While Samsung’s S-series flagship phones are among the best Android devices you can get on the market right now, the South Korean tech giant has had a long history of expanding its reach thanks to its wide range of midrange handsets, which in the past included devices like the Galaxy Y and J series. With that in mind, Samsung has recently streamlined its midrange offerings into the Galaxy A and M phones, with the former proving to be rather popular among most buyers.
An Updated Design
Phones like the recent Galaxy A34 and A54 have shown that Samsung’s strengths lie not only with its flagships but with more budget-friendly phones, and it looks like the company is looking to double down on this formula very soon. With 2024 fast approaching, we’re bound to see the latest iteration of Samsung’s A-series top dog in the form of the Galaxy A55, which will no doubt bring some new upgrades to both style and performance.
Starting with its design, recent product renders from Onleaks and MySmartPrice show that Samsung is sticking with a very uniform and familiar look for the A55 while adding a few new elements to the phone’s build. For one, the edges of the phone are now expected to feature a metal frame, which will remain flat except for the area around the volume and power buttons, which are contoured uniquely. It also looks like we’ll be getting somewhat slimmer bezels this time around, which is of course a much-welcome change.
Other design aspects include the individual camera sensor bumps on the rear panel, and based on the renders it looks like Samsung might once again use a glass back on the phone, as it did with the Galaxy A54.
Galaxy A55 Performance
As for performance, it should be unsurprising to see an Exynos chipset on the A55, given its designation as a midrange device in Samsung’s large array of handsets. At the moment of course nothing has been confirmed yet with regards to which chipset the phone is using, but it’s strongly expected that the A55 might come packing an Exynos 1480 chip. Additionally, benchmark scores online show that the phone might be a capable enough performer, at least for folks looking for a decent phone for moderate gaming and such tasks.
Geekbench scores online show that the A55 was able to achieve a single-core score of 882, and a multi-core score of 2808. It should be kept in mind though that while test scores give us an idea of what to expect from a smartphone in terms of performance, real-world usage remains to be seen, although it’s predicted that the Galaxy A55 might come with an ace up its sleeve.
This comes in the form of the Xclipse 530 GPU, a graphics unit that is based on AMD’s RDNA architecture. A few years back, Samsung and AMD entered into a collaborative partnership towards the development of hardware, and it’s very much expected that the Xclipse 530 might make an appearance on the Galaxy A55.
Pricing and Availability
Currently, there’s no definite word on the Galaxy A55’s price and launch date just yet. But going off on what we know about the Galaxy A54, it shouldn’t be too surprising to see Samsung launch its new mid-ranger around March, with prices hovering around the £450-500 range. Given that it’s meant to compete with phones like Google’s Pixel A-series handsets, there’s a chance that Samsung might go with this pricing scheme.
In any case, the Galaxy A55 is shaping up to be a formidable midrange device, especially with the right combination of specs and price.
