If you find yourself baffled at seeing the term ‘awesome’ all over the place, it’s probably Samsung talking about one of its new A series phone. The company launched a few lately.
The A series is quite a sell out because although the most noise is made about the most expensive range, that’s never the one that many can afford. So we’re looking today at the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G specifically, keeping in mind that its predecessor certainly was very popular.
This nice slim device arrives in a nice slim box. You soon realise it’s like that because there’s no awesome charger inside. Fend for yourself where that’s concerned — use an old charging adaptor that perhaps doesn’t support the charging speed, or pay for another and add to the world’s e-waste anyway. I hear the lack of charger is a privilege that’s about to be extended to all phones from Samsung, but I may be wrong.
Pastel pleasure
That said, the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G comes in a set of very pretty pastel shades that Samsung has chosen for this category of phones. There’s a lovely mint green and a peach that looks like an enticing dessert in photographs, but I haven’t seen that in person and am instead checking out a powder blue variant. It’s a cool summery colour that looks quite refreshing, though a little clinical.
It’s pleasant enough even though you know that it isn’t adorning glass but is made of plastic. I personally have no quarrel with plastic that’s well executed, though one wishes the framing was not plastic. It does make the device a whole lot lighter, which it needs to be because this one runs on a 5,000mAh battery with 25W charging. It’s rather nice that you can hold this phone for long gossip sessions without tiring your hand out
On the back of the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, you can just faintly see the Samsung logo in white. The subtlety is welcome. All else is clean and pure looking and should stay that way as the panel isn’t made to retain fingerprint smudges. The camera circles sit on a gentle curving raised area and look pretty good.
In front, there’s another dazzler of a screen. The display is a 6.5 inch 120Hz FHD+ Super AMOLED beauty. I find myself caring little whether the colours are realistic or not — all I know is that they’re a treat to the eyes. So much so that one can agree with Samsung about that part being awesome. The bezels are slim enough to ignore, as is the little front camera dot. The phone is more or less in the preferred flat boxy design that’s so popular right now. There’s no headphone jack, but to appease you, the phone is IP67 water and dust resistant. The front is Gorilla Glass 5.
Software surety
Pleasant design, good ergonomics, beautiful display — that’s just a few of the enticements on this premium-mid-range smartphone this year. Another is the fact that updates, including to the Android system, are being promised for four years, making the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G a device one can keep using for quite a while provided some basic hygiene is maintained. It’s on Android 12 and should update eventually right up to Android 16.
Samsung’s OneUI 4.1 gives you that familiar Samsung experience and is intuitive and smooth to work with. But one crib I have right away is that the phone is chock full of pre-loaded uncalled for apps displayed right up front on the Home Screen. From Josh to PhonePe, from Moj to DailyHunt, it’s a little unfair for a phone that costs quite a bit.
The device runs on Samsung’s own 5nm Exynos 1280 5G chipset with 6GB or 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. Generally this isn’t a processor that is considered particularly powerful. That’s okay for people who want to keep their usage simple, the Galaxy A53 5G costs ₹34,499 and ₹35,999 and this is perhaps a little too expensive for what’s on offer. Chinese phone makers have been spoiling customers for choice by offering many of these features for half the price.
Performance on the A53 5G is generally quite good but hardly blazing. Although I read some accounts of encountering stutter and lag, I didn’t face any issues and the device moved along nice and fast for day to day tasks. It’s perhaps not tuned to work as a gamer’s phone, but doesn’t object or get hot under the collar with some light gaming. Haptic feedback isn’t very satisfying at all.
The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G has a big battery, but it doesn’t last out as long as you would expect. It also takes a long time to charge. If one is aware of how supersonically fast budget Chinese phones are now charging (a mere 15 minutes in some cases) it’s difficult to be particularly excited about the 5,000mAh battery.
The primary camera on this phone is a 64MP. There are the predictable 12MP ultra wide and 5MP macro to go with it. The front camera is a 32MP. These cameras do a pretty good job of everyday photos.
The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G should have considerably cheaper to call itself as ‘awesome’ as it does and compete with the powerful devices swarming around it. But it may well still sell as well as its predecessor.
Published on
April 02, 2022
