Simply final week, we have been handled to a brand new iPhone. It’s acquired the newest A18 chip and Apple Intelligence, but it surely additionally begins at £600 for a single-rear-camera-toting telephone with a 60Hz show, in 2025.
Only a week later and I’m holding what is going to quickly be Samsung’s hottest new mid-range entry, the Galaxy A56, and it’s making me query how simply off-base Apple’s newest cellular proposition is.
For starters, the A56 clocks in at £100 lower than the bottom value of the iPhone 16e, regardless of toting twice the inner storage (256GB), however that’s simply the tip of the iceberg.
There’s solely a lot you are able to do with a single rear digital camera
It will seem that Samsung’s AI efforts aren’t as hardware-dependant as Apple’s both, with Galaxy AI options trickling down from the flagship Galaxy S25 sequence, regardless of the A56 not rocking a flagship-class chipset.
The telephone as a substitute sports activities what the corporate is asking ‘Superior AI’ which, as a part of its new One UI 7.0 consumer expertise, contains new brand-exclusives like Now Transient and AI Choose; alongside the newest replace of Google’s Circle-to-Search expertise and, after all, Google Gemini comes preloaded on the telephone too.
With this new A-series entry, Samsung can be elevating the bar amongst Android’s finest mid-range telephones, by promising six years of OS and safety updates.
Whereas Apple doesn’t make any replace guarantees upfront when it launches new iPhones, earlier entries within the sequence have obtained between 5 to seven years of assist. As such, it’s truthful to imagine that the A56 comes with simply as a lot endurance, from a software program standpoint.
Whereas the brand new mid-range 4nm Exynos 1580 chipset doubtless gained’t hold tempo with the 16e’s top-shelf Apple A18 silicon, it nonetheless marks a welcome leap in promised efficiency for the Galaxy A-series itself.
Samsung claims it delivers a 12% enchancment in NPU efficiency (wanted for AI duties), a 16% uptick in GPU efficiency (ultimate for gaming) and 18% higher CPU efficiency, in comparison with the Exynos 1480 present in final 12 months’s Galaxy A55.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Regardless of a generationally slimmed down design (7.4mm down to eight.2mm, whereas the 16e measures 7.8mm thick), in addition to giving the telephone a premium really feel and end in particular person, the A56’s brushed steel body additionally conceals a brand new vapour chamber that’s 45% bigger than the one discovered contained in the A55.
This spells good issues for sustained efficiency; one thing we’ll undoubtedly be testing facet by facet with alternate options, together with the 16e, come overview time.
Each telephones sport 12MP selfie snappers (albeit with the A56’s being far much less obtrusive in comparison with the Face ID notch association on the iPhone), but it surely’s the rear digital camera system the place the Galaxy has the sting.
I’ve little doubt that the 48MP Fusion digital camera on the 16e – with its 2x lossless sensor-crop zoom – will carry out admirably, however there’s solely a lot you are able to do with a single rear digital camera.
The A56 contains a refreshed linear triple digital camera array, led by a 50MP sensor that captures in 12MP by default, however now permits full 50MP seize for those who want; whereas a bigger sensor (with bigger 1µm pixels) has additionally been tuned for higher HDR video seize (topping out at 4K/30fps to the iPhone’s admittedly superior 4K/60fps cap).
Add to {that a} secondary 12MP ultrawide and a devoted 5MP macro sensor, in addition to AI-enhanced semantic separation and instruments like Finest Take – ensuring everybody’s trying on the digital camera and smiling – and there’s simply much more to the A56’s capturing expertise, from a versatility standpoint.
Samsung has perfected the A-Collection components
Maybe the some of the egregious shortcomings within the 16e’s make-up, regardless of its value level, pertains to its show. Though now OLED (in contrast to the entries within the SE line earlier than it), the telephone’s 6.1-inch panel nonetheless clocks in at a pedestrian 60Hz.
The Galaxy A5 line has boasted OLED visuals and ProMotion-like 120Hz fluidity for years at this level. The 6.7-inch panel on the A56 clocks in with a considerably brighter show too, promising an HBM (excessive brightness mode) most of 1200nits, paired with a 1900-nit peak for HDR content material.
Examine that to the 16e’s 800-nit panel-wide brightness ceiling, and 1200nits most and I do know which show I’d relatively stare upon in vivid daylight.
Samsung has perfected the A-Collection components, based mostly on my preliminary encounter with the Galaxy A56, and whereas mid-range efficiency holds it again from competing with Apple’s units on all fronts, in virtually each different space, it’s some of the compelling rivals to the 16e to launch this 12 months.
Whereas storage and RAM might fluctuate by market, within the UK, the Galaxy A56 comes with 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage and 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM, which prices £499 and goes on sale on 19 March. You possibly can pre-order it now from Samsung.