Samsungs Midrange Aseries Phones Get A Galaxy S23 Facelift
© Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge The Samsung Galaxy A34 (left) and A54 (right).Samsung's Galaxy A34 and A54 are the latest additions to its popular mid-range A series. While both phones offer a number of updates over last year's models, what's most interesting to me is how similar the Galaxy S23 and this year's S23 Plus are.
Gone are the camera screens of the A33 and A53, with three regular phone camera lenses on the back. Both look premium to me, and Samsung promises a premium-level support period with four generations of major Android updates and five years of security patches.
The Galaxy A54 will be available in the US on April 6 starting at $449.99 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The A54 launches in the UK this month, starting at £449 for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or £499 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy A34 will also be available in the UK this month, starting at £349 for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or £399 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Samsung is not currently announcing a US release for the Galaxy A34. We've contacted the company for exact European pricing and release information.
Hold them in your hands and the flagship illusion disappears, these are clearly mid-range phones. Both feel slightly thicker (8.2mm, presumably to make room for their larger 5,000mAh batteries), and the A34 in particular has a back that feels like plastic. Both phones support fast charging up to 25W.
Each phone has a main, ultra-wide-angle and macro camera on the back, although their exact specifications vary. The A54 has a 50-megapixel main sensor, along with a 12-megapixel ultra-wide and a 5-megapixel macro. Samsung boasts that this main sensor is larger than its predecessor, which should allow for better low-light photography. Meanwhile, the A34 has a 48-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide and a 5-megapixel macro camera.
The phones are visually sharper on the front. The A34's 13-megapixel selfie camera sits in a small waterdrop notch, while the A54 has a punch hole that houses the 32-megapixel front-facing sensor. Both have 120Hz, 1080p OLED displays with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, although the A34's 6.6-inch display is slightly larger than the A54's 6.4-inch.
On the inside, the A34 is powered by a MediaTek Dimension 1080 processor, while the A54 has Samsung's in-house Exynos 1380 chip. Both phones have microSD card slots that support up to 1TB cards.
Rounding out the specs, both phones have a relatively high IP67 rating for dust and water resistance (technically enough for full submersion, though we wouldn't recommend testing it ourselves), 5G and in-display fingerprint sensors. Exact colors vary by market, but in the UK the A34 is available in black, silver, lime and purple, while the A54 is sold in white rather than silver, as well as black, lime and purple.
Stay tuned for our full Samsung Galaxy A54 review.