If you don’t want to pay out for the shiny Samsung Galaxy S24, but still want a great new Samsung smartphone, then the Galaxy A55 could be for you. It keeps the same cool design as the expensive Galaxy S24, but as the specification is more sensible (and there’s none of the Galaxy AI stuff) the price stays low. What’s more, there’s a second, even cheaper new phone from Samsung to consider too.
The Galaxy A55 is the successor to the Galaxy A54, a phone we really liked, and that’s why we are very tempted by the updated version for 2024. Like its predecessor, it comes in some great colors — Awesome Ice Blue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy. Yes, Samsung really does call its color range Awesome. The phone has a metal chassis and a glass back, with a 6.6-inch, 120Hz Super AMOLED screen on the front.
Inside is a new Samsung Exynos processor, the Exynos 1480, which is an octa-core chip with an AMD Xclipse GPU, and it’s paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage space, or you can get a top model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space. A 5,000mAh battery keeps it all going, and there’s 25W wired charging. Samsung has installed Android 14 with One UI 6.1 on the phone. There are three cameras on the back: a 50-megapixel main camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), a 12MP wide-angle camera, and a 5MP macro camera. Samsung is promising excellent lowlight images from the new cameras, along with a Night Portrait mode and the introduction of Super HDR video too.
Samsung’s second new affordable phone is the Galaxy A35 and it shares a lot with the Galaxy A55. The design looks almost identical and, therefore, very close to the Galaxy S24; the screen is exactly the same, it comes in the same colors, and it also has a glass back. The processor has been swapped out for the Exynos 1380, which powered the Galaxy A54 previously, and there’s a choice of 6GB or 8GB of RAM, plus 128GB or 256GB of storage space. The camera is a little different, as the 50MP main camera with OIS is joined by an 8MP wide-angle camera and a 5MP macro camera. The battery and the software are the same as the Galaxy A55.
Each new Galaxy A Series phone comes with Samsung’s Knox Vault security system, which keeps private information, such as passwords and biometric information from the in-display fingerprint sensor, safe. Both phones also have Auto Blocker, a security system that watches for malware and blocks malicious app installations. Moreover, both phones have four years of Android OS and OneUI updates, plus five years of security updates.
Both new Galaxy A Series phones have been announced for Europe and the U.K., and we’d expect U.S. availability to follow in the near future. The Samsung Galaxy A55 starts at 439 British pounds, which is about $564, and the Galaxy A35 starts at 339 pounds, or around $435. Happily, the prices are slightly lower than the launch prices for the Galaxy A54 and Galaxy A35 last year. In the U.S., the Galaxy A54 started at $450. The Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 will be released on March 20 in the U.K. and Europe.
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