Last week we were treated to a new iPhone. It has the newest A18 chip and apple intelligence, but it also starts with £ 600 for a single-reer-camera-to-tone telephone with a 60Hz display, in 2025.
Only a week later and I will follow what will soon be the most popular new Mid-Range entry from Samsung, the Galaxy A56, and it makes me ask how only the latest mobile proposition of Apple is.
To start with, the A56 clocks at £ 100 less than the basic price of the iPhone 16th, despite the fact that twice is the internal storage (256 GB), but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
There is only so much that you can do with a single reversing camera
It seems that the AI efforts of Samsung are also not as hardware dependent as those of Apple, with Galaxy Ai with dripping from the flagship Galaxy S25 series, despite the A56 that does not rock a flagship class chipset.
Instead, the phone has sport what the company calls ‘Awesome AI’, which, as part of its new UI 7.0 user experience, contains new brand lengthifications such as NOW Letter and AI Select; In addition to the latest update of Google’s Circle-ToSearch experience and, of course, Google Gemini is of course also loaded on the phone.
With this new A-series entry, Samsung also increases the bar between Android’s best mid-range telephones, by promising OS and security updates for six years.
Although Apple does not do an update in advance when the new iPhones launches, earlier submissions in the series between five and seven years of support have received support. As such, it is reasonable to assume that the A56 comes just as much endurance, from the point of view of software.
Although the new Mid-Range 4NM Exynos 1580 chipset will probably not keep pace with the 16th Top-Plank Apple A18 silicon, it still marks a welcome jump in promised performance for the Galaxy A series itself.
Samsung claims that it will improve 12% in NPU performance (needed for AI tasks), a 16% recovery in GPU performance (ideal for gaming) and 18% better CPU performance, compared to the Exynos 1480 that can be found in last year’s Galaxy A55.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Despite a general -derived design (7.4 mm to 8.2 mm, while the 16th 7.8 mm thick measures), and the telephone gives a premium feeling and finish in person, the brushed metal frame of the A56 also hides a new vapor room that is 45% larger than that in the A55.
This gives good things for persistent performance; Something that we will certainly test in addition to alternatives, including the 16th, Come Review Time.
Both telephones have 12MP Selfie Snappers (albeit with the A56s that are much less intrusive compared to the face -ID -Ininking on the iPhone), but it is the reversing system where the Galaxy has the lead.
I have no doubt that the 48MP merger camera on the 16th with its 2x loss-free sensor-crop Zoom will perform admirable, but there is only so much that you can do with a single reversing camera.
The A56 has a renewed linear triple camera -Array, led by a 50MP sensor that records in 12MP as standard, but now allows full 50MP recording if you want; While a larger sensor (with larger 1 µm pixels) is also tailored to better HDR video recording (with 4K/30 fps to the admitted superior 4K/60FPS cap of the iPhone).
Add a secondary 12MP ultrawide and a special 5MP macrosensor, as well as AI-amplified semantic separation and tools such as best take care that everyone looks at the camera and smiles and there is just much more to the shooting experience of the A56, from a multifacetacy.
Samsung has perfected the A-series formula
Perhaps one of the most serious shortcomings in the Makeup of the 16th, despite its price, relates to his display. Although now OLED (in contrast to the entries in the SE line before), the 6.1-inch panel of the phone still clocks in a pedestrian 60Hz.
The Galaxy A5 line has currently sustained OLED visuals and promotion-like 120Hz fluidity for years. The 6.7-inch panel on the A56 also clocks with a considerably brighter display, and promises an HBM (high brightness mode) a maximum of 1200 Nits, linked to a peak of 1900 NIT for HDR content.
Compare that with the 16th 800-nit panel-wide brightness ceiling, and 1200nits maximum and I know which display I would rather stare in bright sunlight.
Samsung has perfected the A-series formula, based on my first meeting with the Galaxy A56, and although the performance of the middle range stops to compete with Apple’s devices on all fronts, in almost any other area, it is one of the most fascinating rivals for the 16th to launch this year.
Although storage and ram can vary per market, in the UK, the Galaxy A56 is supplied with 256 GB UFS 3.1 storage and 8 GB LPDDR5X RAM, which costs £ 499 and can be purchased on March 19. You can now order it in advance at Samsung.
