Early Galaxy A55 review reveals considerable 31% GPU performance bump vs Galaxy A54 and disappointing charging speed

After a plethora of leaks and rumors, Samsung is finally launching the Galaxy A55 and the Galaxy A35 smartphones on March 11. Although we can expect the embargoed reviews of the devices to go live at or near launch, a Russian reviewer has already put the Galaxy A55 through its paces.

The prelaunch Galaxy A55 review, which is live on Bilbili, showcases the hardware specifications, design, the One UI 6.1 software experience based on Android 14, and performance.

Galaxy A55 specifications

The Samsung Galaxy A55 reportedly features an Exynos 1480 SoC in conjunction with 8 or 12 GB of LPDDR5 memory and 128/256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The device also brings a 6.64-inch AMOLED display boasting a 120 Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2340x1080.

Powering the device is a 5000 mAh battery with support for 25 W charging. This is quite disappointing since rival brands offer much faster charging capabilities. For the connectivity options, we are looking at Dual sim support, Wi-Fi 6, NFC, and Bluetooth 5.3.

Finally, the Galaxy A55 features a 32 MP f2.2 selfie shooter up front. Around the back, there is a 50 MP main sensor with OIS, a 12 MP ultrawide with a 123° FOV, and a 5 MP macro snapper.

Galaxy A55 performance

Starting with the Geekbench 6 benchmark, the Galaxy A55’s Exynos 1480 SoC achieved a score of 1,161 and 3,398 in the single-core and multi-core benchmarks respectively. To put these numbers into perspective, the Exynos 1380 inside the Galaxy A54 5G (Available on Amazon) put up scores of 1,006 and 2,828 in the Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core tests respectively. This makes the Galaxy A55 a solid 15% ahead in single-core and 20% more performant in multi-core tests.

Moving to the GPU, the Exynos 1480 brings a new Xclipse 530 iGPU. The Xclipse 530, which is based on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, reportedly managed a Geekbench 6 GPU score of 3,994 and a 3DMark Wild Life Extreme result of 1,068. Per our testing, the Galaxy A55’s GPU outperforms the Galaxy A54’s ARM Mali-G68 by a whopping 31% in the Wild Life Extreme test making it a worthy gen-on-gen improvement.

That said, the Exynos 1480 is still a midrange chip and is clearly beaten by the Tensor G2 inside the Pixel 7a (Available on Amazon) in both CPU and GPU benchmarks. For instance, the Tensor G2 is a sizeable 23% ahead in the single-core Geekbench 6 test and a mammoth 72% faster in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark. Granted the Tensor G2 is a high-end chip and isn’t directly comparable to the mid-range Exynos 1480. But the Pixel 7a is in the same price range which makes it a fair comparison.

Galaxy A55 charging speed and battery life

The Galaxy A55 apparently takes 1 hour and 15 minutes for a full charge. This is an underwhelming result by 2024 standards where competing phones from the likes of Xiaomi can charge much quickly courtesy of snappier fast charging. Case in point, the Xiaomi Note 13 Pro charges from 0 to 100 in 45 minutes thanks to the 67 W fast charging.

When it comes to battery life, the 5000 mAh cell seemingly offered 15 hours of FHD video playback and 11 hours of social media use according to the reviewer.

All in all, the Galaxy A55 appears to be a solid mid-range smartphone that brings noteworthy improvements in the performance department over the Galaxy A54. However, the phone is yet to officially come out, so take the preliminary analysis presented here with a grain of salt.