About to buy iPhone SE 5G 2022? Wait! Samsung's Galaxy A Series is imminent

The iPhone SE wants to tempt you away from Android phones. Samsung would rather you stayed

iPhone SE 2022 side on
(Image credit: Apple)

The new iPhone SE 5G 2022 is Apple's most affordable phone, and part of its job is to get new people into the Apple family: by keeping the price low by Apple standards, the world's favourite fruit-themed firm hopes it'll attract buyers who'd normally be looking for a mid-range Android device. And that's why you shouldn't pre-order one right now – because Samsung is about to unveil, or maybe even unleash, its very latest mid-range handsets.

This time last year, Samsung's Galaxy A event brought us the Samsung Galaxy A52 – which we called "the perfect mid-ranger" – and its sibling, the Samsung Galaxy A72. This year's event, which takes place on 17 March, should introduce us to their successors.

Will the new Samsung Galaxy A Series be an iPhone SE 2022 killer?

The current A52 already bests the new iPhone SE in some key respects. It's got a bigger, higher resolution screen and that display is AMOLED, not IPS LCD. It has more RAM, and more storage, and you can expand that storage with memory cards.

That's not all. It charges more quickly, and it has a much more powerful camera system: where the iPhone SE has a single 12MP rear camera, the A52 has a triple-camera setup with 64MP, 12MP and 5MP. And the selfie shooter is 32MP compared to 7MP for the iPhone.

Last but not least, the Samsung was (I'm using past tense because Samsung is no longer selling it in anticipation of the new release) cheaper: £399 RRP and a street price often much lower than that compared to £419 for the iPhone.

So what can we expect this week? The Samsung Galaxy A53 is going to be a slightly more refined version of the current model with a 120Hz display, even more RAM, a more recent chipset and a bigger battery. The camera assembly may be increased to a four-camera setup too. That means it's going to be a lot of phone for the money, and if you haven't already picked a horse in the Android vs Apple smartphone race it'd be wise to wait for its announcement if you were already thinking of getting the new iPhone SE.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).