Your Galaxy A53 might be starting to look like a classic in this multitude of highly-optimized Samsung phones with a similar design, which could work in its favor if you intend to use it until Samsung stops supporting it roughly two-to-three years from now.
But if you don't intend to squeeze everything out of the Galaxy A53 for two more generations of Android OS updates, now might be a good time to consider a phone upgrade before you can say goodbye to any chance of a decent trade-in deal on your aging phone.
Samsung has just announced the Galaxy A55 today, and although you might not want to hear this, the truth is that the A55 is vastly superior to the A53, even more so than the Galaxy A54 was last year.
Samsung upgraded the Galaxy A55 inside-out, and the phone brings a few new goodies never-before-seen in the Galaxy A5x series.
The Galaxy A55 sets new build quality standards
Starting from the outside in, the Galaxy A55 looks more modern than the Galaxy A53, as it adopts Samsung's new design formula based on flat surfaces and no unnecessary camera housings. But assuming that doesn't make a difference to you, the build quality might.
As you're likely aware, your Galaxy A35 has a plastic frame, which serves it fine but doesn't provide that much protection or inspire much confidence. Well, the Galaxy A55 changes that, as it is Samsung's first Galaxy A5x phone to boast a metal frame.
The Galaxy A55 elevates the build quality even further, as it adopts Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both the front and the back.
Your Galaxy A53 has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 display protection and a plastic back, but with its new upgraded build, the Galaxy A55 blurs the line between mid-range and premium phones like no other A5x before it.
You can ditch the Galaxy A53 if you want more power and better connectivity
Even if the improved build quality isn't enough to make you want to ditch the Galaxy A53 in favor of the Galaxy A55, the latest hardware improvements might. They affect the display, performance, and even cameras.
The Galaxy A55 has a brighter screen (1,000 nits) than your Galaxy A53 (800 nits) and uses Vision Booster technology, which makes it easier to read and more color-accurate, even in direct sunlight.
Samsung's new mid-range phone also boasts a minimum of 8GB of RAM, whereas you could be using a 4GB Galaxy A53. And, there's more. In some markets, the Galaxy A55 is available with a whopping 12GB of RAM, which should fix any and all multitasking issues. Remember that not even the base Galaxy S24 flagship variant offers 12GB, which makes the Galaxy A55 that much more interesting.
As far as raw performance goes, the Galaxy A55 has a new Exynos 1480 chip, manufactured on a 4nm process. It's the first mid-range Samsung SoC to boast an AMD RDNA-based graphics chip. Combined with 8GB or 12GB of RAM, this silicon might do enough to elevate the mid-range Galaxy Ax experience to a level where UI performance issues are a thing of the past.
And if you care about mobile photography, the Galaxy A55 should offer better performance and improved nightography. It can even record Super HDR videos in low light and offers OIS and VIDS when capturing 4K videos.
The Galaxy A53 might have more megapixels and one extra (depth) camera, but in practice, the Galaxy A55 should be visibly superior thanks to newer technologies and better image processing.
Last but not least, if you do upgrade to the Galaxy A55 and leave your Galaxy A53 behind, you'll benefit from faster Wi-Fi 6 connectivity (up from Wi-Fi 5) and Bluetooth 5.3, which is more energy-efficient and plain better than Bluetooth 5.1 (it can even deliver better sound quality).
All things considered, the Galaxy A53 may have served you well for the past two years, and it still has two more major Android OS upgrades planned. Nevertheless, the Galaxy A55 might turn out to be the upgrade you never knew you needed or wanted.
