@@adonistheo4008epends my dad can make an $100 android last three years. I just bought him an iPhone XR or xe i don’t remember bout I doubt he wants to go back
@@adonistheo4008 that's a one case thing. Oneplus has been off their game for awhile now. But Motorola, Asus, Samsung and others have been pushing just what you can get out of a low-mid tier phone. I still use my OP 7t fyi
This is how you should review a phone. You should always cover what to expect in the future after using a phone for quite a while. Would love to see more budget phone reviews like these.
Not to mention that what might be considered as "budget" in some select few countries are actually the "The highest I can possibly go if I don't have any children. No, really." tier in the rest of the world as your flagshit models are simply way out of the reach for the vast majority of the people, including in their dreams. I for one, don't care at all about the performance of the new "phone"s as long as the tech in them is 2017 "flagshit at a budget" grade or their later, midrange offerings with better efficiency. In terms of Samsung's lineup I'd say not the A series anymore but M or even F series would do for most people, including me (though I have a hard time tolerating the OEM ROMs and the ultimate promise of "we won't provide OS upgrades forever" but, that's some other topic I guess). Until Wi-Fi 7 & AR & hands-free motion controllers are within reach I'll keep not caring about the latest & greatest flagshit "phone"s and, just pick what's a good value at the local 2nd hand market while also being popular among the custom ROMs communities, if my Mi 6 (2017, Sd835) breaks beyond repair or something.
Watched this on my own A53 and have been loving every minute with it (owned since Black Friday '22). I came from having owned the A50 for three years, with no issues, loving everything about it. Main reasons I upgraded were the two extra gigs of RAM (I work in film/TV prod and do a lot of multitasking during the day), 5G cellular connectivity, improved cameras and stereo amp speakers. Don't listen to the bad reviews--speakers are great, fingerprint sensor is great (MUCH better than the A50), car calls are great... for the price, this is exactly what I was expecting. I plan to get at least three years out of my purchase.
@@en_vy iPhone 12s are currently selling around $600 unlocked, I just checked. Almost double the cost of an unlocked A53 for what I'd consider about the same thing. Not worth it imo, but to each their own.
@@tobiaskolar1349 Yeah they will. If not, look for a S21 ultra refurbished. Same battery life as A53 even with 85 percent battery health. How are you gonna pass up on that?
This line of Samsung phones has been a hidden gem for the last few years. I have the A52 and it's nearly identical except it has a slightly smaller battery (and a headphone jack). It still feels snappy, and I still easily get 2 days of battery life after using it for almost 2 years.
my s22 costs me only £30 a month for 2 years but its plan is unlimited everything inc tethering on 5g ! ,the plan alone is worth more than the device , just got to shop smart
It's nice to see big channels like you guys cover cheaper phones for once. My mom has been using an A50 for almost 4 years and it's still great, the battery life is absurd, even more compared to my note 9 (practically the same age)
shouldn't be surprising. you have to give up battery to gain power. the batteries, at best, will only be slightly bigger in high performance phone but they will eat at it way faster. not sure why people get surprised by this.
i still using my A50. it was still great phone if you didn't play any game. the one thing that suck is some A series always had the back Cover issue that suddenly loose.
I remember how mind-blowing it was when flagships started costing around $500. Seemed crazy at the time, but now things have really gotten out of hand. My last several phones have been mid-tier $250-$400 phones and they've been great. One of my favorites was the TCL 10 Pro.
Yep. Back when flip phones were the norm, I was wanting a phone with maps and decent camera and I didn’t buy because it was like $240. I couldn’t justify that. The first time I splurged on a flagship was the iPhone 5s and I think it was $500. People pay more for phones than computers now, it’s insane. While I do appreciate the value phones have brought. It can replace your gps, camera, computer and home internet (if you really wanted) But still, I refuse to pay what flagships cost these days. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah. It al comes down to being snappy enough. Also, unless you have only 32GB you can handle a decent number of apps and rely on mobile websites for the non crucial ones.
Yeah.. I would love a Sony Xperia 5 III (I like the slim design for 1-handed use and the very basic Android version) but it's almost 1000 euros.. And the Xperia 5 is their mid tier model. Wtf. They have an Xperia Ace which is a true compact phone I would love to have but it's only sold in Japan for unknown reasons. I hate how big most of the androids are. And no way I'm buying an iPhone mini.
@@Altrop yeah the pricing and strategy of sony is indeed kind of weird, but their stuff is just great. I eventually bought myself a refurbished 5 III for 850€ and tbh, couldn't be happier with it. It does everything it advertises, and eventhough the software kinda sucks (at least compared to competition) it feels like YOUR tool, and not something you were allowed to use by a gigacorp. It's nice :D Also camerafeatures are amazing. I design posters professionally and when I do photoshoots for them half of the time I end up using some of the secondary shots I've done with the phone, once you got used to shooting manually its so easy to test different angles and focal lengths to hone in on the final shot.
Been using the A53 and A52 for a hot minute now and this phone is exactly what most people need. Blown away by how low it has flown under the radar with little or no people in my friend network owning it. Crazy nice phone. The A52 was almost even better since it had a headphone jack which was super convenient to have.
I really liked the A52s which I recommended to one of my friends almost a year ago. It was basically an A53 with a headphone jack and a better chipset. It was also cheaper. Shame they didn't carry those features over to this one
Exactly what I said. A52s cheaper n better /w a headphone jack. Hopefully it will last me over 4y like the previous phone. Batt could be better though, my only complaint
My wife used this device for about a year and she was really happy about it. Only upgraded because I gave her my S21 FE. Only missing feature for her was also wireless charging, and there were some slowdowns. But it actually got better with updates. It's a damn good device, and if you don't get pixels where you live, this is absolutely the only way to get several years of updates.
@@iMichaelBrien better battery life is great and all, but not at the expense of losing half the performance. My S21fe last a full day. There is no reason to need a 2 day charge because I can charge it once a night while I sleep. 🤦♂️
Meh, I never update my phones. If it aint broken don't fix it. My phones are high end 5T and 8T. 7 years 2 phones. Maybe I'll buy another phone to waste money.
I've got the A52 5G and one of the main selling points you didn't mention was how Samsung is giving 3 major android updates then an additional 4th year of security updates. That is what pushed me to get the phone. I believe the A53 is even better with getting 4 major android updates.
On separate note, f*** the manufacturer who limits software updates for n-amount of year. This is a very bad practice. At least keep the security patch updates for as long as the device's shelf life.
@@davidbubble6863 OEMs don't make all the bits that go into phones, like modems and radios. Those bits mfgs' firmware is proprietary and locked in via contracts and will very well not work either by chance or on purpose with newer OS releases.
@@davidbubble6863 it’s obvious you don’t understand much about this so I’ll explain, devices stop getting software and security updates because the hardware is to old for example if there is a kernel exploit they cant patch it on older devices because the hardware isn’t compatible of running any of the newly created commands specifically for that exploit, it goes alot more in depth than this
Just watched this on my own A53....and being a power user that loves customizing and using every inch of power i get,i have zero complaints about slowdowns or slugness....also worth mentioning that the face recognition and the fingerprint issues along with other bugs were already fixed on their usual software updates...at least where i stand.When i picked it i was going for a phone that could last me 4/5 years and thats what i got.
I love my A53, great performance, great screen, great battery, great speakers, amazing camera, and it's built like an absolute tank, I can't tell you how many times I've dropped it, it's made a horrificly loud bang, my heart stops, and when I pick it up it's unharmed, I do have a case, but still
@Dio Del Vino A12 is their entry lineup....and was made very poorly, im afraid.I had the opportunity to open one up recently, and its not that great. Dont get me wrong,it's still very durable,just not that bright in terms of performance, sadly. Since they had already launched and announced a follow-up,the A54 5G it should become a little cheaper before this summer!😊
You don't know who Linus is? You don't know him personally? Or you don't know why people are buying that particular phone and you're addressing Linus? For the first two your grammar is fine. For the last one it should be "I don't know, Linus."
@@MarioKarasuma the response of Clownfish isn't wrong you have to look at the title of the video and then it becomes clear that Pretty-normal_dude LOL just answered the question posed in the video title and even though explaining a joke usually ruins it, but nevertheless I tried
I really like how you took the time to address reviews one star category at a time and addressed the common themes in each ... I usually find this to be the best way to use reviews, but don't know anyone else that takes the time to be that meticulous separating the wheat from the chaff (then again, it doesn't exactly come up in conversation often)
It is baffling that Linus took the time to do such a thorough review but completely ignored the most important part for many of us: the software! I wouldn't use this or any Samsung phone over a recent Google phone. Even with far superior specs, this thing isn't in the same class when it comes to what matters the most, the OS. I guess the average user doesn't care and will use any shiny turd with numbers 🤷
I have an a53 5g and I hate this phone. On paper it's decent but in everyday use it's hot dog shit. I switched back to my pixel 4a after 4 months of use. The pixel even with it's lower specs is hands down a better phone
@@dereksbooks this is like going into a bread shop and complaining that the bread has flour in it. No shit, its a samsung phone and runs samsung os, why would they need to mention it?
Im using the older version of this which is the A52S 5G which basically looks the same but it has a headphone jack, 8gb ram 256gb storage with a Snapdragon 778G and have never had any complaints with it. Still using it till now and Im still very happy with its performance.
@@matijagraho8887 yeah i think so too. Only advantage of the a53 is a bit bigger battery but the a52 outperforms it in most cases and in benchmarks too
I'm sorta unimpressed with my A52 5G Feels bulky in the hand and a bit slow, all compared to my previous LG G8 ThinQ - which I was forced to stop using due to my carrier suddenly not supporting it. Its haptics are also much worse.
@@atticusrussell1225 It's all pretty expected going from a G8. The haptics are definitely one thing they won't invest in on the A series, while from my G7 I can tell LG had a really nice setup, the A52 is a bigger phone, the 720G would be significantly slower than a flagship from 2019. As much as midrange phones have gotten more usable, they're still often missing those higher end things that even 3-4 year old phones can still give you.
I'm a Sales Manager for a UK mobile network. The A53 isn't a hot seller. It's actually the much cheaper A13. Most average people just want something that does the job without the expensive price tag. I think tech enthusiasts like us tend to forget that we're a niche demographic. Not everyone shops based off GSMArena specs. Most people just end up getting the S22 instead. That's because S prices are heavily subsidized by Samsung so they become the better deal.
@@Netryon By law we're required to discuss all that if asked. You can just ask how much you're paying for the phone (also called device cost/handset cost) and how much for the SIM (airtime cost). If you shop online, they usually show a table detailing your credit agreement and what you're paying for. For example our S23 device cost might be discounted to £680 (instead of retail price £849) and I would be able to show to the customer that actually they're getting a good deal on the phone. In these cases, airtime is also subsidised to encourage customers to take higher data bundles with the phone.
@@Terrobility No my League Of Legends Valorant/Overwatch role is not writing some sub threads and I just watch ukraine armed forces powered by a power bank.
I love that you guys reviewed a mid range more affordable phone. Keep this up and target these types of devices/gadgets more often. Everything keeps getting more expensive and a lot more people are having to be more frugal. I have started to skip all flagship reviews lately and really want more mid range bang for your buck hardware than "this $1000 speaker setup and home automated device"
I paid $250 for my A53 5G and I love it so far! I haven't had any of the issues that anyone else has had, but I did tweak it just a bit by setting the animation scaling back to .5x and registering my thumb print 3 times for better recognition. Other than that initial setup, it's been a great phone!
I got an A53 for my wife and M53 for me (we're from Brazil). They're quite equivalent, but the M53's screen is a bit bigger and better and it sports a MediaTek chipset, with a weaker camera and no stereo sound. It's also cheaper than the A53. We're both loving them!
A53 is an OK phone but A52s is the best option. You can totally do what you want to do with it but i have felt some stutters sometime. Snapdragon 778 is smoother to use, plus you still have a jack on A52s. A52s was really a hit in France. So sad, you dont' have the new Samsung updates policiers 😔. A52s vs A53...one year less update but better performance overall 🤔
My s20 ultra will probably be my last flagship. Samsung getting rid of the SD card slot killed the new models for me. I was ready to pull the trigger on another note but not being able to expand the storage was a deal breaker.
Since most people will use a case with it, adding wireless charging is less than $20 and you just put it between the case and the phone and it plugs into the charging port on the bottom, works great. I’ve got one on my Samsung A Series cell phone. It is called a “USB C Wireless cell phone charging adapter” make sure you get the appropriate amperage for your phone.
I have an A53, I really appreciate the stereo speakers, and can confirm battery life even with moderate to heavy use is still 2 days even after a full year with the phone. Edit: Also a very responsive (in screen) fingerprint scanner. Main reason I bought was for 5g and OLED display at such a low cost.
The A53 is trash (for 400). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent phone, but way to overpriced. I’ve had it for 6 months and regret it completely. Buy a S21 ultra or iPhone 12 Pro refurbished for the same price instead
@@en_vy I got a Xiaomi Mi11 for 500$. 108Mp Camera with OIS 8GB / 256GB UFS3.1 SD888 6.87" 1440p AMOLED 120Hz screen Stereo harmon kardon sound. Curved edge screen(some like it, some don't, I love it) Full glass and alluminum frame. Underscreen Fingerprint sensor And many more stuff. 67W fast charging and 50W wirelesscharing, 10W reverse wireless charging For 500$, it was a GREAT deal, top spec flagship spec, and really good camera and awesome screen.
@@en_vy refurbished isn't new (and we're talking about OLED screens, remember?). And most times, the warranty is at best, shady. Also sucks to give it as a gift.
@@LoneWanderer905 doesn’t have to be an oled screen. You can get 2 iPhone 11s instead of the goofy A53. I have 2 refurbished devices that are 3+ years old and there are no OLED issues either.
I went for the A52S instead of the A53 purely because of the headphone port and I gotta say it's pretty good. The battery life thing I believe you've underestimated! I've had this phone for a couple of months and with fairly regular use of Discord, TikTok, CZcams and a few other apps I managed on my first charge to get EIGHT DAYS out of it. I'm very impressed so far.
@@robertwolfgan idk could be true if you have it on airplane mode, 2 hours of screentime a day. It's mixed use and all services/connections on that drain a battery as well as inefficient use of processing power.
I have a 52s 5g (very similar to the 53) and I bought a pixel 7 pro to upgrade. Ended up sticking to the 52s 5g. Was more comfortable to use, screen was just as smooth, better colours and I just liked it more. Camera not as good but wasn't better by that much. Remember, just cos something is latest and greatest doesn't mean you need it. I'm glad mid range phones are now a viable option too.
Had a52 5g for 2 years. Motherboard got corrupted and stuck in a reboot loop. Had to put her down yesterday and go back to an old phone until A54 comes out
I bought this phone off the shelf at walmart for $250. Love it. Pretty much everything in this review is spot on to my experience. Cool to see this phone covered in a LTT video! Also loved the recent budget monitor vid you all did.
I find it interesting how these different budgets are becoming more common. I've been using the pixel 6 non pro and been loving it, probably gonna upgrade in a couple years to another $600~$700 phone as that is the amount I am confident spending on something as important to me as my phone
I will probably buy a pixel in a year or two and load GrapheneOS on it. Tired of my Galaxy S21+ (which I got for $750 on a deal thankfully) because of random bloatware I can't get rid of, a bootloader that's locked with no option of unlocking it (I have the US version), and forced complete OS upgrades without allowing me to defer it for more than 3 days. I absolutely hate the experience right now and I would have gotten something else but I didn't know about the options with the pixel at the time and the other options I did want (like the Xperia) don't run well on my carrier because US carriers are GARBAGE.
glad you loving it! my experience with pixel well with andriods phones as a whole has been nothing but nightmares, started on my oneplus 7 pro where i had burn in screen then i upgraded to the 8 pro as i claimed warrenty on the 7 pro. Then with 8 pro the oxygen os 12 was next to unuseable crashes every 20 min or so or random bugs. Then i replaced that with an s21 ultra me with my luck ofcourse that would given me nightmares, had firmware issue on it which is really strange where the phone will never boot up (ps it brand new from samsung directly not second hand) so i sent it back for a replacement, guess what same thing happened 2 more times. in total of 3 s21 ultras all brandnew had this werid firmware bug wont let me into andriod only stuck on like developer/safe mode. in the end samsung just given me a refund on the phone and i though let try the pixel 6 pro cant go wrong with google themself. I was wrong again back to the endless bugs and crashes i experienced on my oneplus 8 pro except this time is on stock andriod 13. After that i just given up on andriod and got myself a iphone 14 pro max and been happy since no issues no crashes phone just works.
I got this phone a few months ago when my Pixel 4 XL suddenly bricked itself overnight. Something that is not mentioned but that pushed me to this phone is Samsung commitment to 4 years of OS upgrades (and 5 years of security upgrades) on that price point. And in practice, we received Android 13 not too long after their flagships. Otherwise, I got none of the bugs mentioned, but I've noticed some sporadic slowdowns, that clears after a few seconds
I almost bought the A52 until I noticed the A53 and the promise of software support for years to come. That also put me over the edge to buy it, even at the higher price. Haven't regretted it yet.
I want them to mention software too, however, I know Samsung takes longer and puts updates out less frequently for older phones where Google phones are updated monthly. Regardless, Google and Samsung do really well.
I think you have got the update information wrong. Samsung A series update policy is 3 OS upgrades and 4 security updates. Only their flagships get 4 OS upgrades and 5 years of security updates. But still the software policy is way better than what other phone manufacturers are offering at this price point. My only concern is that they may slow the phone with the updates at the end of the software cycle. Edit: I have checked and got to know that Samsung offers 4 OS upgrades for A33, A53 and A73. Previously Samsung used to offer 3 OS upgrades for its mid range lineup, but now they have increased it to 4.
I opted to get the A52S around March last year because I needed a headphone jack. You can't go wrong with the recent A series phones. Be careful with the oleophobic coating though. I generally don't like screen guards, so mine has worn off already.
i own a a53 as well, and i love it. it feels premium, the camera's amazing, i love One UI and it has exandable storage which is so good. couple of problems i have, is that it does lag a bit sometimes, closing apps and such (it never hangs tho), and the camera shutter speed is kinda slow which sucks, but keep in mind, my phone is now a year old and it has 92/128 and 56/64 (SD) storage filled, so that could be it as well. i got the 8gb ram version for $390 which I'm happy with. Also my mom has the same phone and hers does not lag at all which could be due to the fact that her storage is barely filled. so overall, a solid buy
Great review! I have the Galaxy A52s, which is essentially almost the same phone but better (yes, the A53 was a downgrade). It has a better Snapdragon 778G CPU, a headphone jack and a charger in the box, but is otherwise exactly the same. Samsung's Android 12 update is what caused a ton of these weird bugs and slowdowns, and upgrading to Android 13 caused a noticeable performance boost on my phone. One bug that hasn't been fixed, is this: when having both Google Assistant and Bixby set to listen to their trigger phrases, they randomly stop working. Disabling one of the two fixes the problem. Also if you want better bass on the speakers, the phone's software has an equalizer built in, and you can make them sound way better with some fine tuning. Otherwise, everything you guys observed about the A53 reflects my experience with my A52s. They're both a great value.
Samsung A52s is quite literally the most popular phone from the A series. Sells out every time we have it in stock, and only then does the A53 sales start going up since A52s ain't available.
affordable? i got the S21 5G for 240$ (like new) open box from ebay cheaper and 10 times better than a53 or even the coming a54 even tho am a Samsung user I would get the nothing phone or the pixel 6a over the a53 whatever samsung is doing with the a53 it's not enough.
This costs as much as the PC I'm building with latest gen parts, not worth the price for the phone from my perspective, though there are also lots of taxes involved both ways.
I had the A52 4g and it was an amazing phone. I then upgraded to the S22 Ultra when it was on a heavy discount and honestly the experience is very similar except for performance and cameras.
Yeah they are both samsung phones other ones just more expensive so obviously they are similiar but the more expensive one has better cameras and better performance
@Carl Brenda well yeah but the only big improvements I saw in performance were in games really and for cameras, it was just the zoom and that it does 4k 60. Everything else was really similar. What I'm trying to say is that $300 phones are crazy good and barely far off their premium counterparts.
I have the A73. It's been brilliant. I used the S20+ for 2 years before. The only issue I'm having is the screen on mine often doesn't sense my finger touch more than likely due to dry skin. Other than that, does well enough and costs half of the flagship S22 line.
S20's at launch had some touch issues, specifically on the fingerprint scanner where it doesn't work when you put a thick screen protector like tempered glass on it.
I'm really glad you're covering mid range phones that a lot of people purchase still, please do more in future Linus of this. Btw, not everyone can afford the high end phones still. That was also the reason why Samsung does really well overall, they make sure that they meet their demographic from low to high end tier phones, Apple had it too I think not too long ago (but the product didn't perform in terms of sales). But many other phone companies are selling their mid tier phones like no tomorrow every year. So maybe Apple should consider going back to that again. Instead of always just selling a phone that costs an arm and a leg every year.
TVs would be nice too. A few times he has been confused that anyone was concerned about kind of "off brand" smart tv app support made me realize he is kind of out of touch with the TVs most people are buying. Sure I'd love a 60" android tv, but I have a 40" TCL with some weird BS smart tv system because it was cheap and seemed like an okay value. It's a lot of work per video so I understand why they don't do it, but a 5-6 option midrange Phone roundup and TV roundup among other things once a year or something would be amazing. Hopefully, labs can do that or something.
@@christopherpedersen1820 I agree, he should bring back these sort of content again in my opinion. I remember he used to upload them way back and then he stopped and went back to high end products. I'm sure Linus and his team are looking at everyone's feedback and I believe he will go back to review mid tier tech again in future.
Apple technically has a mid tier phone (iPhone SE3), but IMO it only exists to make the more premium phones look good by comparison. Really its only redeeming qualities are being a cheaper iOS device, for people who want iOS, and having a top of the line processor, which destroys battery life. Meanwhile most Android manufacturers throw tons of features at their mid range phones, and the processors are usually good enough to handle most less demanding games (which make up the overwhelming majority of the mobile gaming segment).
Hmm… maybe Apples strategy is just selling refurbs or older devices? From the Top Selling Amazon chart, the #1 selling phone was actually the iPhone 11 refurb, not the A53. The combination of superior silicon + long term support (iPhone 5S ~10 yrs old just received an update yesterday) kinda makes the case against a midrange iPhone and Apple’s data might reflect that. Also, in the US, carriers are very aggressive w/ promotions for upgrading to the newest iPhone and when they need to clear stock of the previous ones.
Two of my family members own Galaxy A52S - great phone with Snapdragon chip - they are really satisfied with it. I think LMG should do more reviews on such phones
@@sidewalkere Could be found for cheaper too. It's like they made a phone that's just to good to be allowed to exist as is, so they once again downgraded, upped the price and called it a new model.
I just bought this phone. The number one reason I did was because of the microSD slot (although I was still not happy with no aux port, and I wish that the fingerprint sensor was a cutout in the back which is another awesome but disappearing feature). I was honestly shocked to discover that almost no phones (including the A54 which 'followed' this phone I assume) include microSD slots anymore. WHY?? They are so useful, now my phone has 1.126 TBs of space on it so I can store pictures and offline audio.
Phone manufacturers seem to be trying to get rid of all ports and openings--improved waterproofing, I guess, and lower costs. I guess we're supposed to use cloud storage. MicroSD slot was a big factor in my latest phone--used S10+.
@migmota HELLO!!! I have an s20 FE and, at first i was a bit disappointed, however, since its a samsung, it has goodlock, and i've customized it so much that i wouldn't want it any other way. Plus, if this android version gets TOO outdated, i can switch to lineageos, the folks at XDA already have some
My partner has been using an A53 for a few months. She's not a power user by any means, and really has had no complaints except for the speaker quality. The selling points for her were well, Samsung, expandable storage (lots of files on SD from her old phone!), and the price. Honestly I've been super impressed with it.
sorry but the main shooter pictures look outright trash. My SE 2020 makes waay better pictures - with a single lense/sensor. Not mentioning CPU performance.
I have an A52s, had it about a year and I still love it, I'd consider myself a semi heavy user, and I've not had a single issue, I even emulate on it, including PS2 games using AetherSX2 without issue. It would have been nice to see you check out DEX in this review, it definitely doesn't get near the love it deserves, and for uses such as emulation, it is incredible.
The A52s's processor is so much better than that of the A52. The Snapdragon 750g in my A52 performs really badly. I wish I had looked into the A52s cause I like just about everything else about this phone
I'm so happy with my A52s as well. At the time I bought it, the A53 was just released and at the time, the A52s actually edged out the A53. It's been some 9 months and I'm still happy. Feels like this thing is gonna last me years.
Spot on. I traded in to Samsung my ancient Note 4 for the A53 at launch at a big discount and after getting over the loss of the pen and the headphone jack (bought Bluetooth buds) I found it well built, great battery life and does everything well. I don't play any games on it so no worries about the CPU or GPU power. Videos look great on it. For recording videos though, the Note 4 had better mics. I enabled the new battery preserver mode that a software update delivered, limiting the max charge to 85%. With the big battery in it, you still can go well over a day on a charge and don't have to stress the battery by charging to 100%. When the battery does age, you can switch off the limiter to eek out the battery a bit more. Still... wish they'd bring back removable batteries, like on the Note 4. I changed the battery twice on it and so could use it for many years until the OS was just too old and unsupported.
Nice coverage, Linus. I went for an A70 when it was released and it has been great. I ended up going for an S21 FE because of Dex as it is useful to me. I hope Dex comes to the A series one day.
@@pixels_per_inch A53 was never a successor to A52s, so it wasn't a bait n switch. A53 was a successor to A52 instead. A52s was and is really good though. Still has 2 more years of software updates (not too sure), SD chip and a 3.5mm headphone jack. A charging brick too guys!!!
When the Black Friday sales were happening, I considered both phones. I ended up with the 6a because the sale price was a bit lower and I'm happy with it (the $70 trade in for my 4a was cool too). I'd have happily pulled the trigger on the A53 though if it'd been the cheaper one when I looked. They are both really good mid-tier phones imo :)
For me the 6a with its superior camera and better performance thanks to Tensor G1 edges out the A53. Being stuck at 60hz is kinda bad tho if youve ever had a high refresh phone. But other Than that the 6a is brilliant and its about the same price in my country since Samsung operates here with massive markups. Like 10-20% sometimes
If anyone is looking for a new phone I'd recommend Amazon renewed great deals for like 1/3 the price. Comes pretty much as new most of the time, sometimes you might get unlucky and that just means you can return it. 3x return window
Instead of a new midrange, I prefer to go for a previous gen flagship. You get close to top of the line experience for half the price (or less). Even the software support is usually more guaranteed for flagship models for longer periods of time than on the midrange ones.
@@assetaden6662 For this particular one, yes. Samsung has been doing a good job in pushing their device's life. But still, 3 years of update is more than enough for me, as I usually upgrade my phone every other year. For a more detailed comparison, I recommend Mrwhosetheboss's video: czcams.com/video/XzKbTtFhJ8M/video.html Basically an old flagship beats new midrange in every aspect except battery, updates, and warranty. The warranty I genuinely think is just a scam; update also lasts long enough for me to bother; battery is the issue that needs a fix (like a power brick on the way, you know).
That's what I always do. Buy a 2 year old flagship (in brand new state), use until it dies and repeat. You get the best phones for a fraction of the price. Now rocking an S10 like Plouffe which is still waaay better than a current gen midrange... except for the battery life of course, but I don't mind it.
@@en_vy a used iPhones still sells for £400 to £500 more or less that is still not affordable for people when they go second had £280 max then I'm good. Anything above that (in this case apple) they can go sit in the corner lol. Also I'd never recommend a second iPhone when it costs a hand (£400-£500) when people at the lower end are just looking for a phone that just works, nothing too fancy.
Hilariously just got this phone about a week ago 😆 and have been in love with it since my LG Q70's screen shattered and did not want to pay for the screen to be replaced or attempt the replacement which based on research required the ENTIRE phone to be taken apart to just get at the ribbon cable. Edit: Something missed, I am not aware if it has become normal but the A53 has protective battery setting allowing you to lower the max charge percent to 85% to protect from over charging.
@@fredmanM literally same, my S10 still feels like a great phone in many aspects (the 4 year old camera is still great for example) but the battery only lasts about 2/3 hours before it needs charging
Been using an A53 for a few months now, coming from a S9+ i definitely noticed the difference in build quality and speaker quality, but that's to be expected going from flagship to midrange. Great phone for the price. Don't need anything more expensive since i don't play games on it anyway. I have noticed ever since one of the recent software patches though that my battery percentage gets stuck and rebooting is the only thing that fixes it. Hopefully they fix that soon, happened like 3 times now.
when u scroll down linus videos, does it lags? becouse mine does..... same a53 like yours.. 4 and 5g network with poor coverage... and if u tik tok it for 40 minute u need to find a charger..... for 350? no thanks
@@danii.a3740 you mean scrolling through the comments? Cause i don't notice any lag when i do that. I do not use tik tok so i don't have any experience with that, but if your battery really drains that quickly then maybe an app, be it tik tok or something else, is using a lot of power for some reason. Either that or maybe something is wrong with your battery.
Going from 5 years of A50 to Last year's A52s, I was pleasantly surprised at the difference between the two! I kept feeling giddy each time I felt how smooth it worked as compared to the older A50 lol. And seeing the difference between the A53 and A52s, I'm WAY happier with the choice I made!
A52s is better option if it still available, it's decently faster with 778G under the hood. I remember last year when they announced this phone (A53), the price (for non retail store) for the older model but better (A52s) is getting higher due to disappointment of the spec for A53
I tried to buy a new A52s in NZ from a small computer store since no one else sells them now. Got sent an open box A52 non s model, so I sent it back and bought the A53 elsewhere. It's been great so far. Only complaint is the lack of 3.5mm jack because it requires a Samsung brand 3.5mm to USB-C adapter. My old Huawei adapter prompts a message about using a Samsung adapter, and a Sansai brand one only worked a couple of times and wasn't worth the hassle trying to get it working. Went to buy a Samsung adapter and they had sold out everywhere in NZ.
@@reviewchannel3038 I like to listen to music or podcasts while driving. My old phone I could charge and plug into my car stereo at the same time. Sadly my 2007 Toyota Mark X only has Bluetooth for calls, it doesn't allow media playback.
I love the addition of customer reviews in the review itself. It gives many opinions on the product and makes me feel better about buying a device. Keep up the great work guys!
As a former A53 and now S23 user, one of the first things I am changing in the settings is to manually turn on the bass boost. It makes the phone's speakers sound way better from the lowest volume to max. half the volume. On higher volume the bass kinda turns down a bit to how it sounds without bass boost on, due to physics (because there simply isn't enough space for that much bass in any phone).
I use mime throughout the day near constantly due to the nature of my work, including photo taking as part of it, its never let me down, and the video camera part is fantastic for shows, can't fault the device and the A series- Always my recommendation, I think the only time I'd switch (and use it as a spare) is if a QWERTY phone came along with similar spec and utility.
I got A52 but not the 5G version. It was a nice phone, but now i regrett it to some point. Many bugs, slow software, dying, long charging time and losing battery fast. But ok phone at the end
@Matej Mikulčić The only issue I have found is the battery capacity getting smaller than the 4500 capacity it started with, however I chalked that up to extreme use. Something interesting is how competitive the mid range market is, if one phone isn't for you, there's an absolute sea of them to try.
I've stuck to lower end and somewhat midrange models. This does look pretty solid! My current Motorola phone is a bit of a step down in pretty much every spec except the headphone jack (which I use a lot), but feels sufficient for the most part. I do long for the days of directly accessible batteries.
@@ScottJWaldron I remember when that came out I was still working at Boost Mobile. If I remember right the processor was the weak point of that model. Does it still retain the stylus properly? That was one of the points I was concerned about when I was selling that model to people.
@@shred1894 A few times the stylus button has been clicked on accident but has never fallen out. Definitely a step up from the LG Stylo phones I used before it. Going from 16gb or 32gb to 128gb of internal storage is huge, lol.
I do still use a Nokia 7 Plus, since i don't care about the camera or mobile games. But it has a nice display, micro sd and a headphone jack. Good as a portable media player.
I know this is an old video. My A53 just had its first anniversary with me now in November and I haven't had any of the issues mention here that people are complaining about. Not even the battery had slowed down at all. Thinking on upgrading to the A54 soon. Hope it is as good.
Agreed for the most part. I definitely notice the weak processor though. I particularly feel it when I'm at work listening to music and have to open a app or two at the same time. It really struggles.
It's real predecessor was the A52s, not the A52, and that thing had a great processor. The only drawback from the A52s is that you get one update less and started one Android update earlier despite being only a few months older. So while the A52s gets up to Android 14 (starting from 11), the A53 goes from 12 to 16.
It's really a shame that the A52s was so hard to find. It had a much better chip than the A52 for not a lot more money. The Snapdragon 750g in my current A52 is really killing me It's so slow and forces me to choose between battery life and a good experience
For someone who rocked the Note 9 as long as I could, I think I found the *perfect* replacement. The Motorola Moto G Stylus 5g is essentially as close to a new Note 9 as you're going to get imo. The phone has the built in Stylus like the Note, and I use that daily. Also, the 3.5mm Jack still exists on this device. The best part is you can get it for less than $200USD, new. I've been really happy with mine, the only complaint being the Stylus needed to be replaced quicker than the tip from my old Note 9's.
Exactly a year ago I was looking for a phone, I ended up to choose between the new a53 or a52s from 2021 and the big winner was the a52s being more faster and the a53 from a lot of reviews was looking more like a scam, no improvements at all compared to the a52s.
I'm glad they mentioned the samsung bloat - Yes, I had an A51 and the only way to get it usable without crazy low frames was a nice ADB mass package removal. it's funny how much you can remove while keeping a functional phone. I did that to the A52, and my Fold4 as well (be careful with the fold i broke mine and had to reset due to dependencies) and it's going to be an immediate default task for all samsung devices, including the Tab8 ultra (which didn't really need it, but might help in the long run.) I did not set them up with a samsung account, but did add one later to my fold -- it didn't really seem to change any performance? Not sure why that'd slow down, the processes seem to run regardless of being singed in. either way. Great video, glad this phone gets some recognition! Edit: all devices were unlocked (except the a52)
Please can you give me the resource link/name from where I can debloat my S20+
Před rokem+1
Thanks for the comment!! almost 2 pages of bloat is A LOT of bloat, Linus tried but couldn't properly evaluate the bloatware included in samsung phones (there is literally a samsung app for every feature of the phone and most of them are worse than the stock google/android or the ones available on the play store).
Over the years. I've have had the a50, a51, a52. Some several times, while in between having nokia, xiaomi, huawei, iphone and motorola. But time to tumr i always come back to the samsung, the last one I had again was the a52, but last month I slep and slide while holding it, the courner hit the ice cracking the screen display. They cracke easy, those screens. But I still love them.
I have an a52s as a backup phone (and music player with a 1TB micro SD) which interestingly is more powerful than the a53, has a headphone jack and there are some things I even prefer to my Xiaomi flagship. My only complaint is the Samsung bloatware which you can get rid of anyway.
Great video! I think the fact that several different use cases were discussed in this video really made this one stand out. I'm still a bit surprised you hadn't mentioned that the Pixel 6 has a much stronger processor in weighing alternatives (since camera and processor are the 6a's advantages), which would probably appeal to people who are playing more games, but I certainly learned a bit more about this phone that I hadn't known before. Will be handy to know when people ask me for mid-range phone recommendations! It's great that both these phones have 5 years of security updates from their manufacturers as well, which makes them both great options.
For most of my life I bought phones that did not exceed $130 price. I didn't even have a true mid ranger until 2016. Overall, these mid range devices can do pretty much everything a flagship can do (with the notable exception of high-end gaming), it might just take a fraction of a second longer. If you are not into Mobile gaming or a mobile photography buff, there's really no reason to get a flagship these days.
I love Marco cameras. So glad LTT covered that on this phone, most of the competitors have a Macro camera but I'm so glad Samsung is using Marco cameras instead... (There's a typo in the camera section)
I intend to buy A52s when this phone came out, expecting the price cut. But alas the lack of audio jack and "inferior" processor of A53 made the price for A52s going up (at least in my country). So I finally bought A33 because it's closer to my budget. I can say I'm quite happy with my phone so far. And 4 OS update + 5 years security update are sweet deal, I hope the hardware can keep up.
I got the A52s 6 months ago for 300€ at the time the A53 cost 330€ for essentially the same phone but without the headphone jack ... trading it for a slightly bigger battery
@@sergiu1605 checked and you were right and i was wrong , the A53 has an exynos cpu and is 20% worse and the graphics are 33% worse ... wow, dodged a bullet right there when I got the A52s on June of 2022
The 6a not only has a better camera but the tensor chip is way better than the exynos in the a53. It feels snapier and quicker. Thats what made me choose the 6a. Its also smaller which is easier to carry.
@@steveosk8s i also have big hands. I had a lg velvet previously. It was nice having a big screen but it was a pain to carry and you couldn't type with one hand. Holding it for a long time would make your hand hurt. I am always on youtube and i always watch content. For me the pixel 6a is the perfect size i feel no compromise at all downgrading to a smaller screen.
The 6a is surprisingly good. I got one a few months back from BestBuy for about $220 and was really impressed. I love how the software utilizes the excellent haptic engine to give you a good experience. Camera was pretty good as well. Solid device!
Bought the a51 3 years ago, still going strong eslec since they brought it up to android 13 and the newest version of one ui which shows the long lasting support, all in all the a50 series is a great phone for the price
My one and only issue with the A53 in my experience hands on with a couple that my friends had, was the processing power. I however had no idea they had a 5000mah battery! That makes up for it to an extent for me as far as value goes. That is the same size battery that I will get in the S23 ultra that I plan on getting when it comes out
@@1Gadd what does Li-Po have to do with these phones? they are both li-ion and both the same voltage as well from what I can tell. I'm sure the S23 ultra may have better cells or something that degrades a little slower but who knows. Not really sure what your argument is? Li-po is awesome for larger batteries but not as energy dense as Li-ion which is why it's not in phones, at least not these, im not pretending to have researched every single phone.
The reason why I got an A53 over other phones is that it is typically the price point where I buy phones. I had a OnePlus 5t before this, and a OnePlus One before that. I was somewhat still happy with my 5t, but I needed a phone with better antenna and band support as 5G became a thing since I got the phone. The A53 covers all the checkboxes of what a smartphone does, and it scores between good and great. Two major pluses that make the A53 better than most flagship are band support, and expandable storage. I like to shoot a lot of videos on my phone when I'm not lugging my camera with me, and having a 512GB micro SD in the phone means that I don't have to worry about storage. Also, it supports Widevine L1. I hate that this is a plus, but many cheap phones that can compete with the A53 from Chinese companies typically have a Level 3 certification. That means you can't stream Netflix in full 1080 on your phone for example.
ordered a A54 after this vid after my S10 broke (rip), seems to be about the same as the A53 but a bit better overall. It's a genuine upgrade from the S10 and feels premium. never buying a flagship again.
I went from my A51 to a pixel 7, and I was very happy with that upgrade. The processing power on the pixel is leagues above the 51, and according to geek bench also roughly 1.7x the a53 as well. There are some things that annoy me (lack of sd card, headphone jack, and charger in the box), but considering I got to through my carrier for 5$ more a month than I was paying before I'm very happy with it! It's a toss-up in terms of the apps, there are some I prefer the google version of, some I prefer the Samsung version of, but being able to open apps and they load in literally fractions of the time is worth it. Also with the 6a comparison, the 6a is far better than the a53 in processing power from what I understand.
Well, the A51 was also extremely, EXTREMELY SLOW (moms' older phone). That A53 however, feels and works like a flagship to most normies. My mom got one and it feels as fast as my iPhone 13 Pro. I don't feel any difference really, speed-wise.
@@nooneinpart A52S was a way better phone tho. They fucked up the A72 chipset and the 52S was a better deal. The only good thing about the 72 was the telephoto lens, but it was removed on the 73. Now rumors say that the A74 wont even exist. So they made their phones slower, made the zoom worse and expected people to upgrade? And now they cancel it.
I have had this phone for over 6 months and agree with pretty much everything here. I'd be a little harsher on the camera, especially at night and with the image stabilisation but it is not bad by any means. There have been a few freezes but not many at all and even my previous Samsung Galaxy S20+ had those after about a year. The face recognition is often poor whilst other times inexplicably it recognises me straight away even when wearing a hat or with facial hair that I don't usually have. The fingerprint scanner trick mentioned is a good one and it works lightning fast most pretty much 100% of the time so I don't even notice the poor facial recognition as my thumb instinctively goes straight to the sensor. I also have dropped this phone many times and the only issue is a totally superficial inch long crack in the back plastic whereas on a glass back it would have been a AU$150 repair job at least 3 times so far.
I've had the 53 since August, and the 51 for two years before that. They were both really good phones, especially for the price. I use my A53 daily, and have had no issues with it since I got it. The camera is good, its not slow, and i've had a good experience with facial and fingerprint recognition.
Před rokem
@@TheTwistedStone when you have problems you reset the phone with a computer, specially if you updated the android version. That way it will work as the first day.
I know multiple people who've had Samsung phones start freezing and stuttering after only a year or two, even with flagship models. I had the same experience with my first Samsung phone from around 2016. It's really turned me off the brand, and if I was in the market for a new phone I'd try to avoid it. My current phone is a Pixel 4A, which I've had since launch in 2020, and it still feels as responsive as when I bought it.
@@Blazik3n99 Current phone is my old Samsung Note 4 which has never frozen up in the many years I have owned it. Yes it's had a fair few new batteries.... :) I like the infra red and the pointy stick.....
I abandoned iPhones in 2019 for the first time since my iPhone 3, and went with a Samsung A70 instead of an S-series phone. I felt the S-series was overkill; I don't play high-end games on my phone. The cameras, storage space, speedy charging, and ample battery life were massive improvements over my iPhone 6. Yes, the fingerprint scanner is awful, I just use facial (which works unless I'm wearing sunglasses) or a pin number. But to this day, my A70 is still going strong. I have no need to upgrade, and my A70 has lasted me longer than any iPhone I had.
The A series is amazing and has improved so much. My dad has an A70, my mom has an A72, my uncle has an A52, and my other uncle has a Galaxy A31 and I have his old A50 in addition to my Note 9 and S22 Ultra. For non power users, the A series is incredible.
wow the majorty of you family has samsung yea the A seires is ok for kids or old people the ultra is a bit over kill for me I have the regular s21 and it's more than enough for me.
what really matters to me is refresh rate, battery, and processing power. I don't play games often, if ever, but I do appreciate the ability to emulate old systems on the go, so I usually go flagship. S23 Ultra can run F-Zero GX with no slowdown, where my old Fold 3 cannot.
@TwinTurbo Ray a52s has a better chip. A53 a bigger battery. Choose performance or battery life. But in A52s the battery is enough, don't need anymore so I picked it.
A52s has _2 fewer years of software updates_ too so I might sacrifice a bit of performance for this kind of longevity...? Yes clock speeds are low on Exynos 1280 and worse ISP means worse pics than Snapdragon and 🍎counterparts (look at iPhone 11 and XR-1st and 3rd place respectively on Amazon) but Snapdragon 835 _with the same 2.4GHz clock speed as that Exynos_ still holds up well in 2022 so feel free to pick it up
@@paultasker7788 The problem with the a53 is that even though the battery is like 10% bigger, it actually gets less battery life than the a52s because the CPU is that much less efficient. For performance you would choose the a52s, and for battery life you would also choose the a52s.
@@Ramon22282 I'm sure the A53 scored higher than A52s in battery benchmarks but as a 52s owner I'm not complaining if the battery is as good. To be honest it's very decent. Most days have about 40 percent left spare even with a family location tracker running GPS all day and even when I forget to charge I can get through a work day with 30 percent and still have 15 percent left at the end of the day if I put powersave on.
For me a 1 or 2 yr old flagship is the way to go...they are built better and dont feel plasticy. Durability is key and they tend to last way longer than what you expect. I am about to replace my s9 with an s21 ultra as they are in the $340-$400 range
I got the phone on amazon for £240 quid. Had it for half a year now; it's great and does what most people need a phone to do without being sluggish. The battery life was one of the main selling points for me, so tired of having my phone die after a day.
@@KisKano5 Yah performance wise A52 though older is still superior to A53 but buying it now wouldn't be much sensible as it's got only I believe 1 or 2 OS upgrades left.
My a52 5G (8/256) is as fast as new after almost 2 years of heavy use, despite being slower than a52s. Got all the updates, still a lot of support time to go. Very usable all-around phones, few if any complaints by me.
Amazing, an LTT sponsor I'm already using. Anydesk is really convenient to connect between my devices, and I've been using it for years. By the way I still think the Google Pixel 6a is the better choice due to the way better processing power by the Tensor Chip and the great Google software experience. Thanks for the video as always Linus!
I used anydesk too. Its great, but still missing some future. For example it would be great to use it as a second monitor, or a second user interface for the same pc.
I had the a33 (same specs as the a53) for a month before I got my iPhone 11, the processing power on that phone is perfect, not the best but I was getting right into 60-70+ fps on Minecraft for the phone. It’s 5000mah battery is also a dream, and one up 5 is also awesome. If you have the money to spend your should definitely get the a33 or the a53.
I was on a vacation with my whole family, until my mom lost her phone. I do not remember which phone it was but straight after that, she bought this phone. It is so good
Considering im rocking a s9+ that got cracked recently and feels sluggish from updates, this was the review I needed. I ran into bell the other week and could not decide on a possible replacement but this is looking very promising. No aux compatibility but still has micro sd expansion with all the other bells and whistles. Thank linus
If you can find an A52s (I'm emphasizing the s) instead of an A53 and you don't care about getting one less year of software updates, you could get that instead. I have it and it's essentially the same phone, but with a faster Snapdragon 778G CPU and a headphone jack. If you care about those 2 and you manage to find an A52s (which is hard now since production stopped), you could also consider that.
Might not have Aux but the range of Bluetooth accessories for relatively cheap can compensate. Between headsets and Bluetooth receivers you can get by without them.
I've got an S9, its starting to feel sluggish and is scratched to death (no cracks tho!) I think ill probably repair newer broken flagship phone when I want to upgrade, but this phone still does all I need it for
@@thee_number_six6227 That is true as I already have changed to blue tooth buds within the past year. Id say it's more for the niche sound systems I like to connect to directly opposed to not being able to do so wirelessly with how some of them are configured.
Exactly. They're extremely expensive at first but a flagship phone can easily last for over 5 years if cared for. Luckily today I've even seen midrange phones last as long so you can spend even less money.
Why not? Makes perfect sense. Collect money > use it lightly and sell it as soon as something new comes out. To not lose on its value. Adding just some additional money (collected more easily) you get another flagship upgrade every year. It's actually moronic to buy flagship and then let it lose its value slowly over more years. Being stuck with something used and more limited, instead of selling it when lightly used and still costly.
Imagine getting a 800 dollar phone, so you can "game" on it. Please grow up, build a pc for the gaming & get a 2-300 dollar phone. I mean come on, in 5 years time everybody needs a whole damn foldable laptop with 6 power banks in their pocket. Sheople haha..
Weird that when Linus was talking about the lackluster build quality of past mid range phones, he showed the HTC One M8, which was actually a flagship and to this day was my favorite phone ever lol
Its even funnier when you realize that back then, the Samsung phones were the ones with the poor build quality, even the Samsung flagships were entirely made from plastic back then.. And not to mention that, that specific HTC (M8) had among the best materials and build quality available back then.. but dont read too much into it, it was just a random clip one of his editors put there because he was probably tired after probably a lot of work, so he probably just grabbed a random clip from an old phone
I got the A53 for $200 with Straight Talk and literally just got the S23 since I switched to TMobile. I liked the size of the A53 compared to the smaller S23. The A53 was a GREAT phone. I really hope I enjoy the S23 just as much.
I have a A71 currently and i was amazed by its battery life, that i may just end up only using midrangers with big batteries. Flagships are nice, but they don't last as long when using them.
My Samsung S6 Edge is 5 years now and I bought it used so it's a lot older. Exynos is annoying but flagships do last long. Since mid last year I've bought LG G4, G5 and now I'm using G6. All bought for 30 to $40 from China. 🇨🇳 The G6 was a Verizon unit, G4 Sprint and G5 Korean variant. I only buy used because I enjoy it and I save a ton.
It’s just like Marques said on MKBHD: Good phones are getting cheaper & cheap phones are getting better.
Mkbhd is samsung fan boi
@@adonistheo4008 OnePlus is Chinese
@@adonistheo4008epends my dad can make an $100 android last three years. I just bought him an iPhone XR or xe i don’t remember bout I doubt he wants to go back
@@adonistheo4008 that's a one case thing. Oneplus has been off their game for awhile now. But Motorola, Asus, Samsung and others have been pushing just what you can get out of a low-mid tier phone.
I still use my OP 7t fyi
NOPE! Cheap phones are getting better, but good phones (flagships) are not getting cheaper.
love the "why is everyone buying" series, and now that you have a proper test lab i believe is going to get even better for pc peripherals
This is how you should review a phone. You should always cover what to expect in the future after using a phone for quite a while. Would love to see more budget phone reviews like these.
Not to mention that what might be considered as "budget" in some select few countries are actually the "The highest I can possibly go if I don't have any children. No, really." tier in the rest of the world as your flagshit models are simply way out of the reach for the vast majority of the people, including in their dreams.
I for one, don't care at all about the performance of the new "phone"s as long as the tech in them is 2017 "flagshit at a budget" grade or their later, midrange offerings with better efficiency. In terms of Samsung's lineup I'd say not the A series anymore but M or even F series would do for most people, including me (though I have a hard time tolerating the OEM ROMs and the ultimate promise of "we won't provide OS upgrades forever" but, that's some other topic I guess).
Until Wi-Fi 7 & AR & hands-free motion controllers are within reach I'll keep not caring about the latest & greatest flagshit "phone"s and, just pick what's a good value at the local 2nd hand market while also being popular among the custom ROMs communities, if my Mi 6 (2017, Sd835) breaks beyond repair or something.
budget? what planet do you live on? a budget phone is one that costs £150 not one that costs over £350. (it's £399 in the UK)
@@jamesmay1322 This - £150 ($180us/$244ca) is a more realistic value for the budget market. Cheers.
if your interested in more budget phones, I'd recommend the samsung A series (currently on an A13) or some of the motorola budget cheapies
Watched this on my own A53 and have been loving every minute with it (owned since Black Friday '22). I came from having owned the A50 for three years, with no issues, loving everything about it. Main reasons I upgraded were the two extra gigs of RAM (I work in film/TV prod and do a lot of multitasking during the day), 5G cellular connectivity, improved cameras and stereo amp speakers. Don't listen to the bad reviews--speakers are great, fingerprint sensor is great (MUCH better than the A50), car calls are great... for the price, this is exactly what I was expecting. I plan to get at least three years out of my purchase.
It’s trash though. 350 bucks? Get an iPhone 12 instead for the same thing but far better
@@en_vy iPhone 12s are currently selling around $600 unlocked, I just checked. Almost double the cost of an unlocked A53 for what I'd consider about the same thing. Not worth it imo, but to each their own.
@@DanKidsYouNot refurbished
@@en_vy yeah refurbished iPhone sure will have good baterry health
@@tobiaskolar1349 Yeah they will. If not, look for a S21 ultra refurbished. Same battery life as A53 even with 85 percent battery health. How are you gonna pass up on that?
This line of Samsung phones has been a hidden gem for the last few years. I have the A52 and it's nearly identical except it has a slightly smaller battery (and a headphone jack). It still feels snappy, and I still easily get 2 days of battery life after using it for almost 2 years.
my s22 costs me only £30 a month for 2 years but its plan is unlimited everything inc tethering on 5g ! ,the plan alone is worth more than the device , just got to shop smart
Same I still get 7 to 8 hour SOT with AOD tap to turn on and 90Hz on..
has to be two days of light use.
@@bad26498 yeah people who say the get 2+ days use on one charge clearly don’t use it for much
should i buy a52s? i wanna play genshin and do phone photography
It's nice to see big channels like you guys cover cheaper phones for once.
My mom has been using an A50 for almost 4 years and it's still great, the battery life is absurd, even more compared to my note 9 (practically the same age)
shouldn't be surprising. you have to give up battery to gain power. the batteries, at best, will only be slightly bigger in high performance phone but they will eat at it way faster. not sure why people get surprised by this.
My mom has a A50 too. She is happy with it because it does everything she wants in a smartphone.
If she does want more performance go for the s21 since they are under $400
Yeah, I had an a50 for like 2 years and was really happy with it, the only reason I got an a52 was because I broke the screen
i still using my A50. it was still great phone if you didn't play any game. the one thing that suck is some A series always had the back Cover issue that suddenly loose.
I remember how mind-blowing it was when flagships started costing around $500. Seemed crazy at the time, but now things have really gotten out of hand. My last several phones have been mid-tier $250-$400 phones and they've been great. One of my favorites was the TCL 10 Pro.
Yep. Back when flip phones were the norm, I was wanting a phone with maps and decent camera and I didn’t buy because it was like $240. I couldn’t justify that.
The first time I splurged on a flagship was the iPhone 5s and I think it was $500.
People pay more for phones than computers now, it’s insane. While I do appreciate the value phones have brought. It can replace your gps, camera, computer and home internet (if you really wanted)
But still, I refuse to pay what flagships cost these days. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah. It al comes down to being snappy enough. Also, unless you have only 32GB you can handle a decent number of apps and rely on mobile websites for the non crucial ones.
Yeah.. I would love a Sony Xperia 5 III (I like the slim design for 1-handed use and the very basic Android version) but it's almost 1000 euros.. And the Xperia 5 is their mid tier model. Wtf. They have an Xperia Ace which is a true compact phone I would love to have but it's only sold in Japan for unknown reasons.
I hate how big most of the androids are. And no way I'm buying an iPhone mini.
@@Altrop motorolas flagships have been great value for money recently, im saving for a Nubia redmagic 7s
@@Altrop yeah the pricing and strategy of sony is indeed kind of weird, but their stuff is just great. I eventually bought myself a refurbished 5 III for 850€ and tbh, couldn't be happier with it. It does everything it advertises, and eventhough the software kinda sucks (at least compared to competition) it feels like YOUR tool, and not something you were allowed to use by a gigacorp. It's nice :D
Also camerafeatures are amazing. I design posters professionally and when I do photoshoots for them half of the time I end up using some of the secondary shots I've done with the phone, once you got used to shooting manually its so easy to test different angles and focal lengths to hone in on the final shot.
Been using the A53 and A52 for a hot minute now and this phone is exactly what most people need. Blown away by how low it has flown under the radar with little or no people in my friend network owning it. Crazy nice phone. The A52 was almost even better since it had a headphone jack which was super convenient to have.
Also, just register your finger twice for the scanner. Easy fix.
The A52s is objectively better than the A53. Too bad it didn't make it to the US.
The A54 doesn't even have a microSD card. Weird how phones seem to have less actually useful features and more useless crap every generation.
@@PlaySA The A54 DOES support SD cards up to 1TB. You can Google it.
I have Samsung A52s which is great
I really liked the A52s which I recommended to one of my friends almost a year ago. It was basically an A53 with a headphone jack and a better chipset. It was also cheaper. Shame they didn't carry those features over to this one
I have this phone and I can vouch for this!
Exactly what I said. A52s cheaper n better /w a headphone jack. Hopefully it will last me over 4y like the previous phone. Batt could be better though, my only complaint
but it will be lacking in the software support side !!
I literally use A52s and would recommend that to someone over A53 but currently 2023 is on so waiting for A54 to had a good processor
I agree, I just got one (A52s 5G), all the new series don't have the headphone jack.
My wife used this device for about a year and she was really happy about it. Only upgraded because I gave her my S21 FE. Only missing feature for her was also wireless charging, and there were some slowdowns. But it actually got better with updates. It's a damn good device, and if you don't get pixels where you live, this is absolutely the only way to get several years of updates.
I was gonna write there near on excact comment . Me and wife had the phone. Upgraded to the fan edition . Really great phones
@@iMichaelBrien better battery life is great and all, but not at the expense of losing half the performance. My S21fe last a full day. There is no reason to need a 2 day charge because I can charge it once a night while I sleep. 🤦♂️
Same as Michael, I have an s21FE and my son got the A52s. Apart from the optical zoom capability, everything else is amazing.
@@iMichaelBrien Wut? The Snapdragon 888 is way faster than the Exynos 1280.
Meh, I never update my phones. If it aint broken don't fix it. My phones are high end 5T and 8T. 7 years 2 phones. Maybe I'll buy another phone to waste money.
I've got the A52 5G and one of the main selling points you didn't mention was how Samsung is giving 3 major android updates then an additional 4th year of security updates. That is what pushed me to get the phone.
I believe the A53 is even better with getting 4 major android updates.
Yeah that's killer - I might pick this guy up. My OP7Pro is getting a little long in the tooth. Well, not really but I'm not getting updates anymore.
On separate note, f*** the manufacturer who limits software updates for n-amount of year. This is a very bad practice. At least keep the security patch updates for as long as the device's shelf life.
@@davidbubble6863 OEMs don't make all the bits that go into phones, like modems and radios. Those bits mfgs' firmware is proprietary and locked in via contracts and will very well not work either by chance or on purpose with newer OS releases.
Those updates are just gonna make the phone slower than what it already is
@@davidbubble6863 it’s obvious you don’t understand much about this so I’ll explain, devices stop getting software and security updates because the hardware is to old for example if there is a kernel exploit they cant patch it on older devices because the hardware isn’t compatible of running any of the newly created commands specifically for that exploit, it goes alot more in depth than this
Just watched this on my own A53....and being a power user that loves customizing and using every inch of power i get,i have zero complaints about slowdowns or slugness....also worth mentioning that the face recognition and the fingerprint issues along with other bugs were already fixed on their usual software updates...at least where i stand.When i picked it i was going for a phone that could last me 4/5 years and thats what i got.
Same
I love my A53, great performance, great screen, great battery, great speakers, amazing camera, and it's built like an absolute tank, I can't tell you how many times I've dropped it, it's made a horrificly loud bang, my heart stops, and when I pick it up it's unharmed, I do have a case, but still
Thank god i wantthis soo bad, i have an A12 qnd ive hated it since i got it. So slow and the crashes are killing me
@Dio Del Vino A12 is their entry lineup....and was made very poorly, im afraid.I had the opportunity to open one up recently, and its not that great.
Dont get me wrong,it's still very durable,just not that bright in terms of performance, sadly.
Since they had already launched and announced a follow-up,the A54 5G it should become a little cheaper before this summer!😊
@@diodelvino3048 you could disable a lot of samsung/google base apps which is the bad part about samsung they push for samsung based app services.
I don’t know Linus
Edit: wow that’s a lot of likes
Edit, edit: We’re catching Linus let’s beat him
How don't you know Linus if you're watching a video of his?
You don't know who Linus is? You don't know him personally? Or you don't know why people are buying that particular phone and you're addressing Linus?
For the first two your grammar is fine. For the last one it should be "I don't know, Linus."
@Clownfish the title is talking about a phone, OP is talking about how he doesn't know Linus!
@@stephen9894 it's amazing how he is watching a video of someone he doesn't know, also one of the first to comment!!
@@MarioKarasuma the response of Clownfish isn't wrong
you have to look at the title of the video and then it becomes clear that Pretty-normal_dude LOL just answered the question posed in the video title
and even though explaining a joke usually ruins it, but nevertheless I tried
I really like how you took the time to address reviews one star category at a time and addressed the common themes in each ... I usually find this to be the best way to use reviews, but don't know anyone else that takes the time to be that meticulous separating the wheat from the chaff (then again, it doesn't exactly come up in conversation often)
It is baffling that Linus took the time to do such a thorough review but completely ignored the most important part for many of us: the software! I wouldn't use this or any Samsung phone over a recent Google phone. Even with far superior specs, this thing isn't in the same class when it comes to what matters the most, the OS. I guess the average user doesn't care and will use any shiny turd with numbers 🤷
Don't buy A53 now, A54 will be coming as soon as next month
@@dereksbooks What's so great about vanilla android?
I have an a53 5g and I hate this phone. On paper it's decent but in everyday use it's hot dog shit. I switched back to my pixel 4a after 4 months of use. The pixel even with it's lower specs is hands down a better phone
@@dereksbooks this is like going into a bread shop and complaining that the bread has flour in it. No shit, its a samsung phone and runs samsung os, why would they need to mention it?
Im using the older version of this which is the A52S 5G which basically looks the same but it has a headphone jack, 8gb ram 256gb storage with a Snapdragon 778G and have never had any complaints with it. Still using it till now and Im still very happy with its performance.
I have it too very happy, its better than A53
@@matijagraho8887 yeah i think so too. Only advantage of the a53 is a bit bigger battery but the a52 outperforms it in most cases and in benchmarks too
I'm sorta unimpressed with my A52 5G Feels bulky in the hand and a bit slow, all compared to my previous LG G8 ThinQ - which I was forced to stop using due to my carrier suddenly not supporting it. Its haptics are also much worse.
@@atticusrussell1225 It's all pretty expected going from a G8. The haptics are definitely one thing they won't invest in on the A series, while from my G7 I can tell LG had a really nice setup, the A52 is a bigger phone, the 720G would be significantly slower than a flagship from 2019. As much as midrange phones have gotten more usable, they're still often missing those higher end things that even 3-4 year old phones can still give you.
Not sure what the S stands for but i enjoy the screen on the a52 5g,it's REALLY good imo
I'm a Sales Manager for a UK mobile network. The A53 isn't a hot seller. It's actually the much cheaper A13. Most average people just want something that does the job without the expensive price tag.
I think tech enthusiasts like us tend to forget that we're a niche demographic. Not everyone shops based off GSMArena specs. Most people just end up getting the S22 instead. That's because S prices are heavily subsidized by Samsung so they become the better deal.
They won't talk about end price.
@@Netryon By law we're required to discuss all that if asked. You can just ask how much you're paying for the phone (also called device cost/handset cost) and how much for the SIM (airtime cost). If you shop online, they usually show a table detailing your credit agreement and what you're paying for.
For example our S23 device cost might be discounted to £680 (instead of retail price £849) and I would be able to show to the customer that actually they're getting a good deal on the phone. In these cases, airtime is also subsidised to encourage customers to take higher data bundles with the phone.
@@Terrobility No my League Of Legends Valorant/Overwatch role is not writing some sub threads and I just watch ukraine armed forces powered by a power bank.
I love that you guys reviewed a mid range more affordable phone. Keep this up and target these types of devices/gadgets more often. Everything keeps getting more expensive and a lot more people are having to be more frugal. I have started to skip all flagship reviews lately and really want more mid range bang for your buck hardware than "this $1000 speaker setup and home automated device"
I paid $250 for my A53 5G and I love it so far! I haven't had any of the issues that anyone else has had, but I did tweak it just a bit by setting the animation scaling back to .5x and registering my thumb print 3 times for better recognition. Other than that initial setup, it's been a great phone!
I got an A53 for my wife and M53 for me (we're from Brazil). They're quite equivalent, but the M53's screen is a bit bigger and better and it sports a MediaTek chipset, with a weaker camera and no stereo sound. It's also cheaper than the A53. We're both loving them!
.5x animation is the sweet spot!
That's what i do on my s21 and s22
@@achyuthsuchit1445 i agree. I think .5x animations should be set by default on every Android smartphone.
A53 is an OK phone but A52s is the best option. You can totally do what you want to do with it but i have felt some stutters sometime. Snapdragon 778 is smoother to use, plus you still have a jack on A52s. A52s was really a hit in France. So sad, you dont' have the new Samsung updates policiers 😔. A52s vs A53...one year less update but better performance overall 🤔
My s20 ultra will probably be my last flagship. Samsung getting rid of the SD card slot killed the new models for me. I was ready to pull the trigger on another note but not being able to expand the storage was a deal breaker.
But seriously what r u gonna do if this expanded storage is so slow that u gonna hate it?
@@geniusful you don’t need fast storage if it’s all storing pictures and video. I can playback video from one too.
@@sentryion3106 how much pics do u have to fill 256 to 512 gb?
@@flippy9641 enough to fill up that much
I had no idea they even removed it. Wtf!?!?
Since most people will use a case with it, adding wireless charging is less than $20 and you just put it between the case and the phone and it plugs into the charging port on the bottom, works great. I’ve got one on my Samsung A Series cell phone. It is called a “USB C Wireless cell phone charging adapter” make sure you get the appropriate amperage for your phone.
At that point, just buy or make a USB C dock. I use my phone's USB for things other than just charging it up.
I have an A53, I really appreciate the stereo speakers, and can confirm battery life even with moderate to heavy use is still 2 days even after a full year with the phone. Edit: Also a very responsive (in screen) fingerprint scanner. Main reason I bought was for 5g and OLED display at such a low cost.
To this day I regret switching from the a53 to the s21fe
These two phones are literally complete opposites
The A53 is trash (for 400). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent phone, but way to overpriced. I’ve had it for 6 months and regret it completely. Buy a S21 ultra or iPhone 12 Pro refurbished for the same price instead
@@en_vy I got a Xiaomi Mi11 for 500$.
108Mp Camera with OIS
8GB / 256GB UFS3.1
SD888
6.87" 1440p AMOLED 120Hz screen
Stereo harmon kardon sound.
Curved edge screen(some like it, some don't, I love it)
Full glass and alluminum frame.
Underscreen Fingerprint sensor
And many more stuff.
67W fast charging and 50W wirelesscharing, 10W reverse wireless charging
For 500$, it was a GREAT deal, top spec flagship spec, and really good camera and awesome screen.
@@en_vy refurbished isn't new (and we're talking about OLED screens, remember?). And most times, the warranty is at best, shady. Also sucks to give it as a gift.
@@LoneWanderer905 doesn’t have to be an oled screen. You can get 2 iPhone 11s instead of the goofy A53. I have 2 refurbished devices that are 3+ years old and there are no OLED issues either.
I went for the A52S instead of the A53 purely because of the headphone port and I gotta say it's pretty good. The battery life thing I believe you've underestimated! I've had this phone for a couple of months and with fairly regular use of Discord, TikTok, CZcams and a few other apps I managed on my first charge to get EIGHT DAYS out of it. I'm very impressed so far.
Headphone jack can also be the antenna for an FM radio.
Much better choice. Even the m53 is better then the a53
good choice, it's better. It even has snapdragon chip instead of exynos
I'm astonished, are you sure you meant 8 days as in 192hrs length (obviously not consecutive, I know that) of "medium" use with video playing at hand?
@@robertwolfgan idk could be true if you have it on airplane mode, 2 hours of screentime a day. It's mixed use and all services/connections on that drain a battery as well as inefficient use of processing power.
I have a 52s 5g (very similar to the 53) and I bought a pixel 7 pro to upgrade. Ended up sticking to the 52s 5g. Was more comfortable to use, screen was just as smooth, better colours and I just liked it more. Camera not as good but wasn't better by that much. Remember, just cos something is latest and greatest doesn't mean you need it. I'm glad mid range phones are now a viable option too.
as I researched I'm bit more fan of a52s then 53
Had a52 5g for 2 years. Motherboard got corrupted and stuck in a reboot loop. Had to put her down yesterday and go back to an old phone until A54 comes out
A52s is actually better than the A53
bought it in november and I fucking LOVE this thing so much
@@nikosk.5917 it has a better chip
But battery life is so average
My sister has one
I bought this phone off the shelf at walmart for $250. Love it. Pretty much everything in this review is spot on to my experience. Cool to see this phone covered in a LTT video! Also loved the recent budget monitor vid you all did.
They are going for 200 now, definitely Worth it
They cost 599 there I live
150$with tax for me. 😊 happy isn't the word. Jus about to set it up. Not sure if I should unlock my old a51 though
I find it interesting how these different budgets are becoming more common. I've been using the pixel 6 non pro and been loving it, probably gonna upgrade in a couple years to another $600~$700 phone as that is the amount I am confident spending on something as important to me as my phone
Same. Just upgraded from a OnePlus 5T up to Pixel 7 non-pro. I just couldn't justify the couple extra small features for $300 more, for the pro model.
I will probably buy a pixel in a year or two and load GrapheneOS on it. Tired of my Galaxy S21+ (which I got for $750 on a deal thankfully) because of random bloatware I can't get rid of, a bootloader that's locked with no option of unlocking it (I have the US version), and forced complete OS upgrades without allowing me to defer it for more than 3 days. I absolutely hate the experience right now and I would have gotten something else but I didn't know about the options with the pixel at the time and the other options I did want (like the Xperia) don't run well on my carrier because US carriers are GARBAGE.
@@hhaste Wow I had the OnePlus 5T too! Only had to get rid of it cause I changed carriers and it wasn't supported
@@hhaste im still using my 5t, no issues so far
glad you loving it! my experience with pixel well with andriods phones as a whole has been nothing but nightmares, started on my oneplus 7 pro where i had burn in screen then i upgraded to the 8 pro as i claimed warrenty on the 7 pro. Then with 8 pro the oxygen os 12 was next to unuseable crashes every 20 min or so or random bugs. Then i replaced that with an s21 ultra me with my luck ofcourse that would given me nightmares, had firmware issue on it which is really strange where the phone will never boot up (ps it brand new from samsung directly not second hand) so i sent it back for a replacement, guess what same thing happened 2 more times. in total of 3 s21 ultras all brandnew had this werid firmware bug wont let me into andriod only stuck on like developer/safe mode. in the end samsung just given me a refund on the phone and i though let try the pixel 6 pro cant go wrong with google themself. I was wrong again back to the endless bugs and crashes i experienced on my oneplus 8 pro except this time is on stock andriod 13. After that i just given up on andriod and got myself a iphone 14 pro max and been happy since no issues no crashes phone just works.
I got this phone a few months ago when my Pixel 4 XL suddenly bricked itself overnight. Something that is not mentioned but that pushed me to this phone is Samsung commitment to 4 years of OS upgrades (and 5 years of security upgrades) on that price point. And in practice, we received Android 13 not too long after their flagships.
Otherwise, I got none of the bugs mentioned, but I've noticed some sporadic slowdowns, that clears after a few seconds
I almost bought the A52 until I noticed the A53 and the promise of software support for years to come. That also put me over the edge to buy it, even at the higher price. Haven't regretted it yet.
I want them to mention software too, however, I know Samsung takes longer and puts updates out less frequently for older phones where Google phones are updated monthly. Regardless, Google and Samsung do really well.
I still haven't gotten android 13, foes it come at different times depending on carrier?
Got it at Black friday below 300 euros and am so happy to not worry if it Breaks
I think you have got the update information wrong. Samsung A series update policy is 3 OS upgrades and 4 security updates. Only their flagships get 4 OS upgrades and 5 years of security updates. But still the software policy is way better than what other phone manufacturers are offering at this price point. My only concern is that they may slow the phone with the updates at the end of the software cycle.
Edit: I have checked and got to know that Samsung offers 4 OS upgrades for A33, A53 and A73. Previously Samsung used to offer 3 OS upgrades for its mid range lineup, but now they have increased it to 4.
I opted to get the A52S around March last year because I needed a headphone jack. You can't go wrong with the recent A series phones. Be careful with the oleophobic coating though. I generally don't like screen guards, so mine has worn off already.
i got an a53 a month ago should i get a screen guard?
i own a a53 as well, and i love it. it feels premium, the camera's amazing, i love One UI and it has exandable storage which is so good. couple of problems i have, is that it does lag a bit sometimes, closing apps and such (it never hangs tho), and the camera shutter speed is kinda slow which sucks, but keep in mind, my phone is now a year old and it has 92/128 and 56/64 (SD) storage filled, so that could be it as well. i got the 8gb ram version for $390 which I'm happy with.
Also my mom has the same phone and hers does not lag at all which could be due to the fact that her storage is barely filled.
so overall, a solid buy
Great review! I have the Galaxy A52s, which is essentially almost the same phone but better (yes, the A53 was a downgrade). It has a better Snapdragon 778G CPU, a headphone jack and a charger in the box, but is otherwise exactly the same.
Samsung's Android 12 update is what caused a ton of these weird bugs and slowdowns, and upgrading to Android 13 caused a noticeable performance boost on my phone.
One bug that hasn't been fixed, is this: when having both Google Assistant and Bixby set to listen to their trigger phrases, they randomly stop working. Disabling one of the two fixes the problem.
Also if you want better bass on the speakers, the phone's software has an equalizer built in, and you can make them sound way better with some fine tuning.
Otherwise, everything you guys observed about the A53 reflects my experience with my A52s. They're both a great value.
I love my 52 but i find that the camera kinda sucks. Small price to pay for a headphone jack
can confirm, A52s rocks!
Yes sir!, had mine for about a year now no problems yet 😁
Samsung A52s is quite literally the most popular phone from the A series. Sells out every time we have it in stock, and only then does the A53 sales start going up since A52s ain't available.
@@conkcreet1344 True, the camera is a bit dissapointing but darn I paid not even 200$s and the phone is more than worth this.
I always love when you guys cover affordable gear, thank you.
affordable?
i got the S21 5G for 240$ (like new) open box from ebay
cheaper and 10 times better than a53 or even the coming a54
even tho am a Samsung user I would get the nothing phone or the pixel 6a over the a53
whatever samsung is doing with the a53 it's not enough.
It's 400$
This costs as much as the PC I'm building with latest gen parts, not worth the price for the phone from my perspective, though there are also lots of taxes involved both ways.
@@azexy21 wow I wish I got it at that price, s21 price in here is like around 500 dollars.
@@azexy21 damn, i bet you dont live in SEA phone prices here are dumb as hell lmao, i also bought a used s21plus and it costs me around 600$ ☠️p
I had the A52 4g and it was an amazing phone. I then upgraded to the S22 Ultra when it was on a heavy discount and honestly the experience is very similar except for performance and cameras.
🤔 That's why people buy flagships, for the performance and cameras..........😃😃😃
Yeah they are both samsung phones other ones just more expensive so obviously they are similiar but the more expensive one has better cameras and better performance
@@carlbrenda6518 But it costs a lot of coin.
@Carl Brenda well yeah but the only big improvements I saw in performance were in games really and for cameras, it was just the zoom and that it does 4k 60. Everything else was really similar. What I'm trying to say is that $300 phones are crazy good and barely far off their premium counterparts.
“The experience is very similar except for the two key things that define the experience”
I mean I am using one right now, I agree with the face and finger. Print ID but the benefits outweighs the other stuff
I have the A73. It's been brilliant. I used the S20+ for 2 years before. The only issue I'm having is the screen on mine often doesn't sense my finger touch more than likely due to dry skin. Other than that, does well enough and costs half of the flagship S22 line.
There may be an option to up the touch sensitivity. A lot of Samsungs have that setting but I'm not sure with that specific model
There is an option in options, display, sensitivity.
Don't want to sound rude but isn't it a downgrade?
@@Solly_March_Goat everyone has their own reasons for changing a device.
S20's at launch had some touch issues, specifically on the fingerprint scanner where it doesn't work when you put a thick screen protector like tempered glass on it.
I'm really glad you're covering mid range phones that a lot of people purchase still, please do more in future Linus of this. Btw, not everyone can afford the high end phones still. That was also the reason why Samsung does really well overall, they make sure that they meet their demographic from low to high end tier phones, Apple had it too I think not too long ago (but the product didn't perform in terms of sales). But many other phone companies are selling their mid tier phones like no tomorrow every year. So maybe Apple should consider going back to that again. Instead of always just selling a phone that costs an arm and a leg every year.
TVs would be nice too. A few times he has been confused that anyone was concerned about kind of "off brand" smart tv app support made me realize he is kind of out of touch with the TVs most people are buying. Sure I'd love a 60" android tv, but I have a 40" TCL with some weird BS smart tv system because it was cheap and seemed like an okay value.
It's a lot of work per video so I understand why they don't do it, but a 5-6 option midrange Phone roundup and TV roundup among other things once a year or something would be amazing. Hopefully, labs can do that or something.
@@christopherpedersen1820 I agree, he should bring back these sort of content again in my opinion. I remember he used to upload them way back and then he stopped and went back to high end products. I'm sure Linus and his team are looking at everyone's feedback and I believe he will go back to review mid tier tech again in future.
Apple technically has a mid tier phone (iPhone SE3), but IMO it only exists to make the more premium phones look good by comparison. Really its only redeeming qualities are being a cheaper iOS device, for people who want iOS, and having a top of the line processor, which destroys battery life. Meanwhile most Android manufacturers throw tons of features at their mid range phones, and the processors are usually good enough to handle most less demanding games (which make up the overwhelming majority of the mobile gaming segment).
@@whenhen True, but I think Apple should go back to that again and bring it back, they need to re-evulate their approach with iPhone SE.
Hmm… maybe Apples strategy is just selling refurbs or older devices? From the Top Selling Amazon chart, the #1 selling phone was actually the iPhone 11 refurb, not the A53. The combination of superior silicon + long term support (iPhone 5S ~10 yrs old just received an update yesterday) kinda makes the case against a midrange iPhone and Apple’s data might reflect that. Also, in the US, carriers are very aggressive w/ promotions for upgrading to the newest iPhone and when they need to clear stock of the previous ones.
Two of my family members own Galaxy A52S - great phone with Snapdragon chip - they are really satisfied with it. I think LMG should do more reviews on such phones
As good as the A53 is, it's a downgrade from that absolute gem, which is even faster AND still had a 3.5mm jack.
@@sidewalkere Could be found for cheaper too. It's like they made a phone that's just to good to be allowed to exist as is, so they once again downgraded, upped the price and called it a new model.
I just bought this phone. The number one reason I did was because of the microSD slot (although I was still not happy with no aux port, and I wish that the fingerprint sensor was a cutout in the back which is another awesome but disappearing feature). I was honestly shocked to discover that almost no phones (including the A54 which 'followed' this phone I assume) include microSD slots anymore. WHY?? They are so useful, now my phone has 1.126 TBs of space on it so I can store pictures and offline audio.
Phone manufacturers seem to be trying to get rid of all ports and openings--improved waterproofing, I guess, and lower costs. I guess we're supposed to use cloud storage. MicroSD slot was a big factor in my latest phone--used S10+.
It doesn't make sense to buy this phone when the S20 fe is available with the same price. And overall better specs while both from samsung....
This didn't age well with the S20 FE stuck on Android 13 and the A53 going to recieve the Android 15
@migmota HELLO!!! I have an s20 FE and, at first i was a bit disappointed, however, since its a samsung, it has goodlock, and i've customized it so much that i wouldn't want it any other way. Plus, if this android version gets TOO outdated, i can switch to lineageos, the folks at XDA already have some
My partner has been using an A53 for a few months. She's not a power user by any means, and really has had no complaints except for the speaker quality. The selling points for her were well, Samsung, expandable storage (lots of files on SD from her old phone!), and the price. Honestly I've been super impressed with it.
sorry but the main shooter pictures look outright trash. My SE 2020 makes waay better pictures - with a single lense/sensor. Not mentioning CPU performance.
@@RandomUser2401 Alright, but I was explaining their experience with it.
@Iudex Gundyr Because I'm talking about my partner.
@Iudex Gundyr Sure, why not
Samsung speaker quality is just so bad. I have an old midrange xiaomi, and it sounded better than my samsung.
I have an A52s, had it about a year and I still love it, I'd consider myself a semi heavy user, and I've not had a single issue, I even emulate on it, including PS2 games using AetherSX2 without issue.
It would have been nice to see you check out DEX in this review, it definitely doesn't get near the love it deserves, and for uses such as emulation, it is incredible.
The A52s's processor is so much better than that of the A52. The Snapdragon 750g in my A52 performs really badly. I wish I had looked into the A52s cause I like just about everything else about this phone
I'm so happy with my A52s as well. At the time I bought it, the A53 was just released and at the time, the A52s actually edged out the A53. It's been some 9 months and I'm still happy. Feels like this thing is gonna last me years.
@@cvbattum I've got an A52S too, honestly much better than the A53, they got rid of the headphone jack on that model
Same, and it's so much better than the A53, while being cheaper than it too.
It has a headphone jack
Spot on. I traded in to Samsung my ancient Note 4 for the A53 at launch at a big discount and after getting over the loss of the pen and the headphone jack (bought Bluetooth buds) I found it well built, great battery life and does everything well. I don't play any games on it so no worries about the CPU or GPU power. Videos look great on it. For recording videos though, the Note 4 had better mics. I enabled the new battery preserver mode that a software update delivered, limiting the max charge to 85%. With the big battery in it, you still can go well over a day on a charge and don't have to stress the battery by charging to 100%. When the battery does age, you can switch off the limiter to eek out the battery a bit more. Still... wish they'd bring back removable batteries, like on the Note 4. I changed the battery twice on it and so could use it for many years until the OS was just too old and unsupported.
Note 4 was a beast and my all time fav. Had two of them fall victim to the hardware failure though.
Congrats on running yours this long. 🎉
Keep coping brokie
Nice coverage, Linus. I went for an A70 when it was released and it has been great. I ended up going for an S21 FE because of Dex as it is useful to me. I hope Dex comes to the A series one day.
As far as I know, the Galaxy A90 is the only A Series phone that comes with Samsung Dex
Wow, yeah. I have the exact same experience. I had an A70 because of the battery capacity, and now I have an S21 because of Dex.
A72 has had dex and I believe a52 too, that was back when I was shopping for a phone two years ago although I ended up buying the a32
@@Noobslobby True, it does
@@moho472 Both great choices. Dex did make my life easier when working between home and uni. At least for thing I can do online
I have the A52s and it's a damn stable phone. Pretty much no problems and lots of features for a good price, what's not to love!
A52s is way better at processing then A53
Not to mention that it has a 3.5 mm audio jack!! and a MUCH better processor
I'm using A50s
@@pixels_per_inch A53 was never a successor to A52s, so it wasn't a bait n switch. A53 was a successor to A52 instead.
A52s was and is really good though. Still has 2 more years of software updates (not too sure), SD chip and a 3.5mm headphone jack. A charging brick too guys!!!
@@pixels_per_inch although not in terms of battery life. Still went for A52s though as that 870 SD at that price is great
When the Black Friday sales were happening, I considered both phones. I ended up with the 6a because the sale price was a bit lower and I'm happy with it (the $70 trade in for my 4a was cool too). I'd have happily pulled the trigger on the A53 though if it'd been the cheaper one when I looked. They are both really good mid-tier phones imo :)
For me the 6a with its superior camera and better performance thanks to Tensor G1 edges out the A53.
Being stuck at 60hz is kinda bad tho if youve ever had a high refresh phone. But other Than that the 6a is brilliant and its about the same price in my country since Samsung operates here with massive markups. Like 10-20% sometimes
Did the same thing. Not regretting it.
The 6a is a better option.
There is never some discounted merchandise you want.
If anyone is looking for a new phone I'd recommend Amazon renewed great deals for like 1/3 the price. Comes pretty much as new most of the time, sometimes you might get unlucky and that just means you can return it. 3x return window
Instead of a new midrange, I prefer to go for a previous gen flagship. You get close to top of the line experience for half the price (or less). Even the software support is usually more guaranteed for flagship models for longer periods of time than on the midrange ones.
This mid-range offers 4 years of updates and 5 years of security updates. I dont think anything used can beat it.
@@assetaden6662 For this particular one, yes. Samsung has been doing a good job in pushing their device's life. But still, 3 years of update is more than enough for me, as I usually upgrade my phone every other year.
For a more detailed comparison, I recommend Mrwhosetheboss's video: czcams.com/video/XzKbTtFhJ8M/video.html
Basically an old flagship beats new midrange in every aspect except battery, updates, and warranty. The warranty I genuinely think is just a scam; update also lasts long enough for me to bother; battery is the issue that needs a fix (like a power brick on the way, you know).
@@assetaden6662 an iPhone used definitely beats it. And using a crappy phone for 5 years vs a premium phone for 3 years is way better
That's what I always do. Buy a 2 year old flagship (in brand new state), use until it dies and repeat. You get the best phones for a fraction of the price. Now rocking an S10 like Plouffe which is still waaay better than a current gen midrange... except for the battery life of course, but I don't mind it.
@@en_vy a used iPhones still sells for £400 to £500 more or less that is still not affordable for people when they go second had £280 max then I'm good. Anything above that (in this case apple) they can go sit in the corner lol.
Also I'd never recommend a second iPhone when it costs a hand (£400-£500) when people at the lower end are just looking for a phone that just works, nothing too fancy.
Hilariously just got this phone about a week ago 😆 and have been in love with it since my LG Q70's screen shattered and did not want to pay for the screen to be replaced or attempt the replacement which based on research required the ENTIRE phone to be taken apart to just get at the ribbon cable.
Edit: Something missed, I am not aware if it has become normal but the A53 has protective battery setting allowing you to lower the max charge percent to 85% to protect from over charging.
i bought my s10 in 2019 when it came out. now its having battery issues, i wish i reduced my charge to 80% before. a real life saver later on
Yes my A22 4g also received this option with android 13 update.
@@fredmanM literally same, my S10 still feels like a great phone in many aspects (the 4 year old camera is still great for example) but the battery only lasts about 2/3 hours before it needs charging
Don't buy A53 now, A54 will be coming as soon as next month
Been using an A53 for a few months now, coming from a S9+ i definitely noticed the difference in build quality and speaker quality, but that's to be expected going from flagship to midrange. Great phone for the price. Don't need anything more expensive since i don't play games on it anyway. I have noticed ever since one of the recent software patches though that my battery percentage gets stuck and rebooting is the only thing that fixes it. Hopefully they fix that soon, happened like 3 times now.
when u scroll down linus videos, does it lags? becouse mine does..... same a53 like yours.. 4 and 5g network with poor coverage... and if u tik tok it for 40 minute u need to find a charger..... for 350? no thanks
@@danii.a3740 you mean scrolling through the comments? Cause i don't notice any lag when i do that. I do not use tik tok so i don't have any experience with that, but if your battery really drains that quickly then maybe an app, be it tik tok or something else, is using a lot of power for some reason. Either that or maybe something is wrong with your battery.
@@danii.a3740 my degraded s6 doesn't even run off that fast you have a defective phone or something
@@danii.a3740 i experienced some lag and stutter while scrolling Twitter with autoplay video setting on
Going from 5 years of A50 to Last year's A52s, I was pleasantly surprised at the difference between the two! I kept feeling giddy each time I felt how smooth it worked as compared to the older A50 lol.
And seeing the difference between the A53 and A52s, I'm WAY happier with the choice I made!
A52s is better option if it still available, it's decently faster with 778G under the hood. I remember last year when they announced this phone (A53), the price (for non retail store) for the older model but better (A52s) is getting higher due to disappointment of the spec for A53
Even comes with a headphone jack
A52 has 720G not 778G. I have A73 and it has 778G so that would be strange if an older and cheaper phone had the same processor
I tried to buy a new A52s in NZ from a small computer store since no one else sells them now. Got sent an open box A52 non s model, so I sent it back and bought the A53 elsewhere. It's been great so far. Only complaint is the lack of 3.5mm jack because it requires a Samsung brand 3.5mm to USB-C adapter. My old Huawei adapter prompts a message about using a Samsung adapter, and a Sansai brand one only worked a couple of times and wasn't worth the hassle trying to get it working. Went to buy a Samsung adapter and they had sold out everywhere in NZ.
@Douglas Keys why not to buy BT headphones then?
@@reviewchannel3038 I like to listen to music or podcasts while driving. My old phone I could charge and plug into my car stereo at the same time. Sadly my 2007 Toyota Mark X only has Bluetooth for calls, it doesn't allow media playback.
4:44 is what we do when Linus introduces the sponsor at the beginning of the video.
I love the addition of customer reviews in the review itself. It gives many opinions on the product and makes me feel better about buying a device. Keep up the great work guys!
As a former A53 and now S23 user, one of the first things I am changing in the settings is to manually turn on the bass boost. It makes the phone's speakers sound way better from the lowest volume to max. half the volume. On higher volume the bass kinda turns down a bit to how it sounds without bass boost on, due to physics (because there simply isn't enough space for that much bass in any phone).
I have the A52 5G, the A series is seriously impressive for the price, its just a 'good' phone, great camera and some fun customising choices.
the A52s 5G is even higher performer. With long term update support the A series is a winner for me.
A52 5G is one of the best if not the best value for money phone Samsung has ever released.
I use mime throughout the day near constantly due to the nature of my work, including photo taking as part of it, its never let me down, and the video camera part is fantastic for shows, can't fault the device and the A series-
Always my recommendation, I think the only time I'd switch (and use it as a spare) is if a QWERTY phone came along with similar spec and utility.
I got A52 but not the 5G version. It was a nice phone, but now i regrett it to some point. Many bugs, slow software, dying, long charging time and losing battery fast. But ok phone at the end
@Matej Mikulčić The only issue I have found is the battery capacity getting smaller than the 4500 capacity it started with, however I chalked that up to extreme use.
Something interesting is how competitive the mid range market is, if one phone isn't for you, there's an absolute sea of them to try.
I've stuck to lower end and somewhat midrange models. This does look pretty solid! My current Motorola phone is a bit of a step down in pretty much every spec except the headphone jack (which I use a lot), but feels sufficient for the most part. I do long for the days of directly accessible batteries.
What Motorola do you have? I got the G9 Plus that launched in Q3 2020.
@@shred1894 stylus 5g
@@ScottJWaldron I remember when that came out I was still working at Boost Mobile. If I remember right the processor was the weak point of that model. Does it still retain the stylus properly? That was one of the points I was concerned about when I was selling that model to people.
@@shred1894 A few times the stylus button has been clicked on accident but has never fallen out. Definitely a step up from the LG Stylo phones I used before it. Going from 16gb or 32gb to 128gb of internal storage is huge, lol.
I do still use a Nokia 7 Plus, since i don't care about the camera or mobile games. But it has a nice display, micro sd and a headphone jack. Good as a portable media player.
The included Type C to Type C cable is for transferring stored data (pics, videos, etc) from your old Samsung device to the new one. Works very well.
Well, then why is it only usb 2?
When I got my S9 it included a USB-C to USB-A cable and an OTG adapter. Way better than that.
I know this is an old video. My A53 just had its first anniversary with me now in November and I haven't had any of the issues mention here that people are complaining about. Not even the battery had slowed down at all. Thinking on upgrading to the A54 soon. Hope it is as good.
Agreed for the most part. I definitely notice the weak processor though. I particularly feel it when I'm at work listening to music and have to open a app or two at the same time. It really struggles.
It's real predecessor was the A52s, not the A52, and that thing had a great processor. The only drawback from the A52s is that you get one update less and started one Android update earlier despite being only a few months older. So while the A52s gets up to Android 14 (starting from 11), the A53 goes from 12 to 16.
It's really a shame that the A52s was so hard to find. It had a much better chip than the A52 for not a lot more money. The Snapdragon 750g in my current A52 is really killing me It's so slow and forces me to choose between battery life and a good experience
I recommended a friend of mine to get an A52s instead of an A53 because I think the latter is objectively worse omg
I couldn't find the A52s so I basically waited for a deal on the A73 as it also has a Snapdragon 778. And it's a great phone. Very fast, very stable.
@@forceexogenesis5397 Awesome!
@@forceexogenesis5397 A73 also has a 3x optical zoom
For someone who rocked the Note 9 as long as I could, I think I found the *perfect* replacement. The Motorola Moto G Stylus 5g is essentially as close to a new Note 9 as you're going to get imo. The phone has the built in Stylus like the Note, and I use that daily. Also, the 3.5mm Jack still exists on this device. The best part is you can get it for less than $200USD, new. I've been really happy with mine, the only complaint being the Stylus needed to be replaced quicker than the tip from my old Note 9's.
Moto g stylus 5G uses a passive capacitive pen unlike Samsung Note which has used active Wacom tech in their pens since the original note.
Don't buy A53 now, A54 will be coming as soon as next month
Exactly a year ago I was looking for a phone, I ended up to choose between the new a53 or a52s from 2021 and the big winner was the a52s being more faster and the a53 from a lot of reviews was looking more like a scam, no improvements at all compared to the a52s.
This is true
At 3:27 Linus looked like Messi for a split second in the photo😂
I'm glad they mentioned the samsung bloat - Yes, I had an A51 and the only way to get it usable without crazy low frames was a nice ADB mass package removal. it's funny how much you can remove while keeping a functional phone.
I did that to the A52, and my Fold4 as well (be careful with the fold i broke mine and had to reset due to dependencies) and it's going to be an immediate default task for all samsung devices, including the Tab8 ultra (which didn't really need it, but might help in the long run.)
I did not set them up with a samsung account, but did add one later to my fold -- it didn't really seem to change any performance? Not sure why that'd slow down, the processes seem to run regardless of being singed in.
either way. Great video, glad this phone gets some recognition!
Edit: all devices were unlocked (except the a52)
Please can you give me the resource link/name from where I can debloat my S20+
Thanks for the comment!! almost 2 pages of bloat is A LOT of bloat, Linus tried but couldn't properly evaluate the bloatware included in samsung phones (there is literally a samsung app for every feature of the phone and most of them are worse than the stock google/android or the ones available on the play store).
@Linus Tech Tips At 3:02 there is a typo it says 'Marco' instead of 'Macro'
just thinking about a 5mp *marco* camera is making me laugh
Over the years. I've have had the a50, a51, a52. Some several times, while in between having nokia, xiaomi, huawei, iphone and motorola. But time to tumr i always come back to the samsung, the last one I had again was the a52, but last month I slep and slide while holding it, the courner hit the ice cracking the screen display. They cracke easy, those screens. But I still love them.
I have an a52s as a backup phone (and music player with a 1TB micro SD) which interestingly is more powerful than the a53, has a headphone jack and there are some things I even prefer to my Xiaomi flagship. My only complaint is the Samsung bloatware which you can get rid of anyway.
3:07 Marco lens 😎
Great video! I think the fact that several different use cases were discussed in this video really made this one stand out. I'm still a bit surprised you hadn't mentioned that the Pixel 6 has a much stronger processor in weighing alternatives (since camera and processor are the 6a's advantages), which would probably appeal to people who are playing more games, but I certainly learned a bit more about this phone that I hadn't known before. Will be handy to know when people ask me for mid-range phone recommendations! It's great that both these phones have 5 years of security updates from their manufacturers as well, which makes them both great options.
For most of my life I bought phones that did not exceed $130 price. I didn't even have a true mid ranger until 2016. Overall, these mid range devices can do pretty much everything a flagship can do (with the notable exception of high-end gaming), it might just take a fraction of a second longer. If you are not into Mobile gaming or a mobile photography buff, there's really no reason to get a flagship these days.
Come and wave some flags --pretend
I love Marco cameras. So glad LTT covered that on this phone, most of the competitors have a Macro camera but I'm so glad Samsung is using Marco cameras instead...
(There's a typo in the camera section)
I've been scrolling through the comments for the last 10 minutes trying to find someone else whom noticed this. Thank you.
I intend to buy A52s when this phone came out, expecting the price cut. But alas the lack of audio jack and "inferior" processor of A53 made the price for A52s going up (at least in my country). So I finally bought A33 because it's closer to my budget.
I can say I'm quite happy with my phone so far. And 4 OS update + 5 years security update are sweet deal, I hope the hardware can keep up.
I got the A52s 6 months ago for 300€
at the time the A53 cost 330€
for essentially the same phone but without the headphone jack ... trading it for a slightly bigger battery
@@mariolisA53 has a way worse cpu
@@sergiu1605 they literally both use a 778g
@@sergiu1605 checked and you were right and i was wrong , the A53 has an exynos cpu and is 20% worse and the graphics are 33% worse ... wow, dodged a bullet right there when I got the A52s on June of 2022
The 6a not only has a better camera but the tensor chip is way better than the exynos in the a53. It feels snapier and quicker. Thats what made me choose the 6a. Its also smaller which is easier to carry.
For as long as Pixels support unlocking and re-locking the bootloader I will go Pixel. CalyxOS only for me
I get why people like smaller phones, but I hate them. I want the biggest phone possible lol. Big hands, and I watch a lot of stuff on my phone.
@@steveosk8s i also have big hands. I had a lg velvet previously. It was nice having a big screen but it was a pain to carry and you couldn't type with one hand. Holding it for a long time would make your hand hurt. I am always on youtube and i always watch content. For me the pixel 6a is the perfect size i feel no compromise at all downgrading to a smaller screen.
The 6a is surprisingly good. I got one a few months back from BestBuy for about $220 and was really impressed. I love how the software utilizes the excellent haptic engine to give you a good experience. Camera was pretty good as well. Solid device!
Guess what. The tensor chip is based on Exynos
Bought the a51 3 years ago, still going strong eslec since they brought it up to android 13 and the newest version of one ui which shows the long lasting support, all in all the a50 series is a great phone for the price
the ringtone made me get up cuz that's my alare on my phone lol at 1:10
My one and only issue with the A53 in my experience hands on with a couple that my friends had, was the processing power. I however had no idea they had a 5000mah battery! That makes up for it to an extent for me as far as value goes. That is the same size battery that I will get in the S23 ultra that I plan on getting when it comes out
Li-Ion vs Li-Po research those battery types before you make a decision
Will u still get s23?
@@1Gadd what does Li-Po have to do with these phones? they are both li-ion and both the same voltage as well from what I can tell. I'm sure the S23 ultra may have better cells or something that degrades a little slower but who knows. Not really sure what your argument is? Li-po is awesome for larger batteries but not as energy dense as Li-ion which is why it's not in phones, at least not these, im not pretending to have researched every single phone.
@@AmanSharma-om8cn why wouldn't I?
@@catalyst429 coz there is no diff in s22 Ult n s23ult
The reason why I got an A53 over other phones is that it is typically the price point where I buy phones. I had a OnePlus 5t before this, and a OnePlus One before that. I was somewhat still happy with my 5t, but I needed a phone with better antenna and band support as 5G became a thing since I got the phone.
The A53 covers all the checkboxes of what a smartphone does, and it scores between good and great. Two major pluses that make the A53 better than most flagship are band support, and expandable storage. I like to shoot a lot of videos on my phone when I'm not lugging my camera with me, and having a 512GB micro SD in the phone means that I don't have to worry about storage.
Also, it supports Widevine L1. I hate that this is a plus, but many cheap phones that can compete with the A53 from Chinese companies typically have a Level 3 certification. That means you can't stream Netflix in full 1080 on your phone for example.
ordered a A54 after this vid after my S10 broke (rip), seems to be about the same as the A53 but a bit better overall. It's a genuine upgrade from the S10 and feels premium. never buying a flagship again.
I went from my A51 to a pixel 7, and I was very happy with that upgrade. The processing power on the pixel is leagues above the 51, and according to geek bench also roughly 1.7x the a53 as well. There are some things that annoy me (lack of sd card, headphone jack, and charger in the box), but considering I got to through my carrier for 5$ more a month than I was paying before I'm very happy with it! It's a toss-up in terms of the apps, there are some I prefer the google version of, some I prefer the Samsung version of, but being able to open apps and they load in literally fractions of the time is worth it. Also with the 6a comparison, the 6a is far better than the a53 in processing power from what I understand.
Well, the A51 was also extremely, EXTREMELY SLOW (moms' older phone). That A53 however, feels and works like a flagship to most normies. My mom got one and it feels as fast as my iPhone 13 Pro. I don't feel any difference really, speed-wise.
more processing power = more stress on the battery
I upgraded my A71 to an S22 Ultra. And omg the difference is huge. The A71 usually took 2 seconds to open instagram. This does it in an instant.
@@nooneinpart A52S was a way better phone tho. They fucked up the A72 chipset and the 52S was a better deal. The only good thing about the 72 was the telephoto lens, but it was removed on the 73. Now rumors say that the A74 wont even exist. So they made their phones slower, made the zoom worse and expected people to upgrade? And now they cancel it.
bro even my pixel 4a is better than a51
I really like the A52S. It still has a headphone jack and comes with a snapdragon processor everywhere.
I have had this phone for over 6 months and agree with pretty much everything here. I'd be a little harsher on the camera, especially at night and with the image stabilisation but it is not bad by any means. There have been a few freezes but not many at all and even my previous Samsung Galaxy S20+ had those after about a year. The face recognition is often poor whilst other times inexplicably it recognises me straight away even when wearing a hat or with facial hair that I don't usually have. The fingerprint scanner trick mentioned is a good one and it works lightning fast most pretty much 100% of the time so I don't even notice the poor facial recognition as my thumb instinctively goes straight to the sensor. I also have dropped this phone many times and the only issue is a totally superficial inch long crack in the back plastic whereas on a glass back it would have been a AU$150 repair job at least 3 times so far.
Had one and it was freezing more often than not, wouldn't say it was the best phone by a long way...
I've had the 53 since August, and the 51 for two years before that. They were both really good phones, especially for the price. I use my A53 daily, and have had no issues with it since I got it. The camera is good, its not slow, and i've had a good experience with facial and fingerprint recognition.
@@TheTwistedStone when you have problems you reset the phone with a computer, specially if you updated the android version. That way it will work as the first day.
I know multiple people who've had Samsung phones start freezing and stuttering after only a year or two, even with flagship models. I had the same experience with my first Samsung phone from around 2016. It's really turned me off the brand, and if I was in the market for a new phone I'd try to avoid it. My current phone is a Pixel 4A, which I've had since launch in 2020, and it still feels as responsive as when I bought it.
@@Blazik3n99 Current phone is my old Samsung Note 4 which has never frozen up in the many years I have owned it. Yes it's had a fair few new batteries.... :) I like the infra red and the pointy stick.....
I abandoned iPhones in 2019 for the first time since my iPhone 3, and went with a Samsung A70 instead of an S-series phone. I felt the S-series was overkill; I don't play high-end games on my phone. The cameras, storage space, speedy charging, and ample battery life were massive improvements over my iPhone 6. Yes, the fingerprint scanner is awful, I just use facial (which works unless I'm wearing sunglasses) or a pin number. But to this day, my A70 is still going strong. I have no need to upgrade, and my A70 has lasted me longer than any iPhone I had.
Security updates left the chat
@@Zombie101 Yeah sure. You mean the iphone from where the fappening came from?
@Zombie101 Samsung constantly receives security updates every few months idk what you're talking about.
@@incogspectator3042 security updates only supported for 3 years on most androids
You have a new Samsung and some have old samsungs
The A series is amazing and has improved so much. My dad has an A70, my mom has an A72, my uncle has an A52, and my other uncle has a Galaxy A31 and I have his old A50 in addition to my Note 9 and S22 Ultra. For non power users, the A series is incredible.
wow the majorty of you family has samsung
yea the A seires is ok for kids or old people
the ultra is a bit over kill for me I have the regular s21 and it's more than enough for me.
I had an A53 as my work phone for a couple weeks. Great phone. Most users wouldn't notice the difference between the A53 and an S22.
nah thats a little too much, i can def notice the smoothness of the s22
I bought this phone for my brother and nephew, and honestly, I'm shocked. I have the S21 Ultra and insane how good the A53 is for its price.
what really matters to me is refresh rate, battery, and processing power. I don't play games often, if ever, but I do appreciate the ability to emulate old systems on the go, so I usually go flagship. S23 Ultra can run F-Zero GX with no slowdown, where my old Fold 3 cannot.
I have the A52s 5G - very good features for its price range, from what I've seen the A53 doesn't have too much in the way of improvement...
@TwinTurbo Ray a52s has a better chip. A53 a bigger battery. Choose performance or battery life. But in A52s the battery is enough, don't need anymore so I picked it.
A52s has _2 fewer years of software updates_ too so I might sacrifice a bit of performance for this kind of longevity...?
Yes clock speeds are low on Exynos 1280 and worse ISP means worse pics than Snapdragon and 🍎counterparts (look at iPhone 11 and XR-1st and 3rd place respectively on Amazon) but Snapdragon 835 _with the same 2.4GHz clock speed as that Exynos_ still holds up well in 2022 so feel free to pick it up
@@paultasker7788 The problem with the a53 is that even though the battery is like 10% bigger, it actually gets less battery life than the a52s because the CPU is that much less efficient. For performance you would choose the a52s, and for battery life you would also choose the a52s.
@@Ramon22282 I'm sure the A53 scored higher than A52s in battery benchmarks but as a 52s owner I'm not complaining if the battery is as good. To be honest it's very decent. Most days have about 40 percent left spare even with a family location tracker running GPS all day and even when I forget to charge I can get through a work day with 30 percent and still have 15 percent left at the end of the day if I put powersave on.
For me a 1 or 2 yr old flagship is the way to go...they are built better and dont feel plasticy. Durability is key and they tend to last way longer than what you expect. I am about to replace my s9 with an s21 ultra as they are in the $340-$400 range
The only minus is security updates. I got the s21 half a year ago, i use a wallet case so plastic back doesnt matter
I got the phone on amazon for £240 quid. Had it for half a year now; it's great and does what most people need a phone to do without being sluggish. The battery life was one of the main selling points for me, so tired of having my phone die after a day.
I got mine for $200 back in January from straight talk. I bought it at Walmart. I've had it for about 6 months with zero issues thus far.
I got the previous version of this phone, the A52 6GB. Absolutely love this phone. And it still has the 3.5mm audio jack, which the A53 lacks.
The A53 can far cough. It's better to have a headphone jack.
I have a Samsung galaxy a12 nacho and for the price it's an amazing cheap phone
Don't buy A53 now, A54 will be coming as soon as next month
I've got the A53 as a work phone. It's a very decent budget phone!
Same. Battery life is insane.
Budget? Lmfao XD
@@JackReacheround in a world where you can get a $20-30USD month contract on a phone like this with 25gb of mobile data
I'd say it's budget
Budget for me 🤷🏽♂️
We got my brother the A52 over a year ago and I (who has an S20 FE) was damn impressed with it for the price. Glad the A53 is like that too.
A52 is a better phone. It doesn't have their homemade exynos chip so it runs better. Also the a52 have 3,5 jack and is cheaper.
@@KisKano5 Yah performance wise A52 though older is still superior to A53 but buying it now wouldn't be much sensible as it's got only I believe 1 or 2 OS upgrades left.
My a52 5G (8/256) is as fast as new after almost 2 years of heavy use, despite being slower than a52s. Got all the updates, still a lot of support time to go. Very usable all-around phones, few if any complaints by me.
Amazing, an LTT sponsor I'm already using. Anydesk is really convenient to connect between my devices, and I've been using it for years.
By the way I still think the Google Pixel 6a is the better choice due to the way better processing power by the Tensor Chip and the great Google software experience. Thanks for the video as always Linus!
I used anydesk too. Its great, but still missing some future. For example it would be great to use it as a second monitor, or a second user interface for the same pc.
8:10 is an epic hot take. Microsoft SAM!
Lol 😂
I had the a33 (same specs as the a53) for a month before I got my iPhone 11, the processing power on that phone is perfect, not the best but I was getting right into 60-70+ fps on Minecraft for the phone. It’s 5000mah battery is also a dream, and one up 5 is also awesome. If you have the money to spend your should definitely get the a33 or the a53.
I was on a vacation with my whole family, until my mom lost her phone. I do not remember which phone it was but straight after that, she bought this phone. It is so good
Considering im rocking a s9+ that got cracked recently and feels sluggish from updates, this was the review I needed.
I ran into bell the other week and could not decide on a possible replacement but this is looking very promising.
No aux compatibility but still has micro sd expansion with all the other bells and whistles. Thank linus
If you can find an A52s (I'm emphasizing the s) instead of an A53 and you don't care about getting one less year of software updates, you could get that instead. I have it and it's essentially the same phone, but with a faster Snapdragon 778G CPU and a headphone jack. If you care about those 2 and you manage to find an A52s (which is hard now since production stopped), you could also consider that.
Might not have Aux but the range of Bluetooth accessories for relatively cheap can compensate. Between headsets and Bluetooth receivers you can get by without them.
I've got an S9, its starting to feel sluggish and is scratched to death (no cracks tho!) I think ill probably repair newer broken flagship phone when I want to upgrade, but this phone still does all I need it for
@@thee_number_six6227 That is true as I already have changed to blue tooth buds within the past year. Id say it's more for the niche sound systems I like to connect to directly opposed to not being able to do so wirelessly with how some of them are configured.
Imagine buying a new phone every single year, especially the flagship
Linus drops a lot
Exactly. They're extremely expensive at first but a flagship phone can easily last for over 5 years if cared for. Luckily today I've even seen midrange phones last as long so you can spend even less money.
Ah im not the only one thinking like that. GG my friend
Why not? Makes perfect sense.
Collect money > use it lightly and sell it as soon as something new comes out. To not lose on its value. Adding just some additional money (collected more easily) you get another flagship upgrade every year.
It's actually moronic to buy flagship and then let it lose its value slowly over more years. Being stuck with something used and more limited, instead of selling it when lightly used and still costly.
Imagine getting a 800 dollar phone, so you can "game" on it. Please grow up, build a pc for the gaming & get a 2-300 dollar phone.
I mean come on, in 5 years time everybody needs a whole damn foldable laptop with 6 power banks in their pocket. Sheople haha..
Weird that when Linus was talking about the lackluster build quality of past mid range phones, he showed the HTC One M8, which was actually a flagship and to this day was my favorite phone ever lol
I noticed the same thing. These phones had an excellent build quality.
I think i was to point out the huge frame past phones had. HTC were great in quality.
Its even funnier when you realize that back then, the Samsung phones were the ones with the poor build quality, even the Samsung flagships were entirely made from plastic back then..
And not to mention that, that specific HTC (M8) had among the best materials and build quality available back then..
but dont read too much into it, it was just a random clip one of his editors put there because he was probably tired after probably a lot of work, so he probably just grabbed a random clip from an old phone
@m0ntus idk if you used it, but the bezel on the m8 is only big by today's standards imo. Plus, those bezels were for the speakers, which were awesome
I got the A53 for $200 with Straight Talk and literally just got the S23 since I switched to TMobile. I liked the size of the A53 compared to the smaller S23. The A53 was a GREAT phone. I really hope I enjoy the S23 just as much.
I have a A71 currently and i was amazed by its battery life, that i may just end up only using midrangers with big batteries. Flagships are nice, but they don't last as long when using them.
I have the A71 as well (been using it for just over 2 years now) and I absolutely love it. I upgraded from the S7.
My Samsung S6 Edge is 5 years now and I bought it used so it's a lot older. Exynos is annoying but flagships do last long. Since mid last year I've bought LG G4, G5 and now I'm using G6. All bought for 30 to $40 from China. 🇨🇳 The G6 was a Verizon unit, G4 Sprint and G5 Korean variant. I only buy used because I enjoy it and I save a ton.
Still have my A71 too after 2 years, and still loving it
@@miaya3898
I meant their batteries.