Samsung Galaxy A56 review: Playing to the crowd

Samsung has made plenty of attempts to translate the successful formula behind its flagship devices to a thriftier segment of the market over the years, but (for my money) the company's take on a cheaper Galaxy smartphone has never gotten better than the Galaxy A73.

Released back in 2022, the A73 was such a compelling combination of price, specs and design that it rendered the more expensive Galaxy FE line hard to recommend. It's no shock that Samsung has dropped it from the lineup in the years since in favor of the more expensive option. However, with the launch of the new Galaxy A56, it feels like a lot of what made that particular budget phone sing has found fresh purchase.

The Samsung Galaxy A56 isn't a massive departure from last year's Galaxy A55, but its a timely reminder that Samsung knows how to make a mid-ranger that doesn't feel cheap. What's here makes the most out of a refreshed design and a slimmer form factor. 

All told, the Galaxy A56 is 14g lighter than its predecessor. Despite that subtraction, Samsung have held tightly onto the many premium perks that now come included as standard. On the outside, the device comes clad in Gorilla Glass Victus Plus and armed with an IP67 rating for water and dust damage. On the inside, it's built for the long haul with six years of operating system updates. That's two years more than its predecessor, even if it is just short of the seven years attached to the Google Pixel 9a. As far as devices at this price-point go though, the Galaxy A56  sets a new standard.

Relative to last year's Galaxy A55, Samsung's new Galaxy A56 comes with a larger 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display clocked at 120Hz. Samsung is known for its screens, and the one found here very much lives up to the manufacturer's reputation. It's sharp and colorful in a way that's more than just easy to live with.  It's easy to like, though the bezels may come across as a little chunky if you're used to something more premium.

The glitzy display panel, aluminum frame and glass back go a long way to making the Galaxy A56 more expensive than its asking price. In the same way that the Galaxy A73 swung above its weight back in 2022, it now feels like the middle rung of Samsung's Galaxy A lineup is doing a lot more with less.

That thrifty sentiment even extends to the camera hardware. On the back, the Galaxy A56 comes with a 50MP main lens and a 12MP ultrawide one. There's also a 12MP selfie shooter on the front. Although this is an upgrade on what your money gets you with the new Galaxy A36, it's not a huge bump on what last year's Galaxy A55 could do. Like that device, the Galaxy A56 comes augmented by a suite of AI-powered bells and whistles.

At the end of the day, though, these fancy-sounding features can only do so much.

Like its predecessor, the camera on the back of the Galaxy A56 isn't one built to satisfy those with greater ambitions. The lack of additional optical zoom and other limitations constrain how far you can really push the hardware. That said, for more everyday needs, this isn't likely to be a deal-breaker. 

The Samsung Galaxy A56 doesn't deliver exceptional results when it comes to smartphone photography, but it'll probably be just good enough for those with more modest needs and budgets.

Rather than splurge out for the latest that Qualcomm has to offer, Samsung has opted to keep things in-house when it comes to the hardware inside the Galaxy A56. Under the hood, the manufacturer's latest mid-ranger comes powered by an Exynos 1580 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 5000mAh battery.

Although not quite cause for alarm, any mention of Exynos is usually something of an ill omen. After all, there's a reason that Samsung usually sticks a Snapdragon processor inside its most expensive devices. Fortunately, contrary to those expectations, the everyday performance offered by the Samsung Galaxy A56 left me with little to complain about.

App loaded fast, and while Samsung's One UI software experience seems to be getting more bloated by the year, the day-to-day experience it offers remains a cut above the Android skins of yesteryear. As far as games go, the Samsung Galaxy A56 handled everything I threw at it without breaking too much of a sweat. Star Wars: Hunters, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Diablo Immortal and Zenless Zone Zero all ran smoothly and without issues. 

Naturally, Samsung’s latest not-so-premium smartphone also comes with a few AI-powered apps and features. The list here isn’t as comprehensive as what you can expect from the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but it does include the following:

None of the above is all that revolutionary, but nor are they given all that much emphasis. There's nothing as useful as instant call transcription or translation, but at the same time, it's nice to see features like these running on-device rather than in the cloud. As such, they aren’t subject to the usual small print when it comes to Galaxy AI. 

It doesn't hurt that the battery life on offer here is as generous as it is, either. The 5000mAh battery inside the Galaxy A56 could easily make it through an entire day without breaking a sweat. More often than not, a second day of regular usage was fairly par for the course as well. Even in situations where I found that the device needed a top-up, the fact that the Galaxy A56 supported up to 45W fast-charging meant that I was rarely tied to a power socket for all that long.

That said, it's a shame that Samsung don't include the hardware necessary to make use of this capability in the box. Alongside the omissions of wireless charging and expandable storage, this is one of the few big weaknesses of this particular handset. Still, it's hard to complain too much given the everyday conveniences that the foundation here supports.

Burned down from 100% to zero using video streamed over WiFi, the Samsung Galaxy A56 lasted 21 hours and 55 minutes. That result puts it above the likes of the Google Pixel 8a but below what you'll get from the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion and Moto G85 5G.