Samsung Galaxy A53 5G review: Good enough for every claim?

Good performance, great endurance, 5G in your luggage and still affordable? The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G wants to meet all these requirements!

The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G was kindly made available to us by A1 for this test report. Thank you for the opportunity to test this device. At A1, the smartphone is available in the online shop! Here is a small Samsung video from the manufacturer itself, which should whet your appetite for more:

Samsung is proud of the A series, which is internally comfortable with Awesome titled. Then on the official site you will quickly notice that the names of the four colors in which the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is available, program are! The smartphone comes in Awesome Blue, Awesome Black, Awesome White and Awesome Peach – it couldn’t be much clearer. As far as the equipment is concerned, the manufacturer advertises the 120 Hz AMOLED display, the 64 MP camera with optical image stabilization, a battery that should last you through two days, and the water and dust resistance (according to IP67 certified). Not only that, the latest 5G mobile communications standard is also on board – are there any wishes left? Read our test report!

The first impression of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G

This smartphone is pretty much identical in construction to the Samsung Galaxy A52 – At first glance, there is no difference at all. The look is the same from both the front and the back: a screen with a 6.5 inch (16.4 cm) screen diagonal, which is only interrupted at the top center by a hole for the front camera. A very tidy look at the back and the rectangular camera island with rounded corners. There are four sensors and an LED flash that brightens the scenery if desired. At the edges you finally notice that something has happened. On the right, the volume control including the standby button has slipped down a little, probably to make both a little easier to reach.

The top edge no longer houses a SIM slot, which is in the case of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G hiked down. There you will still find a microphone, a USB-C port and one of the speakers, but there is no longer a headphone jack. You read that right: While at A52 While there was still a 3.5 mm socket for jack plugs, this is no longer the case with the current version! Apart from that, the initial installation process is of the best standard: you activate your device, log in, follow the instructions on the screen and either restore a backup, or you set up the smartphone as a completely new device. Either way, within minutes you are ready to start and can deal with the first apps.

In practice: Very pleasant contemporary

The interaction between the hardware and the software fits. Android 12 and Samsung’s One UI version 4.1 work extremely fast. At the time of the test (end of June 2022), the security patch from May 1, 2022 was installed – that’s good, but it could be even better. The screen of the smartphone with up to 120 Hz does a great job, such a refresh rate pays off in use! However, the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G here’s a small flaw: there doesn’t seem to be any adaptive control between 120 Hz and a lower number. So even if, for example, you have a text-only website open and want to read it, the smartphone gives 120 frames per second. While that’s fun for scrolling and gaming, it doesn’t make sense in quieter minutes.

Because that sucks a lot on the battery, as I found out during the test period – two days of battery life are by no means possible! Apart from that, things really get going here. For a smartphone in this price range, you don’t really have to wait long for anything, whether it’s restoring a backup, loading and opening new apps, or playing the latest games on the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G plays. Together with the good feel of the product, it’s really fun to use – who a suitable tariff is of course also happy about the 5G speeds when downloading and uploading data. The overall package is extremely coherent, the experience that Samsung has been able to gather with previous cell phones is clearly an advantage here!

The cameras in the product

So everything slips, and everything does in everyday life as it should. Time to move on to the cameras! A revised main sensor with optical image stabilization should ensure good snapshots, and an ultra-wide-angle camera can capture panoramas well. In addition, a depth camera and a macro lens successfully round off the combination – is that enough for the crown in this price range? While the hardware is undeniably strong, there are, as usual, a number of “yes, but” phrases. The main camera is the best in the built society, but has to admit defeat to more powerful devices in terms of color reproduction and weaker light. The ultra-wide-angle sensor takes beautiful pictures in great light, but distorts a lot at the edges, so it likes to catch the eye.

The macro camera does its job well and presents itself a lot better than weaker macro lenses in competing products. But – typically Samsung – they all have one thing in common: the photo is reworked quite a bit after it has been taken. All colors tend to be a tad oversaturated, and I struggled to capture a naturally exposed, lifelike image. If you like the look of such pictures, good for you! But if you’re aiming to capture color and contrast as they are in person, be prepared for a bit of post-processing work. Here is the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G just like its predecessors: there is a certain look for your photos, which turns out to be colorful like the TV sets!

everyday life and gaming performance

Of course, the great screen with its 120 Hz refresh rate also needs to be tested, so I couldn’t help but try out a few games. This time, among other things, the perennial favorite counted Alto’s Odysseybut also Crash Bandicoot: On The Run such as Diablo Immortal to the test apps. Clever is the software, which doesn’t try to display 120 frames per second – 60 or even 30 frames per second are enough. In addition to the consistently good performance, the low heat development was also noticed positively. Only next to the camera island was the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G a little warmer, but never uncomfortably hot. With normal use, there were no abnormalities here anyway, this is due to the renewed processor.

The CPU has been strengthened a little, which is hardly noticeable at first. In Geekbench 5 were compared to A52 (whose screen can “only” 90 Hz) correct differences were measured. The scores were 732/1874/2579 (single/multi/compute), representing a 30.7/7.7/110 percent improvement. The Samsung performs particularly well in the area of graphics performance, but also in everyday tasks Galaxy A53 5G terrific! Another thing that is interesting is RAM: the variant of the smartphone with 6 GB of RAM (and 128 GB of storage space) can be expanded by up to 6 GB of virtual RAM, and the version with 8 GB of RAM (and 256 GB of storage space) can up to 8 GB of additional virtual memory.

Unflappable with the right settings

If you need that much RAM in everyday life, you will most likely be happy if you have your own Samsung Galaxy A53 5G endure for a while. So it’s good that the manufacturer has installed some tricks for the device to help you with this. An app called Device Maintenance does its part, and the refresh rate mentioned earlier should be limited to 60 – that saves quite a bit of juice. You can also activate an energy-saving mode under the “Battery” item, and after your usage behavior has been analyzed by the device, the cell phone will give you an estimate of how long a full charge will last. But not only endurance can shine with such measures – the two days advertised by Samsung can be achieved in this way.

The other processing also leaves nothing to be desired. Because in addition to the strong materials that feel great in the hand, there is more to talk about. That’s Samsung Galaxy A53 5G certified according to the IP67 standard. This means protection against temporary submersion to a maximum of 1 m water depth for a maximum of 30 minutes and only in clear water. Although the smartphone is not a pure outdoor cell phone, it survives one or the other unintentional dive without any problems. This is good and very useful – as is the option via Link to windows connect your phone to your Windows computer. Messages, photos, calls and apps can be easily streamed to your PC device.

Samsung Galaxy A53 5G: The technique

The dimensions of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G are 159.6 x 74.8 x 8.1 mm with a weight of 189 grams. Its Super AMOLED screen measures 6.5 inches (16.4 cm) diagonally, is capable of 120 Hz, and has a resolution of 2400 x 1800 pixels and gets up to 800 nits of light. The Android 12 operating system comes preinstalled with the One UI 4.1 skin from Samsung. The cell phone is waterproof according to IP67, offers dual SIM and 5G and will receive security updates until 2027. This smartphone is powered by an in-house Samsung Exynos 1280 processor. In line with the price range, its performance is in the midfield, but it is completely sufficient for normal use. Depending on the variant, there is 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128 or 256 GB of storage space.

Regarding the cameras: They have a resolution of 64 (main camera), 12 (ultra wide angle) and 5 (depth and macro camera) megapixels. The selfie cam can offer a resolution of up to 32 MP, and the main camera has optical image stabilization. A fun mode loosens things up by providing Snapchat filters to try out from time to time. The battery has a capacity of 5,000 mAh and supports fast charging with up to 25 watts. However, this more powerful power supply is not included – if you use one, you can fully charge the cell phone via USB-C in just under one and a half hours. By the way, the Samsung supports Galaxy A53 5G also Dolby Atmos, so if you like good sound, you can find it here.