Business Trip with Samsung Galaxy A55 5G: A Photo Story

The Samsung Galaxy A55 5G was launched earlier last month. In fact, I manage to get the device just hours before my flight to Taiwan to attend the Taipei & Kaohsiung Smart City Summit & Expo. I thought, hey this could be an excellent opportunity to try out the phone, especially the camera while I travel through the cities in Taiwan.

Samsung Galaxy A55 5G

Just a quick recap, the Samsung Galaxy A55 5G features a triple camera setup that includes a 50MP primary camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera and a 5MP macro camera. Obviously the key highlight is the primary camera that comes with 50MP sensor. The pixel binning technology ensures the picture clarity by combining four pixels information into one, creating an image file that is equivalent to 12MP size with crispy details. Check out my full review to learn more.

I kid you not, this is literally the first photo I took using the phone camera, at the boarding lounge. You can tell there are plenty of details in the photo.

Keep in mind that all of the photos have been compressed and resized for web use. So there might be some colour banding or artifacts.

First thing to do when I landed is to grab my dinner at the nearby night market. This is MonGa night market, one of the many night markets in Taiwan. If you never been to the country, their night market is something you must experience in person. The food, the culture and the overall chill vibes is nothing like what I had before.

The Bangka Lungshan Temple is just around the corner. I could be wrong but I don’t remember seeing the lanterns during my previous visits.

The ultra-wide shot shows how grand the lantern wall is. If you pixel-peep this photo, you definitely can tell the ultra-wide camera flaws from the grainy sky and less-than-desired blurriness of the shot. I mean that’s the limitations of small sensors when it comes to low light. However, 99% of the users are going to upload the photo to social media with compression, so the artifacts won’t be that apparent.

Nonetheless, you can rest assured with the primary camera works amazingly well even in challenging lighting conditions.

Don’t get me wrong, this camera combo is still a very versatile for all sorts of situation once you get used to it.

There are plentiful of convenience stores throughout the Taipei City.

We uses the train and MRT for 99% of our commute to the Nangang Exhibition Centre.

Closeup shot of the mini hotpot we had during our first day. Temperature was around 15c outside so hotpot is an excellent option.

That also reminds me of the true purpose of the macro lens. You see, even without using the macro camera, I can already take great looking closeup shots. Not to mention that the macro camera has a limited focusing range of somewhere within 5cm range. Making it less than desirable option, unless you specifically need a macro camera setup.

The cloudy overcast only makes the weather cooler, which proves to be quite a challenge for myself who are used to the hot & humid atmosphere in Malaysia.

I absolutely love the night streets of Taipei. This particular photo was taken at Ximending, a shopping district and pedestrian zone that resembles Shibuya.

This time we also travel to Kaohsiung City as the city also co-host the expo. We travel there via high speed rail that goes up to 300km/h! and it took only around 2 hours to reach Kaohsiung. This is not my first time taking the HSR as I had previously taken it to Taichung City.

The primary camera is truly impressive with great contrast and well balanced HDR effects.

Kaohsiung Exhibition Center.

This is my first time visiting the southern part of Taiwan. Even though the locals did told me how the city is having a similar climate as Malaysia, obviously they have never truly experienced the harsh sunlight we have in the equator zone. On average, their temperature is about 2~4c cooler than ours, which I think is perfect for pedestrians and even light outdoor activities.

So what you do when you visit a new city in Taiwan? Night market of course.

Final Words

That concludes my short photo story about my business trip to Taiwan. This time with a different phone at my right pocket (usually taken up by the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra). Did I miss the telephoto lens? Sometimes. For normal users, I don’t think it is justifiable.

The phone performed exceptionally well throughout the trip and even acted as my personal hotspot with about 25% battery to spare at the end of the day. Just like many reviewers have said, mid-range phones are getting better to the point that you start to question the need for flagships, given that you have budget constraints, of course.