Samsung Galaxy A56 Review: Slimmed Down, Smartened up

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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.

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.

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 colorway 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’ color profile. You can switch to ‘Natural’ if you’d rather have a softer look, while the settings menu offers up fine-grain control over color 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).

As for audio, beyond Bluetooth 5.3 handling wireless connectivity, the A56 is in possession of a stereo speaker pair; one in the earpiece and one down-firing along the phone’s bottom edge. They collectively dish out sound with good clarity and decent overall loudness, but aren’t anything to write home about.

They’re lacking in the mids and lows, and there isn’t much in the way of separation either. At maximum volume, high frequencies start to distort too. While functional, even the cheaper Nothing Phone 3a I had to hand put them to shame.

Specs & Performance

• 4nm Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset
• 15% larger vapor 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).

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