Longer software support seems to be the only advantage of midrange phones over older flagships. But now with pixels and samsung offering 7 years of updates its going to make even more sense to buy an old flagship phone
I have multiple phones including the S23 Ultra. 24 Ultra, OnePlus Open and 12. Right now I’m currently using my S21 Ultra I repurchased recently. Got a 512GB for $350 with excellent battery life. Older flagships are still way better than the midrange and cheaper phones with the only disadvantage being newer and longer software updates. Still love my pixel 6 Pro and 7 Pro as well. Great video buddy. Thanks for keeping older flagships alive and relevant. 👊🏽💕
@kodyrandom same. It's called hobby lol. Currently have S20 FE 5G as my main, S20 Ultra snapdragon as my second phone (mostly for gaming), A7 2018 because it's my old phone. Currently eyeing on S21 Ultra 😂
@@josuke6131 that's cool! Hobby indeed! Mine are s21 ultra as a main device and s22 (base model). I have some LG devices (v50 and g8) and another s10 and s20 base that I reset and don't use really. I definately collect. I am thinking of geting the Pixel 8 pro at some point here.
In my country price of old flagship is still high. And hard to get a good condition second hand phone with affordable price. So this midrange A55 is a good bargain. And Samsung also give free Galaxy Bud FE and one year Samsung Care so that enough for me to get A55.
In my country, the A55 is the same price as an unlocked brand new Pixel 7. I picked the pixel 7 but also considered the A55 as that build quality looks super premium! I love my pixel 7 camera though. I came from the GOAT of A series, the Galaxy A52s
People are really downplaying the A55's improvements and new features in the comment section. I understand that you don't want to upgrade every year, I don't either! You don't have to call the phone bad in order to avoid upgrading. Allow me to showcase the A55's changes compared to the A54, while putting it up against older Samsung flagships. • SoC The Exynos 1480 switched to 4LPP, from the previous foundry used by the Exynos 1380: 5LPE. This leads to a significant performance boost. Single Core -> 16.3% faster. Multi Core -> 23.4% faster. The Exynos 1380 was at Snapdragon 855 performance levels, A54 S10. The Exynos 1480 is at Snapdragon 888 performance levels, A55 S21. That's a two year leap in performance, as the 865 launched in 2018 and the 888 in 2020. Sure, the Snapdragon "Triple Ate my Battery" wasn't particularly good, but we are making progress nonetheless, and it shouldn't be ignored. Samsung's midrangers are famous for being underpowered. This is Samsung's attempt at fixing that. Additionally, it is 42% faster in GPU than the Exynos 1380, combined with AMD drivers instead of Mali, it is a big improvement. • Construction The A55 is built with an aluminum frame, compared to the A54's plastic frame, which is... nice. More importantly, the A55 uses Gorilla Glass Victus on the display and back glass. This is HUGE, as in a huge feature? Not necessarily. It is huge because that's usually reserved for flagship models. Samsung even skipped GG6 with this. The literal S23 FE uses Gorilla Glass 5! • Display The A55 comes with a peak brightness upgrade of 1650 nits. I'll admit I'm unsure if this only works specifically with HDR content, or if it can be used to boost the brightness of some white text on a black background in, for example, Discord, for better visibility under the sun. I would appreciate if someone answered this. The bezels are also smaller and more uniform this year, with a slight size increase. • Extras Improving SoC efficiency can give manufacturers the option to make the chip faster, or make it more battery efficient. However, a balance is usually picked between both. Even if this chip goes all out on the new foundry, low power tasks should still benefit from the higher efficiency, leading to longer battery life... on paper (Samsung claims that the Galaxy A55 can deliver up to 29 hours of screen time on a 5000mAh battery.). *AND ITS CHEAPER* The cheapest option should be 256/8 for just 380€!
you seem like u know a thing or two, so lemme ask you this. Should i return my a55 and get the new Motorola edge 50 Neo instead? I bought my a55 the same day the edge 50 neo was releaaed, and i've dismissed Motorola during my smartphone search because of their curved displays, but to my surprise the edge 50 neo is a flat display. I paid 480$ for my a55 and currently the price for the edge 50 neo is 680$.
@@bulkathos5207 I wouldn't recommend to do so. Galaxy A55 has more updates, a bigger battery (+2 hours of screen time - source gsmarena) better performance for gaming (+100k in AnTuTu and Geekbench 6 99% stability), better build with brushed alluminum and gorilla glass victus+ and resources (AI in OneUI 6.1.1). Edge 50 Neo has just a slightly better screen and charging speed.
@@bulkathos5207 Never used a Motorola smartphone! Only Apple, Xiaomi and Samsung. I currently use an S23 and I have an Iphone 11 has a secondary device.
The price difference is still considerable - old flagships are still very expensive, the S22+ still costs more than 600-700 in EU, while the A55 is 350. I wish old flagships were indeed a good alternative, but at almost twice the price, I'm afraid they are not.
Dude u are comparing apples & peaches. They are different phones with different target customers. "Older" flagships are called that for a reason: they are old.
but if the old phone has better specs, why not over the newer but weaker phone? who cares about an extra year or two of software updates if the soc is slower and worse anyway lol
I would love the s23 plus, but this year I might go for Pixel 8 pro. I have two Samsung's (s21 ultra and s22) and a few other older samsung devices that I may get rid of at some point this year as well. The LG V50 I might hang onto a bit longer though. I love to collect tech. It's a problem
The only thing stopping me from getting something second hand is firstly, I buy from eBay so for me the phone isn't £400, its gonna be £290 for a new sealed phone and secondly I brought the S21 ULTRA second hand, dropped it twice and it was unusable and also, idk why but the newest update slowed down the phone for me honestly. I'll buy the A55 for now but I will upgrade to a second hand s23 or s24+ in a few years time
Someone looking for an SD card slot isn't buying an S-series flagship NOT called S20. 128gb flagships with no expansion is a joke especially that 5-7 years updates are the norm now for Samsung. Even genshin would eat half of the 128gb one lol.
People are really downplaying the A55's improvements and new features in the comment section. I understand that you don't want to upgrade every year, I don't either! You don't have to call the phone bad in order to avoid upgrading. Allow me to showcase the A55's changes compared to the A54, while putting it up against older Samsung flagships. • SoC The Exynos 1480 switched to 4LPP, from the previous foundry used by the Exynos 1380: 5LPE. This lead to a significant performance boost. Single Core -> 16.3% faster. Multi Core -> 23.4% faster. The Exynos 1380 was at Snapdragon 855 performance levels, A54 S10. The Exynos 1480 is at Snapdragon 888 performance levels, A55 S21. That's a two year leap in performance, as the 865 launched in 2018 and the 888 in 2020. Sure, the Snapdragon "Triple Ate my Battery" wasn't particularly good, but we are making progress nonetheless, and it shouldn't be ignored. Samsung's midrangers are famous for being underpowered. This is Samsung's attempt at fixing that. Additionally, it is 42% faster in GPU than the Exynos 1380, combined with AMD drivers instead of Mali, it is a big improvement. I have used the S21 FE with the Exynos 2100 before, and I can confirm that the A55 is better in terms of thermal management and battery consumption. In terms of daily performance, I don't notice much difference, but I would say the A55 is better because it stays cool while gaming. Unlike my S21 FE, which tends to overheat, causing throttling and noticeable FPS drops, the A55 maintains stable performance without these issues. • Construction The A55 is built with an aluminum frame, compared to the A54's plastic frame, which is... nice. More importantly, the A55 uses Gorilla Glass Victus on the display and back glass. This is HUGE, as in a huge feature? Not necessarily. It is huge because that's usually reserved for flagship models. Samsung even skipped GG6 with this. The literal S23 FE uses Gorilla Glass 5! • Display The A55 comes with a peak brightness upgrade of 1650 nits. I'll admit I'm unsure if this only works specifically with HDR content, or if it can be used to boost the brightness of some white text on a black background in, for example, Discord, for better visibility under the sun. I would appreciate if someone answered this. The bezels are also smaller and more uniform this year, with a slight size increase. • Extras Improving SoC efficiency can give manufacturers the option to make the chip faster, or make it more battery efficient. However, a balance is usually picked between both. Even if this chip goes all out on the new foundry, low power tasks should still benefit from the higher efficiency, leading to longer battery life... on paper (Samsung claims that the Galaxy A55 can deliver up to 29 hours of screen time on a 5000mAh battery.). *AND ITS CHEAPER* The cheapest option should be 256/8 for just 350€!
RU-vid has moved to AV1 codec for 30% more efficiency. The Exynos flagship s21, 22 and so, as well as Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and above (s23 and above for Snap) support this codec, which means 30% battery savings when watching RU-vid, and much lower data usage. Another reason to go older flagship. This means non-AV1 phones must run software decode and eat more battery. Not sure the A55 supports AV1 on chip, like older Exynos flagships and last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The s22 series are definitely a better buy, if you can get it in Exynos. Or get a used s21 Exynos or S23 in Exynos or Snap.
In New Zealand I can get the A55 for $499 NZD on an interest free plan currently while the best offer I can find for an S23 FE is $899, the older flagships don't seem to drop in price much here so A55 has much more value for us
@@Subedi_Sujan double what? In real life use there isn't that much of a difference, everything runs just fine on A55, including games, camera is perfectly fine for personal use, the S23 has some extra gimmicks, but with casual photography you can't really tell the difference, I mean it's not like "wow, that SO much better!" I don't think you are getting double the value with the S23... just my opinion after I've seen both.
You are right. The S23 Fe heats up a lot and drains battery to fast. I sold the s23fe and bougjht an A55 instead. The A55 does not heat at all, i can get up to 3 days battery with normal usage. It is an amazin phone. Well optimized@@silvanigra
Tbh if I were upgrading I'd go with an A55 over an S22 plus only based off battery life. The A55 has 3.5 extra hours of life watching videos & 10 hours longer standby time. Performance is fairly equal on multicore scores so its not like the S22 plus is going to be way better even with the cool AI fearures. The only significant advantages of the S22 plus are the cameras & gaming performance. In my country they are around the same price right now but the A55 will probably drop faster than the S22 plus (making it better value next year). Also the S23 FE is $100 more expensive (USD equivilent) so in some plces not in the same price range.
People choose the A55 because of SD card. Many people still want to expand the storage with Sd card, its not surprising why the A series sell so good every year.
@@daddytheketchumI agree about used phones it's risky as you don't know what has happened to the phone before it got sold but I disagree about a55 being a better phone than the s21 except battery, sd card and os updates (will end up slowing down the phone in the long run due to soc power) which other budget phones offer too. S21 gives better performance, display and cameras with flagship features like dex, ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, wireless & reverse wireless charging etc. The A55 is a good phone especially for the price but it's definitely not a better phone than the s21
In some countries like mine older flagships still cost almost twice as much as this phone. Even the FE series. Refurbished or used are a no go in my country so the A55 is the better option
You need to consider the risk of buying old flagships: some may not be in good condition, but appear to be good in photos or some parts are replaced with non original part or even missing especially if you buy refurbished. I'd rather buy brand new and save myself from those kinds of pesky risks anyway. A55 is actually a fantastic phone for its price
The older S series phones are having greenline issues. I don't trust older S phones anymore two of my cousins have S phones from previous generation both got greenline whereas I am rocking my A52s without any headache.
@@Shan_Shah I got this for 280 usd or 16700php and i traded my s10e on it.. u dont have the phone thats why u are saying s10e is better than it.. my s10e cant even play games smoothly.. onky headphone jack is what is lacking here. this ones is a beast that makes you think if buying flagship phones are worth it.
@@Shan_Shah well you are wrong on that i own an s10e even mobile legends it struggles i have to low all settings that is exynos with 6gb ram s10e , and where can you get that s22 brand new for 280usd..that is absolutely 2nd hand.. my point here is not all flagship samsung destroys this phone . Btw i own an m2 ipad which destroys all this flagship in terms of gameplay haha
My Samsung Galaxy A55 died after 1 drop after 1 week. Needless to say, I wish I have bought Google Pixel. But to Samsung's defense - my friends have A55 and theirs survived drops. Maybe mine was deffective. Hopefully, it will survive 2 years after warranty repair...
My father is eighty years old. He is an elderly man and has a medical crutch. Is it possible for my father to use a modern smart phone? Are there any problems or drawbacks? Can you answer?
There are many smartphones that have a so-called "Easy Mode", at least Samsungs usually do, which simplifies the interface - only a couple of screens, large icons, only the essentials shown, such as camera, phone dialer, messages, internet browser, flashlight, etc. I think your father would quickly get used to it - I got my father his smartphone when he was about 70 several years later, it's second nature, he couldn't go back to a feature phone.
In Iran, the price of old flagship phones is not even close to the current mid-range phone and is much more expensive. The closest ones are S23FE and S21Fe, can you explain which one should I buy?
You are right. The difference in screen colors are obvious. They dulled down the colors on the A55. I only found one other person talking about it. Watch this video all the way through. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HOTyh6-SAUg.htmlsi=ugCfTcSVhf-NxGzo This guy talks about it a couple of times. I think everyone should be talking about it! Samsung needs to know it's not ok.
@@JeremyVorkauf-ye4izYou're unable to oversaturate the colours to that extend on the A55 without going into developer settings. Not that it really matters since objectively the "vivid" mode is bad for colour accuracy & shouldn't be used to display srgb content unless you want things to look way off from what they're supposed to look like.
hi, sir I need your help, I am planning to buy a new phone rn. Would you happen to have any recommendations? I am considering the Samsung S21 Ultra but am hesitant since I don't know if there is a better phone than the S21 Ultra, please recommend if you have others in mind. Don't want to regret buying it. Thanks a lot.
As considering my money, I decide to buy either pixel 6 pro or Samsung s21 Fe .... Which one you think better for photography and videography purpose ?
I had the same experiences with my old phones, I chose note 8 back in 2019 even though it was older model back then, with the same budget i could've gotten A7 or A9 midrange, but I really loved the Note series. Nowadays, I need to change my note 8, but with the weak currency situation in my country, i cannot get any decent phone, even midrange phones are extremely expensive, just for comparison, the Note8 was 8000 back in 2019 The A55 is 21000-25000 now My salary is 6400, i can't afford flagships even older models, the S22 ultra even if 2nd hand is 35000 and up.
There is like a 40$ difference between a55 and pixel 7, and i think ill buy the pixel 7, thinking about it now sounds like a no brainer to even think about the a55
Is no one going to mention battery life? I have the s22 and I just bought the a55 because my s22 uses way too much battery. Can't even make it through a day and I don't do much on my phone. It also overheats quickly to a point you can't hold it in your hand anymore. So..
I was thinking about upgrading from an a52s 5g to s23 because its smaller and it has SD 8 gen 2, but i was also thinking about upgrading to an s22 base model due to price being much cheaper but im worried about software, the battery not being sufficient even though im not an heavy user plus in my region UK we have the exynos 2200 so i wanted to ask whether its worth upgrading or should i just go for the s23 Thank u 🇮🇹
In my opinion you should go for the s23. SD 8 gen 2 is great and has great optimization for battery and apps. I heard great things about the s22 but also heard about some battery issues so I wouldn't risk it. Also, don't worry about software support, it doesn't matter that much since Google Play Services keep its apps functional for a very long time. Anyways, hope I was helpful 🙂
On my country the samsung a55 had almost same price with the iphone 13 (second), and i don't know which one should i buy, can anyone give me some advice?
Im getting the 55 because my a51 is slowly dying and doesn't support new updates. Tho the 55 isnt the best its ab upgrade and will have 3 or so more years of updates
Hey! Loving your new midrange vs older flagship series. I bought a month ago Redmi note 13 pro and I am utterly disappointed in the camera performance. I am very much into photography and travel a lot. Which would you recommend more for photos- pixel 7 pro or s21 ultra? ( I also need minimum 256gigs, so which is a better shooter AND storage value...)?
I had the Redmi note 12 few weeks back, and I was disappointed with the performance and camera too, I switched to S21 and everything was way better except the battery life which I don't mind
For me battery is most problem of today smartphones so i never buy "old". Always can change battery yea but all other components going to be older and slower. Now i have OnePlus 6 and when buy it was flagship and now is therrible slow almost nothing load normal, even auto updates from google store stoped, and even 90mb update aplication takes forever and need charge him 3 times at day..... So new phone is always better option that old flagship.
s21 and s22 ultra versions come with exynos in EU. many complain about overheating on s21 ultra and buggy as hell camera on s22 ultra. i'm on s20 fe and i have no idea what to upgrade to... honestly seems like nothing worth it in the EU. otherwise the s21 ultra is a no brainer if you can get the snapdragon verison. a55 looks good bcs of os updates and still having that sd card support but not any real life major differences. sad.
Should i buy S21 /S22 or A55?? I don't play video games just normal daily use. I need a phone with a (better) battery and a good camera. And i really love the design od s21 and s22. So any ideas??
battery on the a55 is the clear winner and you get decent software support alsom a bigger screen but the cameras are a bit better on the s21 and s22 but not the biggest difference
My father is eighty years old. He is an elderly man and has a medical crutch. Is it possible for my father to use a modern smart phone? Are there any problems or drawbacks? Can you answer?!
google pixel is only sold in americas and in japan on asia I heard the s21 and s22 battery is so bad (s23 is fine tho but not the fe) that leaves me with a55 with the price
also, wasnt galaxy ai would be introduced in a35 and a55 as the first midrange samsung phones to do so? but I guess its just not all the entire premium features exclusive to the s24 ultra??
Right now, June 20 2024, the S23 is 310$ vs 360 for A55. Software update: A55 will last 2029, S23 will last 2028. Hardware: S23 can be found in excellent condition. S23 comes with 8gen2 vs exynos 1480
As compared to what....? Like a series phones? I'm a Samsung, LG, Motorola nut. Still have my S10+, Note 10+, Note 20 ultra, s20 ultra, s21+, z flip 3 and an s22. The S10+ was the last phone I ever bought new. I still have a Razer phone 2, got it half priced 6 months after it came out. Maybe when the s25 comes out, I'll snag an s23.
But yeah some of those really never had decent battery life. S22, s21+, surprisingly Note 10 plus, still, decent. Others, not so much. The flip... Actually pretty bad .
@@matthews-techMy father is eighty years old. He is an elderly man and has a medical crutch. Is it possible for my father to use a modern smart phone? Are there any problems or drawbacks? Can you answer?
