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Earlier this month, Samsung has unveiled their new A-series lineup with the Galaxy A36 5G and A56 5G. Based on the title of this article, you can most likely guess the topic of this review.
So, what’s new with Samsung’s new A series, the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G? How does it handle what everyday life use throws at it? Can it be your next daily driver? Let’s find out here in this full review.
Design and Construction
Kicking right into design, you get a metal frame and a glass back panel with the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G. You can see the camera island resembling that of a stoplight here, showcasing the three camera sensors of the device. It feels very bulky especially when trying to put in your pocket because of this. We’ll get more in how the cameras perform though in a bit.
Other than the camera island, the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G has a very similar design to the Galaxy A55 5G from last year. Our review unit comes in a Lightgray colorway, but there are also pink and graphite color options as well.
You also get IP67 dust and water resistance on this phone while having Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ protecting the smartphone’s rear and the front. It should keep the device safe from any droplets hitting the A56 5G, but I’d always recommend getting a case and a screen protector for your device.
You have the volume and power button on the right side, one of the two stereo speakers that’s in the earpiece, and microphone at the top. While the USB-C port, SIM card slot, and the second loudspeaker are at the bottom.
One obvious downgrade here is the lack of a microSD card slot that its predecessor had. It sucks, especially if you’re using a microSD card and plan on upgrading from the A55 to the A56.
Display, Biometrics, Multimedia
Moving on to display, the Galaxy A56 sports a 6.7-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED panel with up to 120Hz refresh rate and 1200 nits of peak brightness.
You get thin bezels that’s great for media consumption along with enjoying vivid colors and true blacks thanks to the AMOLED screen. We had a blast scrolling through social media and watching videos. Hues aren’t washed out as the phone tends to highlights reds in media really well.
For audio, you get stereo speakers with decent bass and great clarity along with nice sounding highs and mids. However, there are moments where I have to increase the volume all the way to the max and yet there are moments where it isn’t loud enough for me.
Still, they’re decent for immersing yourself provided that you are in a slightly quiet environment or closed room.
All in all, you can watch your movies on this phone and have a great time as long as you’re not in a crowded place.
For biometrics, there is face recognition and in-display fingerprint sensor. Both respond almost instantly, but the fingerprint biometrics is more secure in our opinion.
Cameras
For optics, you get a 50MP main shooter with OIS followed by a 12MP ultrawide sensor and a 5MP macro lens. Meanwhile, a 12MP front camera is equipped on the front.
If you’ve ever used a Samsung smartphone, chances are you know that the company’s lenses take really good shots. The Galaxy A56 5G doesn’t disappoint in that aspect. In decent lighting, you can see that the colors pop and are almost true-to-life.
However, post processing is popping off a bit too much as some shots come out more saturated than they’re supposed to. Although, you can see that details are spotted really well nonetheless. It does take a moment to process night photos, but they do give a decent result, being able to focus on the subject and try to brighten the shot without ruining the photo.
Here are more of our sample shots for you to check here.
As for video recording, the phone can shoot up to 4K at 30 fps for both the rear and the front cameras. It’s nice to see a camera that can capture selfie cameras at 4K resolution so kudos.
Rear camera:
Front camera:
Performance and Benchmarks
The Samsun Galaxy A56 is powered by the company’s newest chipset, the Samsung Exynos 1580. It’s a 4nm processor with an octa-core CPU and a Samsung Xclipse 540 GPU. In our AnTuTu results, it’s able to hit around nine hundred thousand points which is quite high, but only got around sixty-eight thousand in its Storage Test.
I wish I could say that it can handle intense graphics when it comes to gaming with this device, but that isn’t the case here. Although it CAN run graphic intensive titles like Zenless Zone Zero and Wuthering Waves, the device lags a bit and makes me lose my combos every now and then which is quite annoying especially when you’re fighting against bosses.
As someone who likes to do runs where I don’t get hit by the enemy, having sudden freezes derails me from that. It does tend to get a bit hot to the touch too, making me want to put down the phone even though I’ve only been playing for less than thirty minutes. Still, seamless gameplay can be achieved provided you reduce your graphic settings to medium or even low.
But if you’re a casual gamer or someone who plays MOBA games like Pokemon Unite, the Galaxy A56 5G can handle it without any issue.
For configuration, our device comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but there’s also a 256GB variant. RAM can be extended up to 8GB more thanks to RAM plus.
You can see our benchmark scores here.
- Antutu v10.3.9 – 902,412
- 3D Mark: Wild Life – 5,019
- Geekbench 6 CPU
- PCMark Work 3.0 Performance – 14,292
OS, Apps, and UI
Software-wise, you get One UI 7 based on Android 15. This is a big plus especially when you consider that the Galaxy S24 lineup is still on One UI 6 based on Android 14 as of making this article.
Samsung states that the A Series will have up to 6 major OS updates along with 6 years of security patches so even A36 users can enjoy these perks. You get Google’s Circle to Search, as well as the so-called ‘Awesome Intelligence’ tools like Best Face, Object Eraser, and the like.
A neat thing here is the Galaxy Avatar which feels similar to Meta’s own avatar creation. Users can create their own character in whatever style they want. You can even design the pattern and decorations for base clothing models in Clothes Designer.
The avatar can be used as a sticker to send to others in social media or as a filter on the Camera app.
There’s also a thing called Labs where you can try Samsung’s experimental features. The current one as of making this video is Multi window for all apps. This allows all apps to be able to have a pop-up window or can be in split screen mode.
Connectivity and Battery
The Galaxy A56 supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and GPS. There is also Digital Key, but we are not sure if that is supported here in our country as of writing this article. This can either be implemented here in the Philippines or not at all so we can’t say much about that feature and how it performs.
Battery-wise, the A56 packs an 5,000mAh unit paired with 45W of wired charging. In our PCMark Battery Test, it got a result of 15 hours and 15 minutes while our video loop test garnered a result of 16 hours and 43 minutes.
I’ve used this phone mainly to capture photos and videos, did my dailies in my gacha games, and watched some videos on YouTube. All in all, it was able to hold out until I got home at nighttime. Charging only took about an hour so it’s not too bad of a down time.
Conclusion
So, now that we’ve reached the end, how much does the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G cost? The Samsung Galaxy A56 has a price tag of Php 23,990 for the 128GB variant while the 256GB storage option sets you back for Php 25,990.
To sum things up, the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G is a great daily driver for those who are interested in camera photography or need a device to run casual gaming with a great display. It’s decent for its price and can be considered a jack of all trades — from being able to take good photographs, give out a vibrant screen when viewing media, and has a battery life that can last almost a whole day.
However, if you want to do intense gaming sessions here, pan to add your microSD card here, or prefer to have a smartphone with really loud audio, this might deter you from getting the device.
What we like:
- AMOLED display
- Decent battery life
- Clean UI
What we didn’t like:
- Not so loud volume
- Bulky camera island
- No microSD card slot
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G specs:
6.7-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED
1080 x 2340 pixels, 120Hz refresh rate
1200-nit peak brightness (HBM)
Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+
Samsung Exynos 1580
4nm, octa-core, up to 2.9GHz
8GB RAM
128GB, 256GB storage
Triple rear cameras:
– 50MP f/1.8 main, OIS
– 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide
– 5MP f/2.4 macro
12MP f/2.2 selfie shooter
Dual nano-SIM (supports eSIM)
5G, 4G LTE
Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth 5.3
GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS
USB Type-C
NFC (supports Digital Key)
Under-display fingerprint sensor (optical)
IP67 dust and water resistance
Dual stereo speakers
One UI 7, Android 15
5000mAh battery
45W charging (wired)
162.2 x 77.5 x 7.4 mm (dimensions)
198 grams (weight)
Lightgray, Graphite, Pink (colorways)
