My opinion on the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G is mixed. We are getting Samsung’s OneUI, but with bloatware and ads. We are getting a smaller battery, but the backup remains very good. We are getting a slightly less detailed display (on paper), but the quality is still great. We are not getting an Exynos chip, but the Qualcomm Snapdragon is also 2 years old.
After the Samsung Galaxy S series and the Galaxy A-series, it is now time for Samsung to refresh the more common Samsung Galaxy M series of smartphones. With the new Samsung Galaxy M35 and Galaxy M55, Samsung aims to make its budget-centric devices more premium. The Samsung Galaxy M55, which is the bigger sibling among the two, comes with quite a few new things, but misses out on stuff at the same time.
But does it make sense as an upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy M54 or has Samsung just launched the Samsung Galaxy M55 for the sake of it? Let’s find out.
Like always, I’m going to start with the design. From the face of it, the Samsung Galaxy M55 looks very similar to its predecessor the Samsung Galaxy M54, which didn’t come to India. The smartphone has a rather tall orientation with slightly squared corners. I also noticed a slight curve on the back panel, which has this “Light Green” colour in a matte finish. Looks cool.
The plastic frame is also curved around the edges, which is nice since it helps with the grip and in-hand feel. The matte finish also ensures there are no fingerprints or smudges on the back panel. Further, in true Samsung fashion, the cameras protrude out of the back panel only, there is no module on the Samsung Galaxy M55.
Up front, we get even bezels across the four sides, with a slight forehead and a chin, but it doesn’t look bad since things are even. The display also curves into the frame on the edges, which gives a bit of a premium feel to the Samsung Galaxy M55.
The design is simple and elegant, in my opinion. This is definitely one of the prettiest Samsung Galaxy M-series that I have tested so far so that’s good. I’m someone who’d rather go for the plain black colour instead of the “Light Green” shade that Samsung sent me for review, but well, there’s something for everything.
Coming to display, this is Samsung’s strong suit. The smartphone comes with a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with a 120Hz refresh rate and an FHD+ resolution. Now, while on paper this looks good, the display is missing out on a few things from its predecessor. Firstly, we don’t get Corning Gorilla Glass protection as compared to the Galaxy M54, which had a Gorilla glass 5 protection. Further, the pixel density on the Samsung Galaxy M55 seems to be lower than the pixel density of the Samsung Galaxy M54 (393 ppi on the M54 vs 385 ppi on the M55), but since the difference is negligible, you will never see the difference.
The display of the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G is sharp and bright. Samsung is claiming a peak brightness of 1,000 nits in High Brightness mode, and let me tell you these claims aren’t too far from the real world picture. The Samsung Galaxy M55 5G put out an impressive peak luminance of 841 nits in our Lux Meter test, which is brilliant, since we hardly see such close results from the claimed numbers. Although the claimed numbers are of the brightest 1 percent of the display, this is impressive.
One thing I really didn’t like here is that there is no option to change the colour profile of the display. In the display settings, I can’t adjust the display’s colours according to my taste, something we have seen with pretty much every Samsung smartphone. Although there is the option of turning on “True Tone” on the Galaxy M55, there is no option of switching to a colour profile of my choice.
Overall, this is a pretty decent display. I didn’t get the time to test the colour accuracy, but it looks more vibrant than true-to-life. With that, we are getting brilliant sunlight visibility and viewing angles with the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G. It is sharp, it is responsive (thanks to 120Hz refresh rate), and it is bright enough to use in all environments, no matter how bright.
Now, the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset paired with up to 12GB of RAM. While I’m glad Samsung didn’t pick an Exynos chip for this mid-ranger, the brand went with a two year old Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chip when there are some competing brands that are offering newer Snapdragon 7 Gen 2 or MediaTek Dimensity 7200 chipsets. But then again, it’s also better since there is competition that is offering lower-end chips like the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 in a similar price range.
With that out of the way, let’s talk numbers and experience. The Samsung Galaxy M55 5G showcased rather low numbers in comparison to some of the competitors. On AnTuTu, the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G showcased a score of below 600,000, which is lower than that of competing devices like the OnePlus Nord CE4 or the Nothing Phone (2a), but ahead of the Oppo Reno 11, which is slightly pricier than the Samsung Galaxy M55.
On Geekbench, the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G scored 947 points in the single core test and 2357 points in the multi-core test. This, while still being lower than the competition, isn’t that far behind. In GPU-based tests also, the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G is no “monster” but gaming on the smartphone is still a decent experience. I played a bit of Call of Duty Warzone Mobile on the Samsung Galaxy M55 and the experience was just fine. Yes, it won’t give you a constant high FPS like the flagships or the graphics settings are limited, but the gameplay was just fine for any average smartphone gamer.
While talking about performance, one of the most important aspects is the complete software experience and while Samsung’s OneUI is one of my favourite UI’s out there, the difference is evident in flagships and budget mid-rangers. There is a little bit of bloatware on the Samsung Galaxy M55 and there are a bunch of ads on the home screen, thanks to the “Glance” feature which is turned on by default. While it is something that can be turned off, I wonder how many buyers will be able to or bother switching it off.
In the battery also we are seeing a bit of a downgrade, but not really. Confusing, right? Let me explain. While we are getting the fastest possible charging on a Samsung smartphone with 45W fast charging, the battery has been downsized to 5,000mAh as compared to the 6,000mAh unit on the Samsung Galaxy M54 5G last year. Now, I know all this comparison doesn’t matter since the Samsung Galaxy M54 didn’t launch in India, but Samsung is the only brand offering 6,000mAh battery as standard in many segments so it is important to mention that the predecessor also had a 6,000mAh unit. The battery backup, however, is just fine. I opened the smartphone at a battery level of about 68 percent and without charging the phone I ran all the tests and used the camera for some time and the smartphone still had about 10 percent of the battery left.
Playing Call of Duty: Mobile for 15 minutes drained the smartphone’s battery by 4 percent, so did watching an HDR YouTube video for 30 minutes. The GPS navigation, however, took about 6 percent of the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G’s battery, which is great and one of the most efficient in this segment.
The 45W charging, on the other hand, took about 80 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 percent, which is great. This is exactly the same charging speed that we are also getting with Samsung’s flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, or even the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus this year.
The camera on the Samsung Galaxy M55 is a triple rear camera setup which includes a 50-megapixel primary shooter, an 8-megapixel ultrawide angle lens, and a 2-megapixel macro shooter.
Now, the images from the primary shooter are pretty good. Before clicking the photo, you will notice a bit of a watercolour effect in the viewfinder. But once you click the image and the phone does its processing, the results are good. We have sufficient dynamic range and the details are also ample. At times, the highlights get blown up in extremely bright conditions, but apart from that, the images are pretty solid.
In low light also, the images are nicely sharp and detailed. All that the smartphone does in night mode is slow down the shutter speed to 7 seconds or 8 seconds and then apply the algorithms to create the image and the results are quite nice. The only thing while shooting in low light is that you need to hold your camera position for 7-8 seconds, which is not always possible. The results, however, are good enough.
So the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G has one of the most premium look and feel on any M-series smartphone that I have used so far, but that doesn’t make it good. There are quite a few downgrades as compared to last year’s Samsung Galaxy M54, but then again, the M54 didn’t come to India so it doesn’t really matter.
What impressed me the most about this smartphone is the camera. Despite not having one of the best hardware and despite not being a camera-centric device, the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G still gets it right in many situations. The battery backup is also very good, and the charging is the fastest we have seen on any Samsung device. So my opinion, as you can clearly see, is mixed on this device. We are getting Samsung’s OneUI, but with bloatware and ads. We are getting a smaller battery, but the backup remains very good. We are getting a slightly less detailed display (on paper), but the quality is still great. We are not getting an Exynos chip, but the Qualcomm Snapdragon is also 2 years old. So yes, the Samsung Galaxy M55 5G is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to a sub-Rs 25,000 smartphone.
