, who quickly learned to make good mid-budget solutions. And how good and correct Samsung flagships were, the average and junior models of the brand turned out to be just as incomprehensible to the market. It seemed that they were made according to the residual principle in order to simply stake out a place. But the phones themselves were clearly not in the market: for less money, you could find more interesting offers in terms of functionality and hardware.
But in April 2019, everything changed. Samsung came to its senses and introduced a powerful updated A-series, relying on three components: a bright screen (put AMOLED wherever they could), a high-quality camera and a long battery life. And it worked! Samsung was able to elegantly flick on the nose of the competitors, showing them who the A-brand is.
At that presentation, I was most struck by the screens. Even the screen of the Galaxy A20 impressed with juiciness and a margin of brightness.
At that time it was a kind of innovation in this price segment. You may have forgotten, but in 2019, most mid-range smartphones used dim IPS panels. So it is not surprising that against this background, the A-series from Samsung flew off the shelves like hot cakes.
By the way, now Xiaomi is testing the idea with screens, but it does it in smartphones of the middle price segment under the title brand Xiaomi. If you take the same Xiaomi 11 Lite, then almost the flagship AMOLED screen is installed there, both in terms of brightness, and in terms of color accuracy and quality.
Samsung, after the presentation of 2019, every year very actively finalized the models. Perhaps the most important updates were the A52’s IP67 protection and design experiments. Water resistance up to this point was exclusively a flagship feature (Note: the chief recalled that the Samsung Galaxy A5 / A7 (2017) had IP68 water resistance).
Well, in terms of design, it’s somehow not customary to expect something like that from models of the middle price segment, so the design of the Galaxy A52 can be considered innovative. See below for an example of the Galaxy A51, which looks like a typical mid-range smartphone, and the Galaxy A52.
What’s new?
Samsung did not hold a presentation in a typical style, when it tells about each element of the smartphone in turn: case, screen, performance, battery. I will say more about the technical characteristics were briefly mentioned at the end. The presentation was a story about the main innovations, while not focusing on the technical component. It turned out nice and fresh. I will collect everything in the usual thematic blocks.
Support and Updates
This item was brought to the first place, since Samsung can forgive a lot for 4 updates of Android versions and the OneUI shell! And security patches will arrive for 5 years! Thus, if you bought a smartphone on Android 12, then the last version of the OS that it will receive will be Android 16, and security patches will arrive for another year after that.
Jokes aside, this is just a killer feature. A similar level of support as Samsung does not even have the flagships of other manufacturers. There is no need to talk about the middle price segment. Usually there were either no updates at all, or, well, one. Now realme is experimenting, some smartphones will receive 2 updates from it.
It’s nice when there is stability and reliability in the world, right? None of us knows what will happen in 4 or 5 years, but if you buy a smartphone, you can be sure that you will learn about new life turns from a smartphone with the current version of Android!
Design and durability
There are no changes in terms of design. The front is still Corning Gorilla Glass 5, and the body is made of plastic in the Ambient Edge style, this is when the camera module is smoothly merged with the body.
In principle, the lack of design changes is not a shame, since the A-series still looks very good and stands out from the background of smartphones from other manufacturers.
The main changes have occurred in the configuration. He came up with such a slogan: “New A-series: now also without charging!”. For the eco-agenda. The company says, “Samsung is committed to taking real environmental action to help make the planet healthier by 2025.” What specific changes should be there in 2025 is not explained. But they separately emphasized that the buttons and the SIM card tray are made of recycled plastic. Now live with this information!
Another important point is the IP67 protection for the Galaxy A33. And this, it turns out, is the most affordable high-quality waterproof smartphone on the market. Wow, at this pace, we will soon reach the 10th episode!
New cameras
In both smartphones, the main camera consists of 4 lenses:
- A53 5G – 64 MP (optical stabilization) + 12 MP (ultra wide angle) + 5 MP (depth) + 5 MP (macro). Front camera 32 MP.
- A33 5G – 48 MP (optical stabilization) + 8 MP (ultra wide angle) + 2 MP (depth) + 5 MP (macro). Front camera 13 MP.
The first thing that catches your eye is optical stabilization, which is available both in the older model (we are already used to this) and in the younger one. For the 30 series, optical stabilization is a novelty.
Along the way, Samsung promises improved processing algorithms that will take night photography to a new level. And, as I understand it, a lot of additional filters and effects have been added to the camera for normal and portrait shooting. The main novelty in this regard is the washing of unnecessary objects in the frame.
New features in the screens and battery life
The A-series has always had good screens. Samsung sacrificed color accuracy for the sake of crazy brightness and juiciness. So, the previous model A52 easily knocked out more than 800 nits of brightness. This is a truly flagship level of brightness, allowing you to use your smartphone as comfortably as at home even under the bright sun.
Samsung does not give specific figures about the brightness of new smartphones, but says that it has now added some kind of super-algorithm that will analyze the image on the screen and make, for example, dark places brighter.
- A53 5G – 6.5-inch, Super AMOLED, 120Hz, 1080 x 2400 pixels, Corning Gorilla Glass 5, under-display fingerprint reader
- A33 5G – 6.4 inches, Super AMOLED, 90 Hz, 1080 x 2400 pixels, Corning Gorilla Glass 5, fingerprint scanner on the side
There are strange moments. The official materials do not mention HDR10 + (it was in the A52), there is nothing about the Always-On screen. However, Eldar Murtazin says that the A53 will have HDR10 +, and the Always-On screen is in all models starting with the Galaxy A33.
Along the way, a funny moment, the Galaxy A33 5G has a screen with an obsolete U-cutout for the camera. Probably for this reason, there is not a single full-face photo of the smartphone in the official press releases and media gallery. But we’ve found it.
Smartphones support 25W fast charging. And the 5,000 mAh batteries should be enough for a couple of days of work. In both smartphones, as I understand it, the 5 nm economical Exynos 1200 chipset will also come to the rescue. However, it is not known which processor is in smartphones, since Samsung does not indicate the name and model of the chipset, but only writes the number of cores and frequency – Octa- Core (2.4GHz, 2GHz).
The main characteristics of smartphones in the form of infographics
Prices and dates
It’s not worth talking about Russia, but sales in the world will begin in April.
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G – from 449 euros from April 1st.
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G – from 369 euros from April 22.
Conclusion
It is still too early to draw conclusions. Even the sales start dates show that Samsung is struggling hard with a shortage of components on the market.
However, preliminary it seems that by removing the charger from the box, as well as abandoning the Always-on screen, Samsung instead gave 4 updates to Android versions. I think it’s a worthwhile exchange.
On the other hand, the Galaxy A52 5G, which has been on the market for a long time, will receive 3 updates of Android versions (from version 11 to 14). It remains only to wait which chipset is installed in the A53 5G and whether the performance is very different from the Snapdragon 750G (8 nm) used in the A52 5G.
And, of course, Samsung can only applaud for IP67 in the Galaxy A33 5G. How do you like the new ones?