Samsung today held an event where it showed off its new Samsung Galaxy A-Series phones. Unlike the S-Series models with their Unpacked events, these devices aren’t the flashiest phones with the fastest chips and the best cameras. They are, however, the phones that the rest of the world will buy and use en masse. In the top 10 smartphones sold in 2021 courtesy of Counterpoint Research, only one Samsung phone found its way there, and that’s the cheap and cheerful Galaxy A12.
Samsung didn’t announce phones that cheap, however. It debuted a new Galaxy A33 5G, an A53 5G, and an A73
How to rewatch Samsung’s Awesome Galaxy A event
Samsung’s A-Series event was streamed live on YouTube on Thursday, March 17, at 10 a.m. ET. That’s 7 a.m. PT and 9 a.m. CT. It’s available on YouTube for a rewatch if you missed it the first time.
Samsung Galaxy A53
In the A-Series, Samsung’s Galaxy A5x has been its goldilocks model. It’s cheap enough to not hurt the wallet but good enough that it can trade blows with something like the Pixel 5a or iPhone SE if an argument is being made for value. The A53 is a follow-up phone from the A52 and A52s from last year. It even looks a lot like the pair, notwithstanding its ditching of the headphone jack. Expect the same Infinity-O display with a fast refresh rate on the front and a rear square quad-camera layout, if you’re making a purchase.
Internally, it’s powered by an Exynos 1280 chip and paired with 6GB of RAM. Unlike the A52 which had a separate 5G model, all versions of the A53 are expected to come with
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Samsung Galaxy A73
Samsung also debuted a new Galaxy A73, the phone in the Galaxy A-series that’s a step up from the A5x series. Samsung’s A72 wasn’t given as much focus as the A52 last year, and this year wasn’t much different. The company’s only acknowledgment of the A73 5G came via way of a literal footnote, noting it would go on sale from April 22 in unspecified select markets.
The A73 comes with a 6.7-inch FullHD 120Hz AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 778, and a quad-camera set up with a 108-megapixel main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide, a 5Mp depth sensor, and a 5MP macro lens.
As we noted, the Samsung Galaxy A72 was shortchanged last year, with only a single 4G model launching in a limited number of markets — none of them being the U.S. In contrast, the A52 had both a 4G model and a 5G model. Samsung would later follow it up with a revamped A52s in the summer.
Samsung Galaxy A33
Samsung announced the budget-friendly Galaxy A33 5G. It’s going to be available in the U.K. for 329 British pounds (or $430) and is very close in specs to the A53
It’s a 6.4-inch plastic slab of a phone with a Full HD display with a 90Hz refresh rate on the front, and a 48MP main camera at the rear. The other specs are more or less the same as the A53 5G. It’ll go on sale on April 22.
