Galaxy A54: A Strong Midrange Contender or a Flagship Rival?

Budget phones are getting really good, and premium phones are becoming more affordable. That was true for a while, but lately, we’ve seen flagship phones breaking the $1,000 mark. Now, we have super expensive phones, so I can’t totally agree with the second part of that statement anymore. But the first part? That’s still spot on.

Enter the Samsung Galaxy A54. It just launched and sits in the middle of Samsung’s lineup, which ranges from around $160 to nearly $2,000. Honestly, this A54 could be the best bang for your buck in the whole lineup. I didn’t expect to say that, but after using it for the past couple of weeks, I’m pretty impressed. It brings a lot of the premium experience but at just a third of the price of Samsung’s flagship.

The A54’s price is about $400-450, and if you sign the right contract in the US, you might even get it for free. To put that in perspective, the flagship I’ve been using this year is the Samsung S23 Ultra, which still costs $1,200.

In this video, I want to show you how the A54 compares to the S23 Ultra and other top-tier phones. It’s definitely not offering a third of the features, so I’m breaking it down into five categories: Build Quality, Display, Performance, Camera, and Battery.

I’ve always said that if a phone can nail all five of those areas, it’s a solid device. As the price goes down, you expect some compromises. But here’s where it gets interesting: Samsung uses a similar design across its entire lineup, so this $1,200 flagship looks almost the same as the $400-450 A54.

Samsung tends to reserve the satin/matte finish for the backs of their high-end phones, like the S23 Ultra, while the squared-off aluminum rails have a polished look to add some contrast. The A54, however, does the opposite. It has glossy glass on the back, with satin-finished aluminum rails, and I actually think that looks pretty good too.

At the end of the day, both phones are made from glass and aluminum, so the real differences come down to two things. One is size—the A54 is definitely smaller and lighter than the Ultra. The other difference is the design; the A54 has a flat screen, which is fine, while the Ultra has a slight curve on the edges of the display. But honestly, the build quality on both phones is very similar. The A54 has an IP67 rating, while the Ultra has IP68, which is almost the same. The A54 also has a SIM card slot and expandable storage at the top, while the Ultra has a SIM tray at the bottom, with no expandable storage.

If we assume both Gorilla Glass 5 (on the A54) and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (on the Ultra) scratch at a level six with deeper grooves at level seven, then I’d say the A54 offers about 90% of the flagship’s build quality, which is really impressive.

Display

This is Samsung we’re talking about, so they go all-in on the display for their flagship phones. The S23 Ultra’s screen is absolutely gorgeous—super bright, sharp, responsive, and efficient. The specs are top-notch, with a 1440p resolution, 1,750 nits of brightness, an AMOLED panel, a 120Hz refresh rate, and variable refresh down to one hertz with LTPO. It’s seriously impressive.

The A54’s display isn’t quite as advanced on paper, but when you use it, you’ll notice that Samsung stripped away some of the extra features that aren’t always necessary. Even so, the A54 still delivers a premium experience for everyday use.

As I mentioned, this phone only comes in one size, so it’s a bit smaller than the flagship model, which is probably a good thing for some people since phones are getting so huge these days. It has a 6.4-inch 1080p flat AMOLED display. While it’s not Quad-HD, it still has over 400 pixels per inch, which is more than enough for most people unless you’re really into pixel-peeping. And it’s still nice and bright. I’ve had no trouble using it outdoors—even in direct sunlight. It can hit 1,000 nits, so whether I’m in my car or outside, it’s totally readable.

The display is pretty close to what you’d get on the flagship, though you’ll notice the bezels are a bit thicker around the screen. That’s one of those details people often bring up in YouTube comments, but it’s not something most people really care about when they’re actually using the phone. Still, it’s true—there’s a bit of a bigger chin, and it doesn’t go corner-to-corner.

As for the refresh rate, the S23 Ultra has LTPO tech that can adjust the refresh rate from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz when you’re not using it. The A54 only goes from 120Hz to 60Hz, so it’s not as efficient or adaptive, but it’s still better than having a fixed refresh rate. You might also notice that the colors shift a bit to the blue side if you’re looking at the screen from an angle, more than some of Samsung’s higher-end displays. And the hole-punch cutout isn’t quite as clean as the flagship’s—it has a small shiny metal ring around it, which can be a little distracting when the sun hits it just right. It’s a tiny thing, but worth mentioning.

That said, you still get all the display settings you’d find on the pricier models, so you can tweak the colors and make it look the way you want. Overall, I’d say the A54 offers about 80% of the flagship’s display quality. It’s not going to match the flagship in terms of the highest specs or extreme situations like bright sunlight, but in everyday use, especially indoors, it looks very similar. The thicker bezels are the only noticeable difference.

Performance

Here’s where the differences really start to show. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, with its 8GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage, delivers some serious power. On the other hand, the A54 doesn’t have the same raw muscle under the hood. It runs on the Exynos 1380 chip, which is fine, but definitely not in the same league as the flagship chip. In fact, the Exynos 1380’s CPU performance is about 50-80% lower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. For reference, its Geekbench scores are pretty similar to what we saw from the iPhone XS back in 2018.

That said, with 6GB of RAM, the A54 handles day-to-day tasks just fine. It won’t blow you away with top-tier performance, but it’s more than enough for everyday use. When we talk about performance, it’s not just about numbers—it’s about how smoothly your phone runs when you’re switching between apps or just using it for basic stuff. For things like checking emails, scrolling through social media, or even watching a YouTube video, the A54 does the job without issue. The 120Hz refresh rate helps things feel smooth, and those basic tasks don’t really need the power of a high-end chipset anyway.

That said, it’s not perfect. There are a few moments where you might notice some stutter or dropped frames, and the experience does feel a little slower than what you’d get with a flagship phone. If I had both phones in my hand and didn’t know which was which, I could probably tell which one has the lower-end chip, but I’d only pick up on it after pushing the phone a bit—like multitasking, jumping between more demanding apps, or streaming music while browsing a heavy website. That’s when the performance gap starts to feel bigger.

Another difference? The S23 models use a fast ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, while the A54 uses an optical one. It’s slower and requires a quick flash of light to scan your fingerprint. As for storage, the S23 has faster built-in storage, but the A54 offers expandable storage—something that’s a big deal for some people, even if it’s not as speedy. So if you’re someone who likes the option to add more storage, that’s a clear win for the A54.

You can really feel the difference between a flagship chipset and a mid-range one. It’s not just about raw power—it’s about how smooth everything feels. If you’ve never used a high-end phone, you might not notice, but once you’ve tried one, it becomes clear. Especially when you’re doing more demanding tasks. Both phones are running the same software, One UI 5.1, but the flagship just handles things more reliably and smoothly.

I’d say the A54 hits about 60% of the flagship’s performance. Not bad, honestly.

Cameras
Now, let’s talk about cameras—this is where phones really start to separate themselves, right? It’s usually the difference between a good phone and a great one, and that holds true here.

Looking at the back of the A54, it’s clear they’ve designed it to look similar to the S23 series, though obviously, it’s not packing as many cameras as the Ultra. You get a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 5-megapixel macro. And that’s where they cut costs—who even needs a macro camera instead of a zoom lens? It’s like they’ve made it look like the more expensive phones but left out the zoom to save a bit of cash.

As far as the photo and video experience, it’s exactly the same as what you’d get on the pricier models. The camera app, the layout, the features—it’s all the same. I know some people aren’t fans of Samsung’s layout, but honestly, it works. It’s straightforward.

And when it comes to photos, they look good in decent lighting. If you’re not comparing them to something super high-end, they’re sharp, detailed, and look pretty solid overall. Sure, the white balance might be a little off and sometimes they can look a bit overexposed, but honestly, for a $450 phone, this is about as good as it gets—unless you’re looking at something like the Pixel 6a.

So, like I said, the whole point of this comparison is to stack the A54 against the more expensive flagship, and doing that really brings out some of the flaws in the A54’s main camera. It tends to overexpose shots, making them way too bright sometimes, and the white balance can be a bit all over the place. But here’s the thing: most people buying this phone have never used a $1,200 phone, so they wouldn’t even know what kind of performance to expect from one. It’s like comparing a Toyota Corolla to a Supra—both made by the same company, but the person buying the Corolla wasn’t shopping for a Supra and wasn’t expecting the same kind of performance.

Just putting them side by side shows the differences, but honestly, the A54’s camera is totally fine. Sometimes I’ll just say “it’s fine,” but I really mean it—it works. If you zoom in, you’ll definitely lose some sharpness because it uses a macro lens instead of a telephoto, so it doesn’t do zoom nearly as well as the pricier phone once you hit 4-5X. The A54 also doesn’t do 8K video or even 4K at 60fps like the flagship, but it does everything else just fine. The ultra-wide camera is a bit soft, especially in low light, but it’s actually a little wider than the flagship’s, so that’s a nice bonus.

Battery

As for the battery, both phones have 5,000 mAh batteries, so in terms of daily use, they’re pretty similar. The real difference comes in the chips—while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in the flagship is faster and more efficient, the A54’s Exynos chip just can’t keep up in that department.

So, this flagship phone really offers a lot more. It can push the battery harder thanks to its higher peak output, so you could drain it quickly if you wanted to. But it’s also more power-efficient, especially when paired with the LTPO display. For regular use—scrolling through social media, checking emails, and all that—it sips battery. It lasts longer than the A54, which tends to drain more consistently.

The A54 doesn’t spike in usage like the flagship, but it also doesn’t handle standby time as well. So, while the flagship’s battery life might look more up-and-down, the A54’s is more of a steady, gradual decline. The A54 also doesn’t have wireless charging, even though it has a glass back. That’s something you sometimes find on phones in this price range, but it’s not a deal-breaker. The A54 charges at 25 watts, which feels slow by 2023 standards, especially with so many phones offering faster charging these days. So, while it’ll take about an hour to fully charge, that’s pretty average. But when you compare it to the flagship, which charges at 45 watts, the A54’s charging speed isn’t a huge downside.

When you look at everything, you’re getting around 78% of the flagship experience for a third of the price. Honestly, that’s a pretty solid deal.

There are some little extra things the flagship offers, like better haptics, bigger speakers thanks to the larger size, and even a stylus. If you’re into DeX, though, you’d need to spend more for the flagship because the A54 doesn’t support it.

Funny thing is, both phones come with just the phone in the box—no charger. But yeah, these mid-range phones really do a good job of closing the gap with flagships, offering much of the same experience at a fraction of the cost.