Samsung Galaxy A57 Vs. Galaxy A56

If you are in the market for a mid-range smartphone, it’s almost impossible not to stumble upon Samsung’s Galaxy A lineup. But with the recent Samsung Galaxy A57 release, one would wonder whether the Samsung Galaxy A56 isn’t actually a more sensible solution, seeing the somewhat modest hardware upgrade. After all, last year’s Galaxy A56 is still relevant and sells at a lower price.

Since the more recent Galaxy offers only minor design changes and a newer chipset, it’s probably safe to assume that the Galaxy A56 will get you a lot of the way while saving you a few bucks. But even trivial changes like the chipset can have an effect on experience beyond just performance. Let’s not jump to conclusions and take a look at the data first.

Size comparison

The Galaxy A57 follows the footsteps of its more expensive siblings this year, the S series, and is now lighter and thinner than its predecessor. Noticeably so, too.

Perhaps screen bezels are also slightly thinner because the A57 is a tad narrower and shorter without changing the screen size.

There’s a small upgrade to the build as well. The Galaxy A57 is IP68-rated, up from IP67 last year, but the same Gorilla Glass Victus+ sheets protect the front and back.

Display comparison

In practice, the Galaxy A57 and A56 offer identical displays. Our brightness tests prove it, too. However, Samsung markets the A57 with a new Super AMOLED+ display, which isn’t exactly new as it uses a regular RGB subpixel matrix instead of the Diamond Pentile matrix. In theory, it should improve image clarity and sharpness, but it’s really hard to notice any difference, even if you compare the two devices in person.

So, for all intents and purposes, the Galaxy A57 and A56 feature identical displays with no practical difference.

Battery life

The newer Galaxy edges out the Galaxy A56 in our battery endurance tests, if you are strictly looking at the overall Active Use Score. It could be the newer display, it could be the newer chipset, or Samsung found a way to improve battery life through software optimizations. Either way, the A57 is the clear winner here.

Still, a quick breakdown of the score reveals that the A56 is much better for calls, achieving better runtimes during 4G calls, whereas the A57 posts better screen-on scores, especially in our video streaming scenario.

Charging speed

Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy A57 and A56 achieved near-identical charging times. Both devices support 45W fast charging over Power Delivery, and they both carry a 5,000 mAh battery. The A57 is a tad quicker to the finish line, but it could be due to statistical error as the difference is only around 4 minutes.

Speaker test

When it comes to loudness, the two sets of speakers seem to be virtually identical. The A57 and the A56 are rated as “Good”, but as far as sound quality is concerned, the A57 is definitely better. The bass seems a tad less prominent, but music tracks are generally cleaner, while vocals are crisper.

Overall, it’s safe to say that the Galaxy A57 has considerably better sound output via its speakers.

Performance

The newer Galaxy A57 arrives with an upgraded Exynos 1680 chipset that boasts better CPU and GPU performance over the Exynos 1580-powered Galaxy A56. But as you will see from the benchmark results below, the advancements in performance aren’t exactly ground-breaking.

Even though the Galaxy A57 can be found with 6GB of RAM, it’s actually a rare find. In most markets, the Galaxy A57 starts from 8GB/128GB, just like its predecessor. However, yesteryear’s model caps at 12GB/256GB, while the A57 also offers a 12GB/512GB setup.

Benchmark performance

The pure CPU benchmark test, Geekbench 6, shows a 13% gap between the newer and the older SoC, while a combined workload test like AnTuTu 10 shows less than 10% difference. To our surprise, the gap widens in the GPU-heavy 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test, where the A57 scores 30% higher than its predecessor.

Camera comparison

The two Galaxies have what’s very likely identical camera systems, though the new model doesn’t list its sensors so we can’t be entirely sure. It’s the kind of a triple-camera setup that qualifies to be called a triple-camera setup, but is in practice two real cameras and a mostly redundant dedicated macro unit.

On either phone, the main camera features a 1/1.56″ type sensor (the old model had the Sony IMX 906) with a stabilized lens that has a 23mm equivalent focal length and an f/1.8 aperture.

The ultrawide camera uses a conventional Bayer RGB sensor with a 12MP resolution (Sony IMX 258 on the A56). It’s got a fixed-focus lens which is on the ultrawide-r end of the ultrawide spectrum, at 13mm.

The selfie camera is based on another 12MP sensor (Samsung S5K 3LC last year). There’s no autofocus on this one either.