“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” I’m guessing that’s what Samsung had in mind while crafting the new Galaxy A54, a device a notch or two below its flagship series.

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Here’s the low-down on its features and which attributes of the Samsung Galaxy A54 really shine through.

Design 

I love a pretty pastel gadget. The Samsung Galaxy A54, in the Awesome Violet review unit I was offered, looks and feels impressively dainty. The design is sleek with the smartphone measuring 8.2 mm at its thickest.

Although not necessarily the lightest option available at 202 grams, the device still feels anything but hefty. 

The glass rear panel looks sexy and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 from scratches and drops. Yes, it remained unscarred despite sharing space with a dozen objects in my handbags for weeks on end.

I wasn’t willing to try a ‘drop test’ on this pretty piece.

Although not necessarily the lightest option available at 202 grams, the device still feels anything but hefty. 

Although not necessarily the lightest option available at 202 grams, the device still feels anything but hefty.  | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

The 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display is vivid, like the tech equivalent of a bright neon light in the club!

Displays have always been Samsung’s strength and this one’s no exception with its ability to keep me hooked to content.

The 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display is vivid, like the tech equivalent of a bright neon light in the club!

The 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display is vivid, like the tech equivalent of a bright neon light in the club! | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

With up to 120 Hz refresh rate, the scrolling experience was smooth like butter, as was gaming.

I rather enjoyed watching the acerbic Dr. House on a re-run after almost a decade, and Dolby Atmos-powered speakers on the device carried the dialogues through with great clarity.

Outdoors visibility was no issue either with the screen being able to handle up to 1,000 nits of brightness.

Camera

The rather neat-looking three-lens camera setup on the rear panel includes an upgraded 50-megapixel primary lens, a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens, and a 5-megapixel macro lens. 

The device has an upgraded 50-megapixel primary lens

The device has an upgraded 50-megapixel primary lens | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Colours are rendered fairly well-saturated with decent contrast in photographs taken outdoors during the daytime.

While trying to capture some foliage around noon, the camera did tend to overexpose the image a bit. But it was nothing that a manual tweak of the exposure couldn’t quickly fix. Auto-focus is pretty snappy on the main clicker.

Auto-focus is pretty snappy on the main clicker

Auto-focus is pretty snappy on the main clicker | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Skin tones are also fairly accurate, although I personally think the Pixel 7a does a better job with brown skin tones.

Portrait mode gave me some rather endearing headshots of friends and family. The extent of the background blur is customisable on a scale of 0 to 7. Anything above 4 or 5 felt like an overkill. This can be adjusted in post-processing as well.

Skin texture also showed up quite accurately as well on the snapper, reminding me I need to schedule a visit to the dermat. 

The Samsung Galaxy A54 offers video recording of up to Ultra-HD 4K (3840 x 2160) @ 30fps. Short videos taken on a weekend drive out of town, rendered pretty decent footage for social media sharing, with decent optical stabilitisation as well. This kicks in only in videos taken upto 1080p @ 30fps. 

Short videos taken on a weekend drive out of town, rendered pretty decent footage for social media sharing

Short videos taken on a weekend drive out of town, rendered pretty decent footage for social media sharing | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Photos and videos zoomed even by 4x (or beyond) were pretty grainy and don’t really make for the best quality images.

However, low light photography was definitely a win on the Samsung Galaxy A54 — successfully managing to keep away too much noise and light leaks in the images.

Tech specs 
Displays have always been Samsung’s strength and this one’s no exception with its ability to keep me hooked to content.

Displays have always been Samsung’s strength and this one’s no exception with its ability to keep me hooked to content. | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Powering the Samsung Galaxy A54 is the octa-core A54: Exynos 1380 chipset, that the Korean tech giant uses in most of its mid-range smartphones. The system runs on Android 13 with the added veneer of Samsung’s One UI 5.1. 

The system functions smoothly given the 8 GB RAM, along with 256 GB of storage space. There’s a microSD card slot, which lets you supplement the storage space with up to an additional 1 TB — which should suffice for your media storage needs. The smartphone’s performance didn’t give me much reason to complain.

Multitasking wasn’t an issue, nor did I have to deal with any heating issues. Users get 100 GB of cloud storage on OneDrive — and God knows we all need extra cloud storage — along with a six-month trial of Microsoft 365 Basic.

With an IP67 rating, the smartphone can withstand being submerged in upto 1 meter of fresh water for up to 30 minutes. It’s also resistant to dust and sand, but I don’t suggest you get too adventurous with it.

With its 5,000 mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy A54 was — to my massive relief — a marathon runner. With low to moderate usage, I easily went up to two whole days before I had to plug it back in.

Even with heavy usage on a few days, it still powered through beyond the 1-day mark. Bye-bye, battery anxiety!

Verdict 
With its 5,000 mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy A54 was — to my massive relief — a marathon runner

With its 5,000 mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy A54 was — to my massive relief — a marathon runner | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

As a mid-range smartphone, the Samsung A54 has a couple of wins — an excellent super AMOLED display, a joyfully long battery life, and a design that’s easy on the eyes.

It’s also fairly future-proof with Samsung promising four OS updates and five years of security updates.

Where it might lag behind a bit is the mid-range processor which might not be able to keep pace over time. This is in contrast with something like the Google Pixel 7a, which costs about ₹5,000 more than the Samsung Galaxy A54 but is powered by the processor as Google’s flagship.

Samsung promises four OS updates and five years of security updates for the device.

Samsung promises four OS updates and five years of security updates for the device. | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Having said that, you can definitely consider the Samsung Galaxy A54, if you’re on the hunt for a good-looking device that will take care of your low-maintenance needs quite well — browsing, video calls, streaming media, casual gaming, the occasional photography — and will not see you sweat about the battery life ever!

  • Price: ₹38, 999.
  • Pros: Long-lasting battery, crisp display.
  • Cons: Some camera capabilities can be underwhelming.
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