There are three types of smartphones available on the market:
At the bottom end, you have the budget phone. It does the basics and nothing more. The operating system probably has some weird quirks, but it makes calls, accesses the internet and the cameras a serviceable.
At the top of the range, there are the flagship phones. The $2,000 phones with the best of the best that’s available. Some of the screens fold, and the cameras are so good that they can be used to create footage for broadcast news. There’s more speed and camera quality than most people will ever take full advantage of.
Then, in the middle of the range, there are phones that compromise on some of the less important things to bring it down to a reasonable price, but still include everything a person will actually need. These phones aren’t for the gamers or passionate photographers; they’re for the people who use their phone an average amount in an average way.
The Samsung Galaxy A56 is pretty much the perfect mid-tier phone. It has everything the average user needs, and nothing they don’t.
Table of contents
First impressions
Getting the A56 out of the box, my first concern was that I had accidentally opened a phone from a few years ago. The return to flat sides and rounded corners is such a throwback, but a welcome one.
The aluminium sides feel perfectly mid-tier. The glass back looks nice, and I enjoy the hospital green colour (which Samsung has named “Awesome Olive”).
There’s the camera bump with three cameras on the back, and a single hole punch for the front camera in the screen, which looks premium.
The setup process was as easy and painless as it usually is with Samsung phones.
Samsung Galaxy A56 specifications and price
| Dimensions | Weight: 198g 162.2 x 77.5 x 7.4 mm |
| Processor | Exynos 1580 CPU Speed: 2.9GHz, 2.6GHz, 1.9GHz CPU Type: Octa-Core |
| Display | Resolution: 1080 x 2340 (FHD+) Colour depth: 16M Max refresh rate: 120 Hz |
| Camera | Rear Camera: 50.0 MP + 12.0 MP + 5.0 MP Front Camera: 12.0 MP |
| Storage/memory | Memory: 8 GB Storage: 256 GB |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth v5.3 |
| Battery | 5000 mAh |
| Price | $699 |
| Warranty | 24 months |
| Official website | Samsung Australia |
The specs worth calling out here are the inclusion of Wi-Fi 6, which is superb for a mid-tier phone, and the screen is large and very pretty.
Benchmarks
Look, it would be nice if the A56 had a bit more power. There are chips that Samsung could have used that wouldn’t have bumped the price too much, that would have allowed it to keep up for longer. It is a reasonable jump in performance from last year’s Samsung Galaxy A55, mostly in the graphics department.
| Phone | CPU single-core | CPU multi-core | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max | 3,350 | 8,021 | 32,719 |
| Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra | 2,360 | 8,911 | 14,671 |
| Apple iPhone 16e | 2,679 | 6,144 | 23,732 |
| Xiaomi Poco F6 | 1,899 | 4,734 | 8,762 |
| Samsung Galaxy A56 | 1,364 | 3,898 | 6,539 |
| Samsung Galaxy A55 | 1,153 | 3,428 | 3,086 |
| Motorola Edge 50 Fusion | 1,016 | 2,937 | 1,802 |
| Samsung Galaxy A35 | 1,011 | 2,897 | 3,001 |
Although $300 cheaper than Apple’s iPhone 16e, the difference in graphical performance is stark. This means the A56 isn’t great for gamers, despite sporting a slightly more powerful GPU. It’s also annoying for people (who I’m sure exist) who want to use the generative AI features, as that requires power, too.
That said, the performance is not intolerably terrible here. As far as mid-range phones go, the Galaxy A56 is pretty much on the money, sandwiched in between handsets from Xiaomi and Motorola. Its power won’t impress many people, but it’s not the worst.
Battery
What I am impressed by is the battery. That was clearly the focus here.
While how I use my phone is going to be different to how you use your phone, so precise hours aren’t that helpful here, at no point did I have to put the phone on charge early. I take it off the charger when I get up at 6 AM, and put it on the charger before bed at 10:30, without having battery stress.
This is likely the compromise that was made when it came to the more powerful chip in the phone. So, for those who prioritise battery life over gaming, this is the phone for you.
Cameras
As far as mid-tier cameras go, these are pretty great. They hold their own against their premium Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra cousin, even if the $1,600 price difference is somewhat apparent.
With this picture, using the regular camera, you can really see all the details of the veins on the leaves and the textures of the wall. The lighting, processing and details are clearer on the photo from the S25 Ultra, of course, but not to the point that someone would instantly be able to tell which camera is which, which is impressive.
In this 2x zoom photo, the difference is more apparent. The A56 photo is noisier, the details on the fox are lost, and there’s too much emphasis on the wall. The S25 Ultra photo lightly blurs the duck to focus on the fox. The processing isn’t as obvious.
While, yes, the difference here is stark and the quality of the photos is a world apart, I’m impressed by how well the A56 handled this low-light photo. The room was pretty dark, amigurumi is difficult to capture in photos at the best of times, and yet the detail here is impressive. It has washed out the darkness of the black in the face, and it’s blurred the pin. But it looks good.
I’m less impressed by the selfie. The A56 has imagined that my pink hair is orange, washing the colours out. I also don’t appreciate the smoothing on my face, or the way my lips look so washed out that I could be a corpse. I get that I’m pale enough to glow in the dark, but I’m not this bad.
Also interesting that both these phones are on default settings, and only one has mirrored my image, while the A56 hasn’t. It’s disconcerting.
Who is the Samsung Galaxy A56 for?
This is the phone for people who want a capable smartphone without having to take out a second mortgage. It does everything the average user needs, with an impressive battery life and very decent cameras. Frankly, this is the exact level of phone that would suit most users.
So, the Samsung Galaxy A56 is for people who really use their phone, but not for anything too fancy. It’s for users who like Samsung phones and don’t want to shell out for an S25. It’s just a solid phone.
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