Samsung Galaxy A54 long-term review

Camera samples

The A54 has three rear cameras, of which one is a macro shooter we will, as usual, ignore for our long-term review. That said, if you want samples from it, our normal review will happily provide them for you. Suffice it to say, you won't be wowed at all.

The other two are actually useful cameras, so let's jump into what they can achieve. The main sensor here is a new 50 MP that pixel bins to 12.5 MP while the ultrawide is 12 MP. Even before we see any samples, can we just say how happy we are to see a 12 MP, not 8 MP ultrawide at this price point? Okay, let's move on.

The main camera during the day captures good photos with great levels of detail, high contrast, wide dynamic range, and accurate white balance. The colors are Samsungy, of course, popping but thankfully not so much that they look cartoonish. And the same theme of restraint continues with sharpening - yes, it's present, but it's not too much, at least in our view. The images have that Samsung look that a lot of people seem to love, so all's good for now.

Daytime samples from the main camera

Moving on to the ultrawide, the color matching to the main sensor isn't perfect but it's better than what most of the A54's competitors can do. Image quality overall is definitely better than what you get from those ubiquitous 8 MP ultrawides, but still a step down from what the main camera produces. There's an overarching softness to these shots if you compare them to the 1x shots, and especially to the 2x ones - which we'll get to next. They are also always darker / more underexposed than 1x or 2x images.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

Although there's no dedicated zoom camera, there's a 2x option in the viewfinder, and of course we tried it. This gives you center crops from the 50 MP full resolution images captured by the main camera. Thus the quality is a step down from the binned 12.5 MP stills you get in Auto mode on 1x, but still quite usable, although sometimes there are minor color differences which is a bit weird since we're talking about the same sensor. Also, a lot of times the 2x images will be sharper than at 1x, to a point where some of you might even call them oversharpened.

Daytime zoom samples

Interestingly, the A54 has no manually changeable setting for Auto Night Mode, like most phones tend to these days. There is an Auto Night Mode, it's on by default, and you can't turn it off forever - just when the crescent icon pops up in the viewfinder. Interestingly, Auto Night mode comes up way less than for a lot of other devices - it seems like the ambient light threshold is set lower here.

The Auto mode shots you can see here were all as "Auto" as possible - when the crescent icon showed up, we did not disable Auto Night Mode. The resulting photos are good, with wide dynamic range and excellent detail levels. White balance is generally on point but does sometimes miss, otherwise these are very usable, while of course not being anywhere near the quality of what top of the line devices produce these days.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

With manual Night Mode, the differences are generally minor, especially if we're comparing an Auto shot with Auto Night Mode engaged with the same shot in manual Night Mode. In such a scenario, you will most likely struggle to see any changes. And yet, there still are some - highlights are better, usually. Also, sharpness seems to be ever so slightly increased. The differences are a bit higher when Auto Night Mode didn't engage, but still not night and day (excuse the pun).

Night Mode samples from the main camera

We usually like to suggest which the best mode for shooting at night would be for most people, but in this case it's pretty hard. In the end, Auto mode seems to be good enough for most settings, we just wish the Auto Night Mode would trigger at a higher ambient light threshold than it currently does. As it is, when it doesn't, there still are scenes for which manual Night Mode improves things, even if ever so slightly.

The ultrawide at night struggles. Less so than most 8 MP ultrawides out there in the mid-range space, but it's still no match for the main camera. Colors are washed out, dynamic range suffers too, and detail levels are anything but great. There's also no Auto Night Mode processing for this one.

Nighttime samples from the ultrawide

Thus resorting to manual Night Mode is pretty much a must in low-light conditions, even if that comes with a multiple-second shot-to-shot time penalty. Night Mode brightens up the shadows and the overall look, but the quality is still far from amazing. If you have to, you can use some of these, but only just.

Night Mode samples from the ultrawide

2x shots at night are pretty good, with decent detail levels. They're a tad worse overall and definitely a bit sharper than what you get at 1x, but still mostly usable.

Nighttime zoom samples

Night Mode sharpens things up even further, which you may prefer to the Auto Night Mode, otherwise it marginally improves the shots but not by much. It also tends to veer into watercolor painting territory at times, depending on the scene and the exact level of ambient light.

Night Mode zoom samples

Selfies, as usual for Samsung, come in two versions. You can either get 12 MP shots from the wider mode, or 8 MP if you choose the crop mode to appear closer. The wider shots are great, with good detail levels, accurate colors, and very good dynamic range. Interestingly though, the colors are a bit more subdued than what we would have expected from a Samsung - that trademark 'pop' that you get with the rear cameras isn't as intense.

The cropped option always results in slightly lower quality images, so do keep that in mind. Portrait mode selfies come out okay, but nothing to write home about really. Viewed from a distance the subject separation feels competent enough, but when you look a little closer you'll see it constantly misses stray hairs and the likes. Also, the entire look of these is overly artificial, for lack of a better description - it's not very natural-looking bokeh, is it?

Daytime selfies

At night, you need to have plenty of ambient light around to snap some usable selfies, and use the screen flash function too of course. If so, then you will get usable shots 9 times out of 10. The lower the ambient light, the more the sensor will struggle, so bear that in mind.

Nighttime selfies

Overall then, the A54 has a very competent main camera, which produces great results during the daytime and good ones at night. The ultrawide is a touch above the overused 8 MP sensors that we can still find in some competitors even at this price point. It manages good images during the day, but struggles at night, like most ultrawides with the exception of the ones on really high-end phones. The 2x zoom shots come out surprisingly good during the day, and generally usable at night, while selfies are very good during the day and decent in low light if it's not too low.