Right on schedule, the Galaxy A55 5G and Galaxy A35 5G are official. The successors to the most popular mid-range duo of 2023 have more in common than ever before. For starters the Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 are built around the same display - a 6.6-inch 1080x2340px Super AMOLED panel with 120 Hz refresh rate. They also share a 5,000mAh battery with 25W charging support and Samsung's new Key Island design language. The frame is different though, with the Galaxy A55 using metal to the Galaxy A35's plastic.
In a major upgrade over their
predecessors, both phones have glass on the front and rear. The Galaxy A55 uses
Gorilla Glass Victus+ likely on both front and rear, while the Galaxy A35 uses
Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the front (no official word on the glass material on
the rear). Gorilla Glass Victus+ is reportedly twice as scratch resistant as
the Gorilla Glass 5 on the Galaxy A54 and A34.
The Galaxy A55 5G has the Exynos 1480 SoC
with an AMD RDNA2-based Xclipse 530 GPU. You can have it paired with either 8
GB or 12 GB of RAM, and 128 GB or 256 GB of storage. In contrast, the Galaxy
A35 settles for the older Exynos 1380 that the Galaxy A54 used. It's still a
5nm chipset, which suggests good efficiency and you get to pick between 6 GB or
8 GB RAM and 128 GB or 256 GB storage. The Galaxy A55 has a 32MP f/2.2 selfie
camera, while on the back there's a 50MP f/1.8 main shooter with OIS, a 12MP
f/2.2 fixed-focus ultrawide camera and a 5MP f/2.4 macro camera.
The Galaxy A35 5G comes with a 13MP f/2.2
front-facing unit, a 50MP f/1.8 main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 fixed-focus ultrawide
shooter, and a 5MP f/2.4 macro unit. The Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35
premiere Samsung Knox Vault on the A series. It's a hardware-based secure
execution environment that's physically isolated from the processor and memory.
It safeguards the most critical data on your device, like lock screen
credentials - PIN codes, passwords, and patterns. It also protects the phone's
encryption keys.
Samsung's standalone Knox is also
installed, and you get the opt-in Auto Blocker, which can stop suspicious app
installations, scan for malware, and block malicious commands. Samsung promises
4 years of major OS updates and 5 years of security patches for both new Galaxy
A series phones. That's two years shorter than what the flagship series got,
but still impressive for a mid-ranger.
You can get the Galaxy A55 in 8/128GB for
€ 480, while other available options are 8/256GB (€ 530), and 12/256GB variants.
The Galaxy A35 starts at € 380 for the 6/128GB trim, has a 8/128GB middle option
and tops out at € 450 for the 8/256GB variant.
