Samsung Galaxy A53 5G review – a mid-ranger worth the chops

• The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is a mid-range smartphone that promises a premium feel.
• It comes with a quad camera setup, has a big display and is powered by a 5,000mAh battery.
• But is that enough? Read our Galaxy A53 5G review to find out if Samsung has done justice with this mid-range offering.

Samsung launched the Galaxy A53 5G earlier this year, featuring a few upgrades when compared to its predecessor. Aimed squarely at the mid-range, the Galaxy A53 5G has to slug it out against an army of competitors promising to offer a similar or faster experience.

Samsung has used a mix of Exynos and Qualcomm chipsets across its smartphone portfolio, sometimes switching it up within two generations of the same series of smartphones. While this is not necessarily a big deal for most smartphone buyers, it is still an aspect that a select number of users might care about.

The chipset choice is another notable difference when compared to the Galaxy A52s, which is powered by a Qualcomm chipset, as opposed to the Exynos chipset which powers the Galaxy A53.

I have been using the Galaxy A53 5G for a few weeks now and here is my detailed review.

Samsung Galaxy A53 5G – price and availability

The Galaxy A53 5G comes in two variants – 6GB and 8GB. Both have the same storage, which is capped at 128GB. The 6GB variant is priced at ₹34,499 while the 8GB variant is priced at ₹35,999.

The Galaxy A53 5G comes in four colours – blue, orange, black and white.

Clean design, great feel in the hands

Samsung has more or less perfected the design when it comes to its A series of smartphones. The polycarbonate back makes it a delight to use the phone without the fear of it slipping out of the hands. It also feels good to hold and doesn’t get too hot or too cold, when compared to glass and metal.

Samsung has borrowed bits of design from the Galaxy S22 series and brought it over to the Galaxy A52s – the result is the Galaxy A53 that looks modern and maintains the positives of a polycarbonate finish.

Not every phone is easy to use without a case – and in many cases, users worry about scratches on the body. That is another problem that you don’t have to worry about with the Galaxy A53.

Big, bright and smooth display

The Galaxy A53 5G sports a 6.5-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display with punch hole notch on the top. It supports 120Hz refresh rate and has a rated brightness of 800 nits.

In the real world, the Galaxy A53’s display was big, bright and smooth. Even under direct sunlight, the display is readable, which is sometimes a task in Indian summers.

While the Galaxy A53’s display misses out on HDR, the colour reproduction is accurate and if you want, you can tune the settings to have punchier and saturated visuals.

The 120Hz refresh rate support ensures that the animations are smooth – the phone maintains the high refresh rate most of the time, which is otherwise an issue sometimes with a few other phones out there.

Performance with a few concerns

The one area where Samsung could have done better is performance – the Galaxy A53 5G is powered by the Exynos 1280 chipset, which also powers the more affordable Galaxy A33 5G.

Some of the games that I tested on the Galaxy A53 5G include Call of Duty: Mobile and Battlegrounds Mobile India. While the gameplay was decent for the most part at ‘medium’ settings, I experienced noticeable stutters here and there.

The phone did get a little warm while playing graphics intensive games, but the hot Indian summer also plays a role here.

Coming to multitasking, the Galaxy A53 performed well in almost all cases – switching between the apps is quick and smooth, and scrolling in apps is a breeze, too.

As for the battery life, the Galaxy A53 5G with its 5,000mAh battery lasted me a day easily with moderate usage involving an hour of calls, messaging throughout the day, emails, a few photos, gaming, and streaming a few videos. It supports 25W fast charging, but unfortunately does not come with a charger in the box.

Cameras that perform well, consistently

The Galaxy A53 5G sports a quad camera setup on the back, with a 64MP primary camera, a 12MP ultrawide angle snapper, a 5MP macro and a 5MP depth camera. On the front, it has a 32MP camera for selfies and video calling.

Like its predecessor, the Galaxy A53 manages to capture photos very well in daylight conditions with adequate detail and slight oversaturation.

The phone did surprisingly well in lowlight and artificial light conditions as well. The macro camera also performed well, capturing well-focused and detailed photos.

Overall, the Galaxy A53 5G is a surprisingly handy phone when it comes to photography.

Conclusion

The Galaxy A53 5G is a very good mid-range phone, especially if you want a Samsung smartphone in the sub-₹35,000 price segment. It offers a simple and elegant design, a big, bright display and very good cameras. The performance is adequate too, in most cases, but if you play graphics intensive games like Call of Duty: Mobile or the likes, you might notice stutters here and there.

However, competition in this price segment is tough, with the likes of the Xiaomi 11T Pro 5G, the OnePlus 10R 5G, the Realme GT2, among others, vying for your attention.

SEE ALSO:

Asus 8z review – the ‘mini’ flagship phone that the Android world needs

Nothing phone (1) design revealed officially – from transparent back cover to aluminium frame, here’s everything we know so far

OnePlus 10 leaked renders reveal a design similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro, sans the alert slider