Samsung's Latest Smartphone Is Just $450, and We Tried It

Samsung's Galaxy A54 5G has many of the same features as more expensive phone but at half the price, and as little as $199 with trade-in.

Apr 5, 2023 - 18:30

0 30

Samsung's Latest Smartphone Is Just $450, and We Tried It

Samsung's Galaxy A54 5G has many of the same features as more expensive phone but at half the price, and as little as $199 with trade-in.

Samsung already kicked off 2023 with the Galaxy A14 and then followed it up with the latest Galaxy S family. The S23 Ultra, along with the S23 and S23+, are no slouches, but the technology giant has an even more affordable option.

Enter the $450 Galaxy A54. It not only features the same design language as more expensive phones, but it doesn’t cut many corners on features. Ahead we’re breaking down an excellent preorder deal and our first impressions of Samsung's A54 5G.

The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.

How to Preorder the Galaxy A54

Samsung’s Galaxy A54 delivers on big value with an MSRP of just $449 for the entry-level, 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM model.

As part of a preorder promotion though, you can take up to $250 off with an eligible device trade-in. Additionally, you can get Samsung’s bean-shaped earbuds--Galaxy Buds Live--for just $49.99 which is a savings of $100.

So all-in with a trade-in you get the 128GB Galaxy A54 for $199.99. Not to mention you get the choice of two shades, but you should 100% opt for the “Awesome Violet.” It’s perfect for any Taylor Swift fans and stands as an excellent color. You can also get in a more standard, “Awesome Graphite” which is essentially a gray.

Samsung's Galaxy A54 5G is up for preorder now and begins shipping on April 13.

What You Need to Know About the Galaxy A54 5G

View the original article to see embedded media.

Previous budget or mid-range phones have opted for less than premium build materials, but the Galaxy A54 bucks this trend. Rather than using a fully plastic design, the A54 features a glass back which adds some overall heft and ups the looks. In Awesome Violet it looks really lovely, and is more vibrant than the standard lavender of the S23.

It is a glass back though, so you can expect some fingerprints. The frame of the Galaxy A54 5G is plastic, but we wouldn’t discount it because of that. It was easy to grip and felt more premium in the hand, in-line with other mid-range phones like the Pixel 6a or iPhone SE. The A54 can survive a drizzle or a downpour thanks to an IP67 rating against water or dust. This means it can survive in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes.

Rather than feature a camera bump, the A54 sports the same floating camera layout as the Galaxy S23 family. And Samsung is really focusing on the image capture powers here.

The Galaxy A54 5G features a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 5-megapixel camera. It’s a great setup and should provide a capable one, mainly with the main and ultra-wide lenses. When swapping between all of them you get up to 10x zoom which looked pretty good on a few photos we snapped.

Quickly swapping between the lenses and zooming in or out was a breeze here. Same goes for quickly capturing a shot thanks to the processor inside. It’s not a special Qualcomm chip like inside the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but rather a custom Samsung chip that is clocked as an octa-core. It doesn’t have as many cores or uniquely identifiable ones, but it does make Android feel zippy here. Pairing it with 6GB of RAM should be more than enough for everyday tasks, photo editing, and even games.

More interesting is a guarantee of four Android OS upgrades and five years of security updates. That is a lot of value for a mid-range phone and it arrives running Android 13 and Samsung’s One UI 5.1.

You’ll navigate all of Android through a 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display which stretches pretty close to the edges with some visible bezel. In classic Samsung fashion it can really pop with colors as well.

On the top of the display is a small pinhole containing a 32-megapixel camera fit for selfies while an optical fingerprint sensor lives under the display.

Beating out the iPhone SE’s 60Hz and Pixel 6a’s 90Hz refresh rate though is a whopping 120Hz refresh rate on the Galaxy A54 5G. This ensures visuals and moving through the OS is buttery smooth and it is awesome to see it on a $450 smartphone.

Last, but not least the Galaxy A54 5G features a 5,000mAh battery which can be charged quickly with up to 25-watt fast charging. You will need to bring your own power plug though. As the name suggests as well, the Galaxy A54 supports 5G and in the United States it will work on AT&T and Verizon.

All-in-all the Galaxy A54 5G is packed with a lot of features that generally cost a lot more to get. It features an responsive display, a sleek build, a trio of cameras, and what should be long battery life. The promise of software support mixed with the $449 MSRP, but more enticing trade-in deals, makes this an excellent choice for a mid-range smartphone.

We’re looking forward to spending more time with the Galaxy A54 5G and reporting back with a full review, but for now it’s clear that the Pixel 6a and iPhone SE have some competition.