Samsung Galaxy A54 5G
With its big, bright, colour-rich display, and big battery life, the Galaxy A54 is a really solid offering from Samsung, especially at this discounted price.
Take a look at any of our 'Best mid-range phone' lists from the past few years, and you'll generally find a Samsung Galaxy A50-series smartphone on there. For 2023, that phone is the Galaxy A54, and it delivers many of the features you'd find in its Galaxy S-series flagship phones, but with a few changes made to save costs and make it cheaper to buy.
It was already much cheaper than the high-end Galaxy S23, but is now available at a fantastic price for Black Friday. Both Amazon and Best Buy are selling the handset for just $325, saving you $125 on its full price.
Why should you buy the Galaxy A54 on Black Friday?
The Samsung Galaxy A54 has a lot going for it, but there were two things that stood out to me when I reviewed it, and the first was definitely the display. At 6.4-inches, it's a big, expansive screen with the right qualities to make video watching and gaming a joy. It's colour-rich and bright, and visible clearly even outdoors when it's bright. It can also reach up to 120Hz refresh rates, meaning it animates smoothly without much in the way of lag or stuttering.
It's also got a beefy 5000mAh battery inside, which is more than enough to keep even the most demanding user powered up through the whole day, if not longer.
Samsung markets it as a 2-day battery and - with light enough use - that might be possible, but with my own moderate usage, I could comfortably leave a day and a half between charges, and even at that point it wasn't completely empty.
Samsung's software is loaded with useful features, but more importantly, Samsung is going to support it with major updates for four years (from launch), and another year with security patches. Add that to the IP67 water and dust resistance and you have a phone that should survive the challenges of your daily life for a good while, even if it gets a bit wet from time to time.
When it comes to buying a phone, a lot of it does come down to personal preferences. For instance, some wanting the absolute best camera performance in a mid-range phone might be better off going for the Pixel 7a, another great mid-range device.
But, for battery life, display size and longevity, the Galaxy A54 is a great option, especially if you're already a Samsung user and are used to the way the company's software looks and feels.