Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy A56 5 G is a expectant telephone with a amazingly premium build considering its mid - range price tag , though it ’s in all probability best described as a rather ‘ secure ’ phone . There ’s no bad reason to get the Galaxy A56 as a result - just a lot of little one .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Samsung ’s Galaxy A56 5 thou is here to take on an increasingly competitive mid - range market – but can it really stand out in 2025 ?
The Samsung Galaxy A56 5 G offers several key rising slope , including a thinner purpose , great screen , faster charging , and , of course of study , a profligate processor .
However , it ’s also more expensive . At an increased £ 499/$499 compared to its £ 439 predecessor , Samsung has its study issue out to tempt consumers this yr , especially with more competition than ever in the mid - range quad .
Can it apologize its high price tag and vie with thebest mid - range phonechoices around ? ? I ’ve expend the preceding workweek with the Samsung Galaxy A56 5 G to recover out .
Design
Put the Samsung Galaxy A56 5 gram next to last year’sGalaxy A55 5Gand you might clamber to tell the conflict – at a glance , anyway . But while this year ’s mid - ranger sports the same overall feeling as its predecessor , there are a fistful of meaningful modification that make it a little more tempting .
The most detectable variety is the slim excogitation , which drop down from 8.2 mm to just 7.4 mm – an telling feat for a earpiece with a fairly large 6.7 - inch screen and a 5000mAh battery . That ’s immediately obtrusive upon picking it up , especially coming from the 9.35mm - thickXiaomi 15 Ultra .
That feeling is further kick upstairs by returning element like a combination of chalk on the front and rearward and a sturdy , cool aluminium frame . Many mid - ranger stick with the plastic choice to keep open on manufacture costs , and it make the A56 5 G feel more premium than its £ 499 cost tag paint a picture as a result .
Simply put , this is as closelipped to the flagship feel as you ’ll get at the price point , and stay one of the key selling points of this yr ’s mid - range Galaxy .
It ’s also available in fun shade – Awesome Graphite , Awesome Light Gray , Awesome Olive and Awesome Pink – alongside the unconstipated black and ashen option for those that require a more understated tone . This is one of the key benefits compared to the flagship , the latter of which tend to opt for more subtle colours and finishes .
With glass on both the front and rear , durability is more important than competing mid - Texas Ranger , so Samsung has once again decided to utilise the premium Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both . It ’ll also hold up the hint and rainfall with IP67 junk and weewee resistance .
It ’s not the IP68 we ’ve get down seeing weirdie into the mid - range market , but unless you plan on douse your headphone in pee , it should n’t make much of a difference in sidereal day - to - daytime manipulation .
Screen
The Samsung Galaxy A56 has a 6.7 - inch AMOLED silver screen , which makes it closer in size to theGalaxy S25 Plusthan theGalaxy S25 . It ’s also 0.1 inches big than last year ’s Galaxy A55 , though this is n’t down to dilate the overall footprint of the gimmick .
alternatively , Samsung slimmed down the bezels to make extra room , and give that the A55 already had fairly slim bezels compared to theGoogle Pixel 8a , the even slimmer bezels here are telling .
Now , do n’t get me wrong , we ’re not in ultra - slim - bezel district here . It still has thicker black bar than the top - endGalaxy S25 Ultra , iPhone 16 Pro Maxand even the similarly pricedOnePlus Nord 4 , but it does massively add to the premium look compared to theGoogle Pixel 9a .
sizing and bezels by , it ’s an AMOLED panel through and through . The celebrated deep black and vivacious colours present and report for , give watching movies and wager games an sheer joyousness . It is a lilliputian oversaturated for my oculus out of the boxful , but you’re able to tweak the colour profile middling easily in the configurations app .
The 120Hz refresh rate , though not LTPO like the flagships , provides a nice eloquence to proceedings , making scrolling , opening apps , and practically everything else feel fast and more reactive .
brightness level has also been boosted this class , with a 1900 nit superlative luminance when watching HDR content , while it ’ll also hit a boosted 1200 nit in high-pitched - luminosity mode when outside .
That mean I had no substantial complaint about using the phone , even on an uncharacteristically gay April day in London – though I do wish Samsung would play its telling anti - reflective screen covering from the S25 Ultra to the relaxation of its smartphones . That ’d truly make the A56 5 gramme bear out from the crew .
Cameras
The Galaxy A56 5 M once again have an OIS - enable 50MP f/1.8 principal camera , a 12MP ultrawide , and a 5MP macro , with no discernible changes to the underlying computer hardware . The latter is a particular disappointment , yield its niche stress and the price increment from this yr ’s simulation .
A more helpful lens , like a telephoto , would ’ve been a gracious upgrade here , specially when some of thebest photographic camera phonesat this toll , like theNothing Phone 3aand 3a Pro , offer up telephotograph and periscope rapid climb tech respectively .
Where performance is bear on , gestate similar results to the Galaxy A55 5 K – surprising , I know . That ’s not of necessity a high-risk thing ; the Galaxy A55 had a solid primary camera and it ’s very much the same this year , with the 50MP Chrysophrys auratus bin to 12MP to combine pixels to encourage overall contingent and visible light .
The effect is photo packed with brightness and particular in most scenarios . Samsung ’s signature vibrancy is present and answer for for , specially apparent in the blues of the sky and greens of grass , but it does make photos pop . There are filters you may use to change the overall look of images if this is n’t quite to your liking , but the vivacious gibe do look near on the telephone set ’s AMOLED instrument panel .
The lack of a dedicated zoom lens system means the A56 relies solely on digital zoom , though Samsung ’s implementation is n’t the bad I ’ve seen . Shots at the 2x and even 4x mark are passable , declare oneself little if any digital artefacting , though it ’s much more manifest when you bear on it to the 10x scrape . In this scenario , theNothing Phone 3a Prowill advantageously suffice your needs .
The accompanying 12MP ultrawide produce solid results with a nottoodramatic drib in overall timber compared to the main lens of the eye , despite the want of pixel - binning technical school . There ’s no regal fringing issue you sometimes find with mid - range ultrawide lenses , offering a largely undistorted ultra - wide - angle for those scenic vistas .
When light levels drop , operation remains honorable with a decent assemblage of light in otherwise dimly illume environments , with less lens flare than competing mid - rangers – where the main lens is come to , anyway . The ultrawide offers much softer , hazier results in equivalence , so I ’d commend sticking to that primary sensor for low - light crack .
It can be pushed to the extreme in drear out-of-door conditions , though the longer exposures require introduce quite a bit of blur – even with OIS . Even my best attempts at ride out still were n’t quite enough to capture a PIN number - sharp photo of a Narcissus pseudonarcissus on a recent eve walk .
I also noticed that low - lighting photos have a bit of a over-embellished tinge compared to the Google Pixel 9a , with the latter ’s relatively orangey hues closer to what I was actually seeing .
Performance
Samsung might ’ve sick its in - house Exynos chipsets from its flagship Galaxy S25 range , but it ’s still go strong where the Galaxy A56 5 G is concerned .
The newer Exynos 1580 CPU replaces last twelvemonth ’s 1570 , with Samsung claiming an 18 % encouragement to CPU speeds , a 17 % uptick to GPU speeds and a 12 % increase in NPU smarting as a effect . Considering last year ’s chipset was hunky-dory , if not exceptional , the raise performance here is welcome .
The Exynos 1580 apparently is n’t going to vie with the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy bump in the Galaxy S25 , but it does take its own in daylight - to - day employment . In fact , in most tasks , I ’d wager the average Joe would n’t be able-bodied to tell the difference between the two phones .
The whole experience feel crisp and reactive , from opening apps to scrolling through medium - intemperate timelines . I ’ve not had any complaints , and I ’ve come to the A56 after review a slew of Snapdragon 8 elect - enabled flagship .
That ’s true for everythingasidefrom gaming , anyway . Even with a 15 % larger vapour bedroom to keep the chipset nerveless , there ’s just not the grade of graphic grunt here to power those top - final stage AAA game at both high quality and mellow textures .
It ’s not impossible to game on , mind ; unconstipated three-D titles work just fine , and you may always drop the texture quality down on more demanding games to boost the framerate . But , if all you want to do is game on your sound , I ’d recommend looking at the likes of thePoco X7 Proor Poco F7 Pro for near performance .
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Software
The Galaxy A56 5 G runs the upgrade OneUI 7 based on Android 15 out of the box , despite still not being useable for high - end 2024 phones like theGalaxy S24andGalaxy ezed Fold 6 – at the time of penning , anyway .
I wax lyric about the late OneUI update in my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review if you need to find out more , but it fundamentally offers a redesigned UI with young image , animations and more that give it a refresh look and palpate . It feels really different from OneUI 6 , and that ’s not always a given across major operating system upgrade .
There are even a handful of AI features on go , include auto - clipping AI video editing , AI smarts that replicate the filter of any pic shown to it , and upgrade aim eraser functionality .
To be clear , this is n’t full Galaxy AI support , rather a light smattering of AI features powered by the cloud , but it ’s still prissy to see . The object eraser tech is easily the good of the bunch , providing surprisingly self-coloured results even compared to the likes of the iPhone 16 Pro Max .
There ’s also support for the ever - useful Google Circle to Search , though that has become ubiquitous on Android telephone set in the retiring year .
thing should go on to meliorate over clock time too , with Samsung commit to six OS upgrade that ’ll take the mid - ranger all the way to OneUI 13 base on Android 21 . It ’s a twelvemonth off the seven - class promise of the Pixel 9a , but it stay competitive .
Battery Life
Samsung might ’ve leave the battery unaffected this year , but fall in that the 5000mAh cell matches that of the top - end Galaxy S25 Ultra , it ’s not ahugecomplaint – specially when paired with a less exponent - hungry C.P.U. and lower - res screen than the flagship alternative .
It never struggled to get me through a full day ’s use – typically around 16 minute away from the charger , with around 3 - 4 hours of filmdom time per day – but I would n’t quite describe it as a two - Clarence Day speech sound with my level of usage .
I ’d get to bed with around 30 - 35 % leave in the armored combat vehicle on most sidereal day ; enough to get me through the Nox and maybe the morning , but not much long . However , we ’re starting to see mid - Ranger with much large batteries , like the 6000mAh cell found within the Poco X7 professional , so it ’s not the ripe battery life you ’ll get for the money .
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But while the battery itself remains untouched , Samsung did decide to upgrade the charge speed of the Galaxy A56 , offering the same 45W as the top - end Galaxy S25 Ultra . In fact , that ’s quicker than the even flagship Galaxy S25 that caps out at 25W.
It unsurprisingly deliver improved charge times compared to last class ’s Galaxy A55 , which took 29 minute of arc to hit the 50 % mark . The Galaxy A56 managed it in 24 hour , while also accomplish a full 100 % charge 10 minutes quicker than its precursor at 73 hour . curiously , it ’s 11 second sluggish than the near - monovular S25 Ultra , suggest some sort of inefficiency in the cheap phone ’s charging arrangement .
Still , it ’s a strong addition and one that you’re able to take vantage of with any high - powered USB - century charger – the same ca n’t be said for many fast - charge alternatives .
There is n’t any radio set blame yet again , though I do n’t really consider it a dandy deprivation deal the budget focusing of the phone . If it did have wireless charging , you’re able to bet your bottom dollar that it ’d be the slower , less helpful kind .
Should you buy it?
Despite the mid - range price , the Galaxy A56 features the seldom seen combination of glass and aluminium , with no plastic in sight .
This year ’s Exynos 1580 is an advance on last year ’s Galaxy A55 , but it ’s not the most powerful phone you ’ll get for the money .
Final Thoughts
The Samsung Galaxy A56 5 K is a neat phone with a surprisingly premium material body deal its mid - range price tag , though it ’s credibly well described as a rather ‘ safe ’ phone .
Samsung has n’t really gambled on one big feature here like other mid - rangers , like thePixel 9a ’s AI focus or the Nothing Phone 3a Pro ’s camera tech , and as such , there ’s no one slayer rationality to get the A56 5G. It ’s just a lot of piffling reason .
The soma is premium and thin , the 6.7 - inch AMOLED screen is gorgeous , especially with thinner bezels than Google ’s competing mid - ranger , the cameras persist solid despite offering no hardware changes , carrying into action is on par with much of the mid - range competition and it ’ll get you through a day of economic consumption without much worry .
But , lacking fundamental features like full IP68 dust and H2O resistance , access to popular Galaxy AI features , a consecrated zoom crystalline lens or even the full seven years of O upgrade that more premium Samsung phone – and the Pixel 9a – provide , it ’s notthebest phonearound , especially at its slightly more premium price point .
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How we test
We test every mobile phone we retrospect soundly . We use industry - standard mental testing to compare features decent and we utilise the earpiece as our chief gimmick over the revaluation period . We ’ll always tell you what we find and we never , ever , assume money to review a product .
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FAQs
Samsung has devote to six years of bone rise for the Galaxy A56 5G.
Yes , it has an IP67 evaluation for rubble and water resistor .
Test Data
Full Specs
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