Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: A balanced mid-ranger with impressive AI features
Is the new Samsung Galaxy A56 5G worth the hype at Rs.41999? From performance to AI experiences, here's everything you need to know.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: The mid-range smartphone segment has evolved drastically with brands bringing advanced features, powerful performance, and some premium camera features to the price segment. While the year 2024 was quite competitive for the smartphone, 2025 has started with some groundbreaking launches, bringing the AI race to affordable devices. Recently, Samsung introduced the new generation A series models, which included three smartphones, the Galaxy A26, Galaxy A36, and the Galaxy A56 in India. While, I will not say that the series has received some drastic upgrades, but a few iterations that make the new generation models a refined smartphone to use for day-to-day purposes.
I have been using the eldest sibling from the series, the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G for over two weeks as my daily driver. Since I am well acquainted with Samsung's A series models, I was able to analyze the upgrades and the issues which still persist. This year, Galaxy A56 5G brings a pleasing premium design that just steals the show, cameras have been improved, and some AI features are cherry on top. Therefore, if you are someone who is planning to get the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G, then read this detailed review and know if it's worth Rs.41,999.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: Design
The Samsung Galaxy A56 5G retains a similar design profile as its predecessor, but this year the company has redesigned the camera module and has made the smartphone 10% slimmer and light weight in comparison to the predecessor. The Galaxy A56 5G features a vertically placed pill-shaped camera module which Samsung calls “Linear floating camera design”, housing three lenses. It comes with a glass build and aluminum frame, making the device look polished and premium. The Galaxy A56 is also slimmer with just 7.4 mm of thickness in comparison to Galaxy A55’s 8.2 mm thickness. Despite the fact that it's slimmer, the smartphone is sturdier with Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection. It has also received an IP67 rating for dust and water protection.
From a design perspective, the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G is surely an eye-candy with its basic, yet classy design. However, note that the smartphone is slippery in hands, so you may want to buy a phone case or a pop-socket, to keep the phone in hand. Else, the above-mentioned iterations, make the device look and feel premium.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: display
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G features a slightly bigger 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display which is just the perfect size to manage day-to-day tasks, watch content, or play graphic-intensive games. The smartphone comes with HDR10+, ensuring a pleasing viewing experience when streaming content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and others. The colours are vibrant and punchy, enabling users to enjoy content even on a small screen. The display offers up to 120Hz refresh rate, enabling smooth navigation without any stutter. The games also ran swiftly, and I did not face any slow or choppy screen. It claims to offer up to 1900nits peak brightness, which sounds promising. In real life, the brightness does match the expectation as even in direct sunlight conditions, you can easily use the smartphone at 70 to 80% brightness. Therefore, the display experience is as pleasing as expected. However, I’m still not very fond of the bezel surrounding the display despite the fact that Samsung has managed to reduce the bezel in comparison to its predecessor.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: Camera
The Samsung Galaxy A56 5G features a triple camera setup consisting of a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, and a 5MP macro lens. This year Samsung has refined the camera of the Galaxy A56, and I quite like the way it captures the colours. The main camera sensor does an excellent job in capturing the image in its natural colours, it does not saturate images post-processing or make them look edited, so bonus to Samsung here. However, the portrait mode quality is very average. The background blur looks very artificial and it also struggles to put the object in focus, especially in low-light conditions. Additionally, the 5MP Macro camera also captures average images, which is acceptable for the price range.
The Galaxy A56 offers up to 2x optical zoom which does a great job in daylight conditions. The 12MP ultrawide camera also captures decent images with clarity and detail, making the scene look pleasing without any noise. I also managed to test the new low-noise mode, but I would still say that the results are pretty average, but in a well-lit location, the images look decent or we can say social media worthy. Overall, the camera performance has been refined and it sure captures pleasing images for the price.
For selfies, Samsung has switched from a 32MP camera to a 12MP camera, well this may seem like a downgrade, but the performance and image quality are quite impressive.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: Performance, AI upgrades
For performance, the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G is powered by the new Exynos 1580 chipset, an upgrade from last year’s Exynos 1480 chip. The chip has been refined to improve CPU, GPU, and NPU performance which claims to offer 14.7 TOPS. Coming to real-life usage, the Galaxy A56 5G does offer a smoother performance for day-to-day usage. If you are looking for a smartphone for light gaming, ease in multitasking, and streaming OTT content, then Galaxy A56 is a perfect choice in terms of performance upgrade. The smartphone does stutter with heavy usage, but there are no extreme lags or slow screens that will affect your basic tasks.
I also managed to play a few graphic-intensive games such as BGMI and COD, and the gaming experience was also smooth in low graphic settings for about a good 40 to 45 minutes. However, with long gaming hours, you will notice a drastic overheating on the top half of the rear panel and the phone frame getting extremely hot. Despite the fact that the smartphone has a bigger vapor chamber, the overheating issue still persists which may not be appreciated by the users.
One of the major setbacks I noticed about the smartphone is that I was not able to use video editing software on the Galaxy A56 5G. One of my day-to-day activities included editing reels on the VN video editing app, and the app was not functioning properly. When I played videos, the transitions and video play were not smooth which pushed me to switch devices for editing. Therefore, the smartphone also struggles to manage heavy-duty tasks.
Apart from the performance, Samsung has surely surprised me with some of its latest AI features for the new generation A series smartphones. Samsung is calling the AI upgrade for the A series model, the “Awesome Intelligence” that includes improved Circle to Search, Object Eraser, Create your own filter, Best Face, Instant slow-mo, AI Select, and more, which we have mostly seen on Samsung’s flagship series models. One of the innovative AI features for the Galaxy A56 is AI select and Instant slow-mo, which I have used thoroughly in the Galaxy S25 Ultra model and seeing it on a mid-ranger made me happy as many more users experience AI features the right way without emptying their pockets.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: Battery
The Samsung Galaxy A56 5G is backed by a 5000mAh battery which provides a decent battery backup. The smartphone could easily last you a whole day with basic usage such as social media scrolling, chatting, browsing, streaming, and light gaming. However, if you are a heavy smartphone user like me, then the smartphone will last you for about 9 to 10 hours with a single charge which is quite impressive.
In terms of charging, the smartphone sports a 45W fast charging which recharges the device in slightly more than an hour from 0 to 100%. I found the charging time to have been improved this year significantly, since Samsung devices usually take about 2 hours to charge which gets daunting for many.
Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Review: Verdict
Who should buy the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G? Considering the smartphone comes at a whopping price of Rs. 41,999, it offers a stylish design and I quite liked the new floating camera design. The smartphone offers a good photography experience with punchy colours and great detailing. One of the areas Samsung has mastered for its A series smartphones is bringing advanced AI features which will be highly appreciated by the users. However, in comparison to competitors like theOnePlus 13R, the Galaxy A56 5G still struggles to provide smooth performance. The heavy gaming is not well suited for this device and prolonged usage and multitasking cause frequent slowdowns which may hamper user usage. However, Samsung Galaxy A56 5G is decent for day-to-day usage.
