Two of the darlings in Samsung’s smartphone portfolio—the Galaxy A35 and A55—have arrived, bringing some serious game to the midrange arena, including an upgrade to an aluminum chassis, some meaningful camera upgrades, and the company’s Knox Vault built-in security solution once found on higher-end models.
Aside from the S-series flagships, Samsung’s A-series phones have long been its biggest global money-maker. In fact, last year the A14, A14 5G, A54 5G, and A34 5G were the top 6 selling phones in the world. The A14 moved more units than even the mighty S23 Ultra that came out in third place. To say that Samsung doesn’t intend on messing with success in the A-series is a given.
The Korean electronics giants is quick to point out that the new A35 and A55 will be its first midrange phones to feature Knox Vault. Previously found in its higher-end models, Knox Vault is Samsung’s proprietary hardware-based security feature, which partitions and separates important data like your lock screen credentials from malicious attacks that target the phones’ memory and processors.
Both devices also have 6.6-inch OLED 120Hz panels that can peak at 1000 nits for decent outdoor viewing, IP67 dust-water resistance, 5,000mAh batteries capable of 25W charging (which feels so pedestrian nowadays), 50MP main cameras with a 5MP macro sensor (booo!), support for expandable storage up to 1TB, and not to mention four years of Android OS updates and five years of security patches (yay!).
Where the two models diverge are with the build, cameras, and chipsets. While last year’s A54 had a plastic frame, the A55 gets an aluminum upgrade. In terms of cameras, the A55 gets larger ultrawide and selfie cameras compared to the A35 (12MP/32MP and 8MP/13MP respectively). There’s also an Exynos 1480 SoC at play in the A55, while the A35 inherits the older Exynos 1380 from the A54.
The phones will be go on sale in most markets later this month. For what it’s worth, Samsung has released the prices for Europe. The A55 starts at roughly $525 for the 8GB/128GB model and $580 for the 8GB/256GB variant. The A35 has three variants—specifically, $415 for 6GB/128GB, $435 for 8GB/128GB, and $450 for 8GB/256GB.