Galaxy S series shenanigans, and as usual Samsung is offering some decent trade-in deals and £50 cashback up until around the middle of April.

But is the Exynos chipset that runs this show a massive heap of cack or can it handle a bit of gaming? What's the camera tech like? These questions and more will be answered in this unboxing and early review.

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Every bloody time, I swear to God.

Some time later.

So what do you actually get bunged in the box with the Galaxy A55 5G? Here's a clue.

Not very much.

So you've got a quick start guide, a USB type C to type C charging cable, and a wee porky pin to get your sim in there.

And that's it my friends, no power adapter, no condom case, so let's crack on with the fun.

So the Galaxy A55 has expanded a wee bit over the previous Galaxy A54. It's now a 6.6-incher versus the old 6.4-inch Galaxy A54.

It's certainly a proper handful now, and yeah, the bezels surrounding the display have slightly slimmed down versus the A54, especially down below, but it's not a massive difference.

So if you want something a bit more compact, you're probably going to have to boost your budget and get a Galaxy S24 or look elsewhere.

But the Galaxy A55 hasn't just grown a bit over the previous generation, it also looks and feels more premium.

This is mostly down to that lovely metal edging which replaces the placky frame of the A54.

However, you've now got iPhone-style completely flat edges which makes the A55 less comfortable to clutch than the previous generation.

The only place the frame actually curves is up here by the power button and the volume rocker.

So that hand feel is certainly pretty similar to an iPhone, i.e. it's about as comfortable to clutch as the average house brick.

And the shift to metal means that Samsung's Galaxy A55 is heavier now as well at 213 grams.

It's actually not too far off the S24 Ultra.

As for the colour options on the Galaxy A55, well once again you've got four to choose between and Samsung, being as modest as ever, has labelled all of them Awesome.

It's got Awesome Navy, Awesome Lemon, Awesome Lilac and this here Awesome Ice Blue model.

And personally I don't think it's awesome, I think it's absolutely fine, but absolutely fine ice blue is a bit of a mouthful.

There's certainly an eclectic range of colours, the ice blue one is one of the more subtle, subdued efforts and I really like it, it looks nice and fresh.

It's once again a glossy, shiny beast, does tend to get a little bit smudgy but thankfully this colour does mostly mask it.

And Samsung hasn't just upgraded the frame, you've also got Gorilla Glass Victus protecting this thing, which is highly shatter resistant but on previous smartphones I've reviewed with Gorilla Glass Victus does tend to scratch up rather easily as well and Samsung, being a bit stingy, hasn't slapped a screen protector on here and I would highly recommend doing so if you want your Galaxy A55 to look box fresh.

Good news if you spend a lot of time hanging around in bubble baths, jacuzzis etc because this phone is IP67 water and dust resistant.

Again it can be fully submerged in water, give it a quick toweling off, hopefully should be right as rain.

Now when you want to power on the Galaxy A55 it's your usual in-display optical fingerprint sensor which so far hasn't really given me much jip, the occasional feel if my fingers are a bit damp or mucky but that's it.

And you've always got that face recognition in backup as well which again is fairly swift and seems to work even in pretty dim conditions, helped along by the fact that the screen can light right up.

And the software side holds no surprises either, it's Android 14 with Samsung's very own OneUI 6.1 slapped on top.

So you've got all usual fan favourites in here including good old modes and routines and this is especially good if you're trying to relax or work or drive and you just want the entire world to piss off and leave you alone.

You've got that nifty bit of gesture support, you've got the one-handed mode which is absolutely invaluable at times on this enormous chonkster and then you've got the less great stuff like

Bixby.

Ah, clearly even Bixby can't be arsed today.

You've got the usual great security and privacy features here, a mixture of Google's own Android stuff and of course that Samsung Knox shenanigans.

But one of my major bugbears with Samsung smartphones is they double up on all of Google's Android features.

So you've got the Samsung wallet, web browser, app store, smart home shenanigans and of course our great mate Bixby.

Ah, look who decided to actually do something.

I didn't understand that.

No, that's no real surprise mate, just go back to sleep.

I swear it's the bloody Father Dougal of the AI assistant world.

And you will find some crapware stashed on here as well, the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn which can just bugger right off.

So overall it's a similar software setup to what you'll find on Samsung's Galaxy S24 flagship smartphones but for a more affordable price.

But Galaxy A55 doesn't have any of those snazzy AI features which Samsung can't help banging on about for the S24s.

You can still do some stuff like transcriptions and voice recording, although it is more limited.

You don't get that special spangly smart reply shenanigans, circle the search, all that good stuff.

But to be honest I don't use many of those AI features very often when I am playing with the S24 Ultra etc. so they're not a massive miss here on the Galaxy A55.

At least Samsung is still committing to strong software support on this bad boy, 4 OS updates and 5 years of security updates so you shouldn't have to upgrade your blower for quite a while.

Oh and the other feature that's missing here on the A55 that I thought might just creep in is Samsung DeX.

It's normally tucked away here in connected devices but no dice.

As for the storage, well you've got a choice of 128 or 256 gigs of the stuff, I upgraded to the 256 model.

And certainly if you're going to download Genshin Impact I would highly recommend doing so because as you can see I've already used a quarter of that space.

That said you can actually slap a microSD memory card into that second SIM slot to expand the storage.

That's a feature you don't even get on some of these S-series blowers.

And it's good to see a bit of eSIM support on here as well, particularly useful if you're travelling abroad and you just want to grab yourself a temporary eSIM for a week or so.

And yes you've now got that more spacious 6.6 inch Super AMOLED display to enjoy all of your Netflix and games whatever else on.

Maybe a bit bigger here on the Galaxy A55 5G but it's otherwise identical to last year's effort.

Once again completely flat, you've got a full HD plus resolution so image is pretty crisp even though it's quite a spacious display.

The screen mode is set to vivid by default so yeah those colours really poppy and punchy but you can dial things down a bit in the display settings if you want to.

You've got a gorgeous contrast on here, full HDR10 support as well but no Dolby Vision as usual from Samsung.

And on the high brightness mode the Galaxy A55's screen tops off at around 1000 nits so outdoor visibility isn't really an issue.

You've got the usual eye comfort shield shenanigans so your peepers don't feel like they're going to pop in their sockets if you're browsing the web at 2am or whatever.

And this screen does top off at 120Hz refresh rate again so nice and silky smooth.

Just not always when you're using one UI because it can occasionally feel a wee bit juddery and janky.

And as usual the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G sports a stereo speaker setup.

And as usual it's pretty bloody good, certainly loud enough when you bump that volume up without making the audio all crap and tinny.

You've got Dolby Atmos support as well as Dolby Atmos for gaming and an equaliser you can tweak as well if you want to bump up the bass or whatever.

Sadly as usual no headphone jack on the A55, I think that was called a good three generations ago on the A series now.

Bloody hell I'm getting old.

So you will be relying on a bit of Bluetooth 5.3 audio streaming if you don't want to get all dongle-y.

So now let's have a shufty at the performance on the Galaxy A55, which is usually a bit of a touchy subject here on the A series.

Now the Samsung has kind of flip-flopped between having Snapdragon or it's very own Exynos chipset stuffed inside of these things.

Well it's gone Exynos again for the A55 5G, it's the Exynos 1480 backed by 8GB of RAM.

And in benchmarking tests it certainly won't have your jaw drop into crotchal levels in sheer awe and amazement, but it is a slight improvement over last year's A54.

But to really put the Galaxy A55 through it's paces and test it's metal and various other cliches I smashed through a good bit of Genshin Impact on it.

And to be honest it's Genshin skills have to be admired for a mid-range mobile.

On higher graphics settings, yep, the Galaxy A55 unsurprisingly stumbled occasionally.

That frame rate basically became a slideshow and the audio turned into a garbled piercing din that really hurt my ears, making it only slightly better than Ed Sheeran's latest oral atrocity.

But thankfully these wee fits only lasted a few seconds at most, unlike most Ed Sheeran songs sadly.

And this happened only sporadically.

Although the Galaxy A55 did also heat up a fair bit after sort of 40-45 minutes of continuous play.

So you're certainly best off leaving the graphics on a low to medium setting and keeping your sessions under an hour, especially as gaming drains that battery pretty damn quick.

And speaking of the battery, sadly Samsung hasn't increased the capacity for the A55 even though this is a bigger blower now.

So it's once again a 5,000 mAh capacity cell and this will last you all day no worries on a single charge as long as you're not absolutely rinsing that camera tech or gaming on Genshin non-stop.

Of course you do have the usual power saver modes if you do find yourself in a bit of a bind.

But certainly do not rely on fast charging to juice this thing up in like 10-15 minutes because as usual, it ain't got it.

And charging actually maxes out at a somewhat pitiful 25 watts, which is terrible compared with some of the competition from the likes of Poco and Redmi smartphones.

And of course there's no adapter bunged in the box, you'll have to provide your own.

And the Galaxy A55 also does not support wireless charging, still a reasonably rare feature at this sort of £400 price point.

So let's finish up this smashing Samsung Galaxy A55 unboxing and early review by gazing adoringly at that camera tech.

And what you've got here is a 50 megapixel primary sensor, you can shoot in 12 megapixel images by default using pixel binning or you can bump that up to full 50 megs.

You've also got a 12 megapixel ultra wide angle shooter and that final snapper as usual, pointless 5 megapixel macro bollocks.

Now one of my biggest beefs with the old A54 was the fact that the shutter speed was a bit crap on it, frankly.

However, this seems to have improved for the A55 to the point where it only slows down if you're like rapidly shooting portrait shots.

And if you've used any Samsung smartphone in recent times, you'll know all of the standard camera fare that is stashed on here.

You got your food mode for snapping your Sony's and bunging them on Instagram.

You got your night mode, you got your pro mode, and this doesn't have a built in raw option but you can play around with the likes of the ISO levels, the EV, etc.

You've got that obligatory fun mode, which is so much fun that frankly, I might just die.

Or at the very least kill myself.

I don't hate fun.

I swear to God, I just hate this.

And anyway, I've spent four days now wandering about the place with the Galaxy A55 shooting random stuff using my limited photographic abilities and here's just a few sample shots.

The Galaxy A55 is unsurprisingly very similar to the A54, a dependable snapper in most conditions producing slightly poppier, more obviously processed pics versus the Pixel 7a.

I did get some blurry shots when snapping living subjects, but the A55 can handle ropey light fairly well.

You'll get softer photos in ambient light, but you do have that dedicated night mode for low light shots, as long as you can keep your hands relatively still for a few seconds.

Oh, and I wouldn't zoom in beyond two times because the digital crop renders everything fuzzy.

You can also shoot a good bit of home movie action here on the A55.

It does top off at 4K at 30 frames per second, there's no 60 FPS option, not unless you dial it down to full HD resolution.

And as usual with Samsung blows, the video results are pretty bloody good.

At 4K level, plenty of detail packed into every frame.

The stabilisation is excellent and the built-in mics do a good job of picking up audio from all around you without too much background interference.

The main issue when shooting video is that switching between the main and the ultra-wide lenses is a rather jarring experience.

Not exactly the smoothest of transitions, but besides all that, it's all good.

And then finally, around the front end of the Galaxy A55 is a 32 megapixel selfie shooter.

As usual, you've got the wide and ultra-wide options, and as if you weren't already completely sick of staring at my bald head, well, here's a few more instances of it.

You can actually shoot 4K video using that selfie shooter as well, again at 30 frames per second, otherwise full HD at 60 frames per second, and again the mics are good enough to pick up your voice, no real issues there.

And anyway, there you have it my lovelies, that in a delicious wee nutshell is the fresh new Samsung Galaxy A55 5G, and it's certainly one of the better mid-range mobiles that I've tested out in 2024.

You've got that nice premium design, shame that it's more iPhone-esque, so not quite as comfortable to clutch, and that wee bit bigger as well, so one-handed use not quite as easy.

And even though it's grown in size, no increase for the battery capacity, but camera tech is still pretty dependable all round.

The performance has improved over the previous generation, so if you want a big Samsung blower but your budget can't reach the Galaxy S24+, well, it seems like a reasonable alternative.

That's my early verdict anyway on the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G.

Be great to your thoughts down in the comments below, especially if you've had your sims slapped in this bad boy for the last few days.

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Cheers everyone, love you!