Does the new Samsung A53 coming out in April support VoLTE/WiFi calling/texts?

[Space Lynx]

the A series are Samsung's budget line and in all honestly inferior to a iphone se 2022

I am about to start watching the HunterxHunter anime, and it will look 1000x better on a 120hz OLED HDR10+ screen (though I think netflix doesn't use HDR10+? so this feature is pointless) but anyways, my point is, enjoying an anime, etc will be far superior on this OLED bright screen.

@Mussels I appreciate your help, but I think you understimate how little I need or use my phone, even my old A30 phone which also uses a Exynos cpu in it, is plenty fast for me and that was 14nm node I think? this A53 new model coming out is 5nm Exnyos node, and its probably lower clocked since its mid range, so battery should be ok (I hope)

ty for confirming the new A53 5G does have Volte and Wifi Calling though (my carrier auto activates this)

honestly I am leaning towards the A53. I want a really nice screen (in screen finger print sensor is kind of neat too, considering the price tag is same as iphone se 2022), and I have always wanted some ACN bluetooth earbuds, and if you pre-order it it comes with those for free $99 value.

 

[Nike_486DX]

I strongly disagree. Mid range has gotten good and pretty much since phones got 30k in old Antutu (which is 50-60k now), I haven't felt performance to be lacking. Really, phones, even lower end phones have strong chips. Most problems with performance at this point are caused by storage type (eMMC instead of UFS), low RAM (4GB is totally fine, wouldn't recommend less), poor GPU (somehow GPUs haven't seen as big improvements as CPUs did) and obviously software neglect. With Samsung phones you can uninstall quite a bit of bloat with simple means, rest with adb. Then go to dev settings and setting animation scale to 0,5 instead of 1. And obviously remove permissions, perhaps activate data saver mode (stops automatic updating), disable auto sync, disable Google auto-update. And once you do this, even low end A series phone should feel quite fast. The era of truly slow phones pretty much ended in 2014, when Samsung got rid of awful Ace series and lower with 32 bit chips. In this case A30 has all necessities to be reasonably quick and to not feel any slower even than flagships in tasks, that aren't gaming or some hardcore editing.

You can see it for yourself:

Only eMMC phone (A1x series) stood out as really slow in anything loading related, but it still remained generally smooth (minus gaming). The difference between A5x series and S series is really small. In 95% tasks it's identical, meanwhile at game loading, you can sometimes notice a small difference in loading speed due to lesser CPU and perhaps older UFS version. Even in gaming difference in fps is small. Unless you shop for less than 150 Euro budget phone, nowadays it's almost impossible to find a slow new phone. Add some of my software optimizations and boom it's faster than neglected S series.

However, Exynos chips are better to be avoided for other reasons, mostly for inferior camera processing and perhaps less than ideal power usage on higher end chips. I personally only used lower end Exynos chips and they have been fine and not nearly as poor as high end ones. I also noticed that truly low end phones like A01 have superior camera quality, due to cutting out crappy Samsung post-processing, that Samsung put in their every single device. I hate it, but Samsung insists and keeps it, yet doesn't meaningfully improve it or fix it. Despite lower end sensor, I wouldn't be surprised that even A01 would sometimes beat A52 in camera test.

But if you compare an S8 (s835 version) to a A51 you would definitely notice that S8 just smokes the competition: wireless charging, better build quality, faster performance, much better screen, all the extra sensors. Android version doesnt matter, really. By the time the apps stop supporting Android 9 (maybe 2025) both phones will be obsolete anyways. I know ppl who bought A51 and by the next year already wanted to upgrade to a newer model saying that the phone is slow and scratched up (hello crappy plastic in A series), this is how ewaste is being generated, you buy junk and 1 year later you sell it or put into trash. For a good phone the normal service life is 5+ years. The water resistance is another factor, although Samsung started implementing this since A52 afaik.

 

[The red spirit]

But if you compare an S8 (s835 version) to a A51 you would definitely notice that S8 just smokes the competition: wireless charging, better build quality, faster performance, much better screen, all the extra sensors.

Thath's not a lot better really:
Wireless charging - to this day I think that it's completely pointless feature
Better build quality - A50 is well built too, I only had S9 in hands and it's well built too, it's more about preferring plastic or glass. For me it's plastic.
Better performance - Reasonable argument, but S8 overheats and A51 is just fast enough for basically anything, so S8 is superior, but will you ever see it?
Much better screen - It's not really all that much better. It's still AMOLED, both phones have PPI over 300, so you won't see any benefit from higher resolution unless you use phone for VR. Perhaps HDR is nice, but that's all.
All extra sensors - S8 is superior, no argument here.

But then A51 has advantages over S8 too:
More storage - as much as 256 GB vs 64 GB
Ultrawide camera + some other useless cameras - ultrawide is really nice to have, which S8 doesn't have
Arguably better front camera - can record videos in higher resolution
No Bixby button - that's just the way every phone should be
Bigger battery - 4000 mAh vs 3000 mAh
Android 11 and 5G model - those features do extend possible lifespan of A51 quite a bit over S8

Android version doesnt matter, really. By the time the apps stop supporting Android 9 (maybe 2025) both phones will be obsolete anyways. I know ppl who bought A51 and by the next year already wanted to upgrade to a newer model saying that the phone is slow and scratched up (hello crappy plastic in A series), this is how ewaste is being generated, you buy junk and 1 year later you sell it or put into trash.

That's a problem with people A51 is quite nippy and is usable for many years. My last phone lasted me 5 years, A51 should do the same if not more. I already entered 3 year of owning A50 and it's still good. A51 is more or less reheated A50. People that junk A51 are a problem, not the phone.

For a good phone the normal service life is 5+ years. The water resistance is another factor, although Samsung started implementing this since A52 afaik.

But do people actually use smartphone for that long?

 

[R00kie]

due to its own rare usefulness

Umm, you do realize that contactless payments use NFC?

 

[The red spirit]

Umm, you do realize that contactless payments use NFC?

Yeah, which still barely exists around globe.

 

[R00kie]

Yeah, which still barely exists around globe.

In third world countries, maybe, but there's at least 50 countries that do. I personally, cant even remember the last time I carried cash with me, its all done through contactless.

 

[The red spirit]

In third world countries, maybe, but there's at least 50 countries that do. I personally, cant even remember the last time I carried cash with me, its all done through contactless.

I don't live in 3rd world, but I just use card for payments, sometimes cash and card for public transport. I could use phone for public transport, but it would utilize camera. Many places wouldn't accept phones for paying as it is cash or card and in less urbanized places, cash or nothing. Still, if you need to pay for parking, you can use app or just do it offline. Most of the time usage of phone is optional or nonexistant. In Lithuania cards and other phone tech (QR codes, apps, bar codes and etc) rule, but NFC didn't receive much love and is basically dead. Contactless or not, but cards are the most popular here or cash, if it's phone, then most likely not with NFC. Also basically every vending machine accepts coins only and specific coins only, you are screwed if you don't have them. Lockers in stores only accept 1 Euro coins. The only country where you can buy everything with phone only is probably China, Swedes still use QR codes.

 

[Mussels]

Yeah, which still barely exists around globe.

Yeah, threw your credibility out the window there. The entirety of australia uses it and it's our default payment type.

Everyone i know under 40 just carries a phone, and nothing else

 

[The red spirit]

Yeah, threw your credibility out the window there. The entirety of Australia uses it and it's our default payment type.

Everyone i know under 40 just carries a phone, and nothing else

Good for you then, but you seriously overestimate how much it is used in "1st world". I personally still prefer cards instead of phone or plain cash.

Anyway, In Lithuania there was a start up Mokipay. At first it sort of existed, but then fell to obscurity and went bankrupt. That's pretty much all what happened here. Until various other services instead started to use apps or QR codes, that are way more compatible with what people already own. At that point, NFC is kind of pointless.

 

[Space Lynx]

I eat out a lot and my small town does not have contactless payments at any of the food places I eat at. I also don't trust lot of the food workers with my cards, as there have been several instances on the news in last few years of people skimming the numbers from cards. So I tend to just use cash.

Also, not sure I trust my credit card being stored on Samsung Pay servers when everyone and their mom gets hacked these days...

 

[de.das.dude]

In third world countries, maybe, but there's at least 50 countries that do. I personally, cant even remember the last time I carried cash with me, its all done through contactless.

In india, almost everything is digital payments now. I cant even remember the last time i withdrew cash from a bank/ATM.

That's a problem with people A51 is quite nippy and is usable for many years. My last phone lasted me 5 years, A51 should do the same if not more. I already entered 3 year of owning A50 and it's still good. A51 is more or less reheated A50. People that junk A51 are a problem, not the phone.

Nicely said.
Im also on the A51 since launch and it still works well for me. Takes very decent pictures. Has a great DAC.

The problem is people dont know how to use their phones and blame it on the phone. Saw my friend's phone (S21) complaining it was "slow", and it really was slower than my phone.
But ofcourse, he has a bunch of silly apps running in the background and gives all apps location access. Doesn't even use the great samsung feature of putting apps to deep sleep automatically.

My other friend, has an iPhone SE and curses it out every single day. He bought it the same time i did my A51 and cost similar. It has a small teeny screen, no headphone jack, no expandable storage, only one camera, no wide angle, poor signal coverage (we have the same operators, and his is the first to go out of range, when mine is at 50%), no wifi call (as i know off), crappy battery
Now after using the phone for the same amount of time as me, he wants to change back to samsung.

People seem to forget that a phone should be a good phone first. i.e. it should be utilitarian. It should have stuff like a good camera, good signal reception, nfc for payments, decent battery, decent screen size.
Processor speed and how well it plays games comes later.

This is my second samsung phone and i have had good experience with these guys. First phone they even gave a replacement loaner while they were investigating the fault. Then when i dropped it from my 10th story balcony, only the screen broke and they changed it at a nominal cost.

 

[The red spirit]

Takes very decent pictures.

The Galaxy A5x series are excellent mid range phones with proper balance across all hardware, probably even better than vanilla S series, but what I notice is that cameras on them are always weak. Doesn't matter if it's A50, A51, A52 or A53, 4G or 5G, but cameras are frustrating. The sensors on paper looks quite decent, but only main camera can take reasonably okay pictures, even then there's a tendency to oversharpen stuff, crush blacks, sometimes overexpose. Samsung's camera app also destroys pictures with its overly aggressive compression. Even in full megapixel mode they are heavily compressed. And thus final pictures lack finer detail. I love that ultrawide is now available for masses, but 8MP sensor honestly sucked. With the help of Samsung's software, it completely lacks detail at anything other than ideal conditions, even then dynamic range is poor and yes there's no distortion correction. Depth camera is totally pointless as it still fails to notice what to blur and what to leave sharp, but it's crap on all phones. Instead of useless depth camera (it's more like sensor, not camera), Samsung should just improve macro camera, which is so close to being actually good. It's 5 megapixels, but overall it's decent for what it is. But it would be nice to get auto focus and perhaps spec bump to 8MP or 6MP. Front camera is always stellar on Samsungs somehow. But video recording at 1080p is is still so bad. It looks like upscaled, oversharpened 480p video with dynamic range crushed. It's just not a real 1080p. New 4K option now looks more like what proper 1080 should look like, but still it's not really sophisticated in many aspects. To be fair, even S series have this flaw of poor video quality for selected resolution, so most likely it's the software problem. Samsung should really step up their camera software game, for like 3-4 years it has been really poor and makes their hardware to underperform badly. Ever since the move to double digit A series and S series it has been bad. If not this horrible camera software, there really wouldn't be any obvious downsides to Samsung phones. The only good thing I can say is that it seems that some of their Chinese competitors like Moto, Xiaomi, Realme manage to fuck up camera software even worse. But when Samsung has to compete with brands that have good camera software (like Apple, Google, Nokia), they badly blown out of water. It's so bad that even mid range Nokia G50 matches or beats S22 in main camera tests. Meanwhile, Nokia X20 completely wipes floor with any Galaxy phone in picture quality tests in normal conditions, yeah it still fails to beat S22 in video quality and perhaps night mode tests, but the point is that mid range phone is straight up equal or better in some ways with inferior hardware and this just shouldn't happen.

 

[de.das.dude]

The Galaxy A5x series are excellent mid range phones with proper balance across all hardware, probably even better than vanilla S series, but what I notice is that cameras on them are always weak. Doesn't matter if it's A50, A51, A52 or A53, 4G or 5G, but cameras are frustrating. The sensors on paper looks quite decent, but only main camera can take reasonably okay pictures, even then there's a tendency to oversharpen stuff, crush blacks, sometimes overexpose. Samsung's camera app also destroys pictures with its overly aggressive compression. Even in full megapixel mode they are heavily compressed. And thus final pictures lack finer detail. I love that ultrawide is now available for masses, but 8MP sensor honestly sucked. With the help of Samsung's software, it completely lacks detail at anything other than ideal conditions, even then dynamic range is poor and yes there's no distortion correction. Depth camera is totally pointless as it still fails to notice what to blur and what to leave sharp, but it's crap on all phones. Instead of useless depth camera (it's more like sensor, not camera), Samsung should just improve macro camera, which is so close to being actually good. It's 5 megapixels, but overall it's decent for what it is. But it would be nice to get auto focus and perhaps spec bump to 8MP or 6MP. Front camera is always stellar on Samsungs somehow. But video recording at 1080p is is still so bad. It looks like upscaled, oversharpened 480p video with dynamic range crushed. It's just not a real 1080p. New 4K option now looks more like what proper 1080 should look like, but still it's not really sophisticated in many aspects. To be fair, even S series have this flaw of poor video quality for selected resolution, so most likely it's the software problem. Samsung should really step up their camera software game, for like 3-4 years it has been really poor and makes their hardware to underperform badly. Ever since the move to double digit A series and S series it has been bad. If not this horrible camera software, there really wouldn't be any obvious downsides to Samsung phones. The only good thing I can say is that it seems that some of their Chinese competitors like Moto, Xiaomi, Realme manage to fuck up camera software even worse. But when Samsung has to compete with brands that have good camera software (like Apple, Google, Nokia), they badly blown out of water. It's so bad that even mid range Nokia G50 matches or beats S22 in main camera tests. Meanwhile, Nokia X20 completely wipes floor with any Galaxy phone in picture quality tests in normal conditions, yeah it still fails to beat S22 in video quality and perhaps night mode tests, but the point is that mid range phone is straight up equal or better in some ways with inferior hardware and this just shouldn't happen.

i carry my dslr where i really need to take good pictures, so camera isnt really much of a deal breaker for me. Camera i think is more than adequate for 99% people's needs, i.e uploading to instagram and facebook lol.

I really like the video on this phone. The stability is so butter smooth hngg.

 

[The red spirit]

i carry my dslr where i really need to take good pictures, so camera isnt really much of a deal breaker for me. Camera i think is more than adequate for 99% people's needs, i.e uploading to instagram and facebook lol.

I don't use neither and when I want to take pictures is completely random and all I have on hand is phone. Before A50, I had Note 3 Neo and that thing took better pictures than A50 ever did. In some aspects even my old Ace 2 managed to take better pictures than A50. So I think that it's perfectly reasonable to be disappointed. Also both previous phones were around 300 Euro price without adjusting for inflation. Considering that tech should advance fast, yep that's quite poor result. Note 3 neo was massive upgrade over Ace 2 in every single way. A50 wasn't.

 

[remixedcat]

Almost certainly does since some US carriers (Verizon in particular) are moving to VoLTE only service...

This pisses me off since we don't have the best coverage here in WV there's areas that used to have strong 3g now they have no service.

They were way too quick to shut 3g off. Lots of other stuff like some science stuff uses it and my not be really replaceable unless they make expensive and dangerous treks to do so among other things.

They only thought of big city rich ppl and forgot about everyone else

 

[R-T-B]

This pisses me off since we don't have the best coverage here in WV there's areas that used to have strong 3g now they have no service.

They were way too quick to shut 3g off. Lots of other stuff like some science stuff uses it and my not be really replaceable unless they make expensive and dangerous treks to do so among other things.

They only thought of big city rich ppl and forgot about everyone else

I don't disagree it was very city-centric thinking but keep in mind it's an industry wide move, verizon was just one of the early ones but they all are going that way, sadly.

 

[Mussels]

This pisses me off since we don't have the best coverage here in WV there's areas that used to have strong 3g now they have no service.

They were way too quick to shut 3g off. Lots of other stuff like some science stuff uses it and my not be really replaceable unless they make expensive and dangerous treks to do so among other things.

They only thought of big city rich ppl and forgot about everyone else

Those 3G frequencies can be used for 4G and VoLTE, providing data AND voice at the same time (3G cannot), and being able to handle a greater number of voice calls in the same spectrum (meaning, less dropouts in the long term)

The in between period may suck, but it's a worthy goal that long term benefits everyone. The short term suck is that many phones that should support VoLTE do not, due to carriers whitelisting devices long after it was a common feature. (Here in Au the pixel 1 had Volte and VoWifi support, but the carriers blocked it. Years later they got in trouble for it and backdated it, but many phones were not so lucky.

 

[remixedcat]

Those 3G frequencies can be used for 4G and VoLTE, providing data AND voice at the same time (3G cannot), and being able to handle a greater number of voice calls in the same spectrum (meaning, less dropouts in the long term)

The in between period may suck, but it's a worthy goal that long term benefits everyone. The short term suck is that many phones that should support VoLTE do not, due to carriers whitelisting devices long after it was a common feature. (Here in Au the pixel 1 had Volte and VoWifi support, but the carriers blocked it. Years later they got in trouble for it and backdated it, but many phones were not so lucky.

Those science ppl still hate this tho... I hope they at least found a solution...

 

[Space Lynx]

Those science ppl still hate this tho... I hope they at least found a solution...

I prefer wifi calling and texting honestly, the clarity is better than even when on 5g. As far as google maps goes, i have all that downloaded offline. I'm not a heavy user though, so data isn't as important to me.

 

[Mussels]

I prefer wifi calling and texting honestly, the clarity is better than even when on 5g. As far as google maps goes, i have all that downloaded offline. I'm not a heavy user though, so data isn't as important to me.

That's due to your carrier/telco - they use the same codecs, but your carrier is forcing lower quality codecs to save bandwidth

Here a good example is Optus, they support all the high end codecs and fancy features, but ONLY optus to optus.
Every other telco gets along great, but the moment optus is involved you're stuck with an antique 8Kb/s VOIP codec

The moment the calls get shifted off their network (wifi), the codec lock goes away and the quality boosts

 

[Space Lynx]

That's due to your carrier/telco - they use the same codecs, but your carrier is forcing lower quality codecs to save bandwidth

Here a good example is Optus, they support all the high end codecs and fancy features, but ONLY optus to optus.
Every other telco gets along great, but the moment optus is involved you're stuck with an antique 8Kb/s VOIP codec

The moment the calls get shifted off their network (wifi), the codec lock goes away and the quality boosts

This makes a lot of sense, and just fyi for the original topic of this thread, I can confirm the A53 does indeed work great over WiFi only for talk and text with my carrier.