The recently released Samsung Galaxy S23 line has been making headlines for all the right reasons, but a new rumor concerning the Korean brand’s upcoming line of mid-range smartphones has us doubting their value to cost-conscious customers.
Samsung launched the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G in the US earlier this year for just $200, and the company is preparing to launch the device overseas alongside the Galaxy A34 5G and Galaxy A54 5G. However, tipster @_snoopytech_ has managed to get hold of alleged European pricing for all three models, and the news isn’t as good as we hoped.
According to the leak, the Galaxy A14 5G will be priced at €219 for the 64GB version, while the 128GB variants of the Galaxy A34 5G and the Galaxy A54 5G will come in at €419 and €519, respectively. Suffice to say, there are a few things to unpack here.
Let’s start with the good news. €219 for the Galaxy A14 5G is still, in our view, a fairly reasonable figure for a capable – if unremarkable – Samsung smartphone. Sure, €219 is a little more than the phone’s $200 US price tag, but European VAT rates typically result in higher product prices in European countries (the best iPhone will cost you more in the UK than in the US, for instance).
However, reported pricing for the Galaxy A34 5G and Galaxy A54 5G is not so brilliant. Unlike the Galaxy A14 5G, neither phone is currently available in the US, but @_snoopytech_’s claims about European pricing for both devices – €419 and €519, respectively – are concerning.
Again, those figures don’t look too bad on paper, but the latter is considerably higher than the €459 / $449.99 / £399 / AU$699 starting price of the 5G-enabled Samsung Galaxy A53, which is our current pick for the best cheap phone in the US. €419 for the Galaxy A34 5G is also higher than the €379 / £329 / AU$599 figure demanded by last year’s Galaxy A33 5G, which isn’t officially available to buy in the US.
Both prices are likely to translate to similarly heightened US prices – if indeed both phones are launched there – with the Galaxy A34 5G, at the very least, almost certainly set for a $500-plus price tag.
Of course, it’s not uncommon for new phones to cost more than their predecessors, but in this case, neither the Galaxy A34 5G nor Galaxy A54 5G look to be getting enough new features to warrant their respective price hikes. A slightly larger (and smoother) display is rumored to be the biggest addition to the former, while the latter is in line for an upgraded Exynos 1380 chipset.
As usual, it’s worth taking this latest price rumor with a pinch of salt – Galaxy A Series pricing is notoriously difficult to make sense of given the line’s confusing availability across the globe. Still, we’re confident that both the Galaxy A34 5G and Galaxy A54 5G will cost more than their predecessors.
In any case, we expect to hear the official line on the phones’ respective retail prices very soon. Rumors are pointing towards a March 15 launch event for the new Galaxy A Series devices, so here's hoping Samsung surprises us by announcing a much more agreeable suite of figures.
