Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Thinner and lighter than before
- Good user experience with nice AI additions
- Improved fast-charging
- Longer software support than predecessors
Cons
- Secondary cameras don’t add much
- Not great for gaming
- Unreliable fingerprint sensor
- Pricey given the features
Our Verdict
A respectable distillation of the company’s current flagship experience for half the price of a Galaxy S25+. The A56 builds on its predecessors’ strengths and comes with better software support than ever, but still lags behind on performance and features when compared to the wider mid-range market.
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The latest revision of Samsung’s mid-range trio has arrived, with the Galaxy A56 leading the charge as the most capable entry in the line.
It builds on the Galaxy A55, with a markedly thinner design, a new chipset, a larger display and faster charging being the most notable upgrades. Meanwhile, a revised update commitment places Samsung’s 2025 A-series near the top of the mid-range pile in terms of long-term value.
Check out our hands-on of the Galaxy A36, if you’re looking for a similar but more affordable experience.
Design & Build
- Thinnest Galaxy A-series phone since 2016
- IP67-rated dust and water protection
- New linear camera-defined aesthetic
The minimalist “One Mass” design language Samsung debuted with the Galaxy S24 series was defined by its flat back and sides, and lack of ornamentation. Bold and clean, this aesthetic soon carried across to last year’s Galaxy A55 and has, for the most part, simply been refined to create the look of the new Galaxy A56.
You get a fractionally larger display, but any notion of this generation being bulkier as a result is offset but a significantly thinner profile; with Samsung having slimmed the A56 down from 8.2 to 7.4mm (that’s only 0.1mm thicker than the similarly-sized flagship Galaxy S25+). This means the A56 is the thinnest an A-series phone has been since the company’s 2016 entries (all of which possessed markedly smaller batteries).
Despite slimming down, the A56 feels anything but flimsy, with dependable IP67 certification against dust and water ingress, Gorilla Glass Victus+ front and back, and a brushed metal frame, with flat sides; save for a raised area surrounding the power and volume keys high on the phone’s right side. I miss the slightly softer feel of the Galaxy A54‘s rounded rails, but the A56’s squared appearance is on-trend and premium.
In truth, all of the A56’s finishes look pretty drab and uninspired
Even with a larger display this year, the A56 is also lighter than its recent predecessors (the A55 weighed 213g); managing to duck below the 200g threshold (198g) where phones start to feel uncomfortable in the hand after extended use.
Galaxy A56 (left), Galaxy A36 (right)
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Samsung has opted for a new linear camera design for this generation of A-series (consistent across the new Galaxy A26, A36 and A56), protruding prominently from the phone’s back, with a black outer face and a pill-shaped metal surround; regardless of which colourway of A56 you decide to pick up.
I tested the Awesome Graphite finish (pictured) but the phone also comes in Awesome Olive, Awesome Pink and Awesome Lightgrey.
In truth, all of the A56’s finishes look pretty drab and uninspired, especially when so many other manufacturers seem more willing to take risks with their mid-range phones, aesthetically speaking. Why the more modest A36’s design includes a pop of iridescence that the A56 loses out on is beyond me, but here’s hoping that Samsung will reconsider the palette of the A57 line.
Screen & Speakers
- 6.7-inch 120Hz Full HD+ Super AMOLED display
- 1200nits (High Brightness Mode or HBM), 1900nits (peak)
- Optical in-display fingerprint sensor
One of the more incremental improvements for this generation, aside from being a fraction larger (now matching the screen size of the S25+), the A56’s 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display is now a welcome degree brighter; both in terms of HBM and where peak brightness is concerned.
This means better outdoor visibility and greater contrast when looking at HDR content, but I wish Samsung had gone further.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Even with this brighter panel, the company’s latest mid-ranger still lags behind more affordable rivals – like the recent Nothing Phone (3a) and Xiaomi Poco X7 and X7 Pro – when it comes to output and visibility against bright surroundings.
The screen is otherwise inoffensively pleasant, with the natural contrast and vibrance benefits an OLED panel affords, paired with the operating system’s default ‘Vivid’ colour profile. You can switch to ‘Natural’ if you’d rather have a softer look, while the settings menu offers up fine-grain control over colour space and temperature, as well as toggles for refresh rate (60Hz fixed or adaptive up to 120Hz), a blue light filter, touch sensitivity and more.
The optical in-display fingerprint sensor works as you’d expect, but proved slow and inconsistent during review; something I don’t recall with the A54 (the last A-series entry I personally reviewed), highlighting just how much better the ultrasonic sensors used in many of the best Samsung phones are.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Optical over ultrasonic also means that the new Now Bar (more on that later), has to be positioned unusually high on the lock screen, compared to ultrasonic-toting Galaxy S phones, while the A56’s panel, although tough, doesn’t come with a pre-fitted screen protector (like a lot of other phones nowadays), nor has Samsung bothered to surround that Super AMOLED with equally-sized bezels, even if they are a tad thinner this generation (again, something that more affordable rivals like the Nothing Phone (3a) have already nailed down).
Specs & Performance
- 4nm Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset
- 15% larger vapour chamber than predecessor
- RAM expansion up to an additional 8GB
Timing places the A56 squarely in the ring with some high-profile alternatives, like the iPhone 16e and the Google Pixel 9a, both of which sport the same (or at least very similar) chipsets to their flagship-class kin. That’s not the case with the A56 (nor has it ever been for the A-series).
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
While the current S25 range is sitting pretty on a ‘for Galaxy’ tuned version of Qualcomm’s current top-tier Snapdragon 8 Elite, the Galaxy A56 instead opts for Samsung’s own far more modest 4nm octa-core Exynos 1580 silicon. The company’s own figures claim 18% better CPU, 17% better GPU and 12% improved NPU performance, compared to the 1480 inside last year’s A55.
As far as artificial benchmarks go, it delivers CPU performance on a similar level to the likes of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 (which Samsung used exclusively inside 2022’s Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4) or Google’s Tensor G3, which powered the Pixel 8 series across 2023 and 2024.
Samsung Galaxy A56 benchmarks
As for gaming, despite the phone’s 15% larger vapour chamber – now reportedly on par with the one inside the Galaxy S24+ – doing its job, you will likely run into stutters and slow-downs on more demanding games. Zenless Zone Zero defaults to low graphical settings and even then still drops frames haphazardly during fast-paced action.
For everyday use and productivity, however, there’s little that trips up the Exynos 1580. App load times are respectably quick and responsiveness at the phone’s peak 120Hz is pleasant and unencumbered. With the lack of headroom, however, I do wonder what performance degradation on the A56 looks like after a couple of years of use.
Cameras
- 50Mp f/1.8 main w/ OIS + 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide + 5Mp f/2.4 macro camera
- 12Mp f/2.2 selfie camera
- Up to 4K/30fps video front and back
That linear rear camera array plays host to three sensors, with the hardware seemingly unchanged since the A54. The main physical upgrade is the switch to a new 12Mp selfie snapper, that actually performs very well. Paired with Samsung’s ‘Nightography’ efforts, you can snap usable selfies even in low light.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
The main 50Mp sensor (which pixel bins down to 12Mp stills, by default) dishes out pleasing shots, with good dynamic range for a phone of this calibre. Just be aware that if you’re new to Samsung, its phones’ cameras tend to adorn images with heavy processing, most evident with elements like face brightening and punchy blue skies. It’s not for those after a more natural look.
The same solid edge detection and pleasing bokeh in portrait mode that we’ve come to expect from the company’s higher-end devices also trickles down to the A56, meaning it’s generally great at snapping people.
The ultrawide delivers a similar look to the main camera in good lighting but falls apart by comparison in low-light shooting scenarios. Meanwhile, that 5Mp macro snapper is a novelty that can deliver worthwhile shots, but likely won’t see use all that often, especially as shots go soft the moment natural light is lacking.
Dip into Samsung’s native Gallery app and you’ll find a couple of AI-enhanced image editing tools. There’s a competent enough object eraser (see below) that puts Apple’s equivalent to shame, alongside a remaster tool; built to improve colour, sharpness and the like within existing images.
As on the S25 series, you can also use the colour profile of a donor image to create unique filters to apply to other shots, while Auto-Trim makes the jump too, automatically collating individual videos into an edited final product, all by setting the length of the output video and adding (included) music, as desired.
More powerful Galaxy AI imaging features, like Sketch to Image, remain out of the A56’s reach, however.
Battery Life & Charging
- 5000mAh battery
- 45W Super Fast Charge 2.0 wired charging
- No power adapter in the box
Although the A56 possesses the same 5000mAh capacity battery as the last few entries in the A5X line, it does get one welcome upgrade that puts even the base Galaxy S25 to shame: 45W fast charging (up from 25W). The fact that Samsung has fit the same-sized cell in this generation’s significantly thinner body should be praised too.
Most people will get through a day of use comfortably
While there’s no power adapter in-box, so long as you can source one, expect to refill the A56’s battery by more than two-thirds in 30 minutes, with a full charge taking just under 75 minutes (1 hour 12, to be specific).
Basic Qi wireless charging would have been a nice generational upgrade too, but at this price point, its inclusion isn’t a given.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
As for usage, 7.5 hours of screen-on time in real-world use – including 20 minutes of gaming on Zenless Zone Zero – suggests most people will get through a day of use comfortably; with headroom for the occasional higher-drain task, like extensive camera or hotspot usage.
Beyond Samsung’s own entries, companies like Oppo, OnePlus and Xiaomi offer more affordable rivals with significantly fast charging speeds, not to mention our rundown of the best battery life phones includes entries with better overall longevity too.
Software & Apps
- One UI 7.0 15 over Android 15
- ‘Awesome Intelligence’ features include AI Select & Read Aloud
- Improved 6 years of OS & security update support
Another perk that the A56 gets to lord over some of the company’s flagships, is that it launches running the latest and greatest One UI 7.0 user experience, ahead of the likes of the Galaxy S24 series.
This newest revision of One UI (running atop the latest Android 15) offers a tweaked aesthetic and deeper AI integration than before. Samsung is keen to distinguish between the ‘Galaxy AI’ experience as it appears on its top-tier entries and the ‘Awesome Intelligence’ experience (get it? “A.I.”… never mind) that its newest mid-rangers possess.
Beyond the AI-supported imaging tools already touched on, Samsung’s AI Select sits alongside Google’s native Circle to Search, with a similar (but slightly different) feature set, designed to help pull information from – or manipulate – text and images on-screen.
As well as…