Samsung's Galaxy A55 and A35 are official with 6.6" OLED screens, focus on security

11 March 2024

Right on schedule, the Galaxy A55 5G and Galaxy A35 5G are official. The successors to the most popular mid-range duo of 2023 have more in common than ever before.

For starters the Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 are built around the same display - a 6.6-inch 1080x2340px Super AMOLED panel with 120 Hz refresh rate. They also share a 5,000mAh battery with 25W charging support and Samsung's new Key Island design language. The frame is different though, with the Galaxy A55 using metal to the Galaxy A35's plastic.

In a major upgrade over their predecessors, both phones have glass on the front and rear. The Galaxy A55 uses Gorilla Glass Victus+ likely on both front and rear, while the Galaxy A35 uses Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the front (no official word on the glass material on the rear). Gorilla Glass Victus+ is reportedly twice as scratch resistant as the Gorilla Glass 5 on the Galaxy A54 and A34.

The Galaxy A55 5G has the Exynos 1480 SoC with an AMD RDNA2-based Xclipse 530 GPU. You can have it paired with either 8 GB or 12 GB of RAM, and 128 GB or 256 GB of storage. In contrast, the Galaxy A35 settles for the older Exynos 1380 that the Galaxy A54 used. It's still a 5nm chipset, which suggests good efficiency and you get to pick between 6 GB or 8 GB RAM and 128 GB or 256 GB storage.

The Galaxy A55 has a 32MP f/2.2 selfie camera, while on the back there's a 50MP f/1.8 main shooter with OIS, a 12MP f/2.2 fixed-focus ultrawide camera and a 5MP f/2.4 macro camera.

The Galaxy A35 5G comes with a 13MP f/2.2 front-facing unit, a 50MP f/1.8 main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 fixed-focus ultrawide shooter, and a 5MP f/2.4 macro unit.

The Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 premiere Samsung Knox Vault on the A series. It's a hardware-based secure execution environment that's physically isolated from the processor and memory. It safeguards the most critical data on your device, like lock screen credentials - PIN codes, passwords, and patterns. It also protects the phone's encryption keys.

Samsung's standalone Knox is also installed, and you get the opt-in Auto Blocker, which can stop suspicious app installations, scan for malware, and block malicious commands.

Samsung promises 4 years of major OS updates and 5 years of security patches for both new Galaxy A series phones. That's two years shorter than what the flagship series got, but still impressive for a mid-ranger.

You can get the Galaxy A55 in 8/128GB for €480, while other available options are 8/256GB (€530), and 12/256GB variants. The Galaxy A35 starts at €380 for the 6/128GB trim, has a 8/128GB middle option and tops out at €450 for the 8/256GB variant.