Elly Awesome on the affordable Samsung phone with an ‘excellent spec sheet’

The new Samsung A53 is not only friendly on the wallet but it also has an impressive feature that solves a problem every mobile user has.

Samsung has launched its latest budget phone – and it’s set to seriously rival other affordable smartphones on the market.

The A53 has a very competitive price point of $699, but how does it stack up against other budget phones or even Samsung’s flagship devices?

Elly Awesome reviews Samsung’s latest phone to hit the market. Picture: Elly Awesome

Display and features

The Samsung A53 has a tall 6.5” FHD+ Super AMOLED display, capable of 120Hz, which looks excellent for its price point and will impress you when watching HD YouTube content but it’s certainly not the display of Samsung’s flagship S22 range.

However, the nearly edge to edge bezel gives you a large amount of screen real estate, the pinhole selfie camera doesn’t take up too much room and there are Dolby Atmos stereo speakers that get pretty loud. There’s an in-screen fingerprint scanner and face unlock capabilities too, so already at a glance you’re getting some quality features.

The phone even looks fairly premium as the edges are made of a shiny material, which gives the phone a sleek look even though the back just seems to be made of plastic.

Personally, I like the durability of plastic back phones as often they’re less likely to break. This is especially great for teenagers who seem to always crack their phones.

According to Elly, the new phone’s display is excellent for its price tag but not as good as the Samsung S22 range. Picture: Elly Awesome

Camera quality

There are four cameras on the back of the phone – a 12MP Ultra Wide, 64MP Main, 5MP Depth Camera and 5MP Macro Camera and the Front Selfie camera is 32MP. The selfie camera may be high in megapixels but photos from the front can still appear a little washed out at times but with the right lighting your photos will turn out great. The back main camera on the other hand looks excellent and the other lenses are a nice bonus.

Fun Mode in the camera is pretty great though, it has Snapchat Lenses that you can play around with (filters), great for making cute videos or taking photos with effects to send to friends or to upload to social media. Sure, it’s a bit of a gimmick but that’s what everyone’s doing on social media apps these days and now it’s built right in.

The Samsung A53 comes with four cameras. Picture: Elly Awesome

Battery life

So is this the best budget phone? Well if you like the sound of all of this plus two-day battery life for $699, then you might be pretty excited right now.

The phone has a 5000mAh battery, which sounds huge, but if you’re doing intensive things such as a lot of gaming it will drain faster than you’d expect. Though even when you’re taking heaps of photos and videos and are on social media all day you’re still definitely going to get a battery that lasts well into the night. If you’re more of a light user you’ll easily get away without charging this phone until the next day.

As a bonus this phone is also IP67 water and dust-resistant which means you can have the A53 in freshwater up to 1m for up to 30 minutes. This is less for underwater use and more for accidental spills at the table or, dare I say it, dropping your phone in the toilet.

You get a two-day battery life for the price of $699. Picture: Elly Awesome

Overall, if you’re a Samsung fan or Android user, the A53 has an excellent spec sheet with features that you usually have to pay upwards of $1000 for.

If social media is your job or you need the best photos around this may not be the phone for you. However, if you want a really good phone that can do a bit of everything, with a snappy interface and long battery life, this is an awesome choice.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger. | @ellyawwesome | YouTube