Samsung Galaxy A56 vs. Galaxy A55

Samsung’s most sought-after midranger, the Samsung Galaxy A56 is here, and many of you are left wondering how much better it is compared to its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy A55. After all, Samsung’s extended software support makes older models a sensible solution for many. Although if you are reading this from the US, you don’t have that much of a choice except getting the Galaxy A56 as the A55 was never available across the pond.

The difference in MSRP between the two is about €100, but in reality, third-party stores have already slashed the A56 price premium in the EU to just about €20-30.

In the UK, the A56 is only available in a 256GB tier, while the A55 is only available as a 128GB model. What’s more, Samsung seemingly has much better control over the A56 retail pricing there so the current price difference between the old and the new model is a whopping £140. Neither model is available in US.

So with pricing varying that wildly, it’s only natural to wonder whether the newer device is worth the premium or not. Now let’s dive deeper beyond just the specs sheets.

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.

Size comparison

There are no major design changes, but one could argue the Galaxy A56 is more refined. For instance, the device has a slightly bigger 6.7-inch display, compared to the 6.6-inch panel on the A55, but comes in roughly the same dimensions. It’s just a millimeter taller, but considerably lighter.

Additionally, the A56 gets an upgraded Gorilla Glass Victus+ back glass, unlike the standard glass on the A55. Aside from that, you won’t feel much of a difference between the A56 and A55.

Display comparison

Besides the obvious size difference, the newer Galaxy A56 has a slightly brighter display. The A56 peaked above 1,200 nits in our tests, while the A55 barely got over 1,000 nits.

To be frank, this isn’t a big difference, as both phones should provide good sunlight legibility even on bright sunny days.

The two displays have no feature differences as they both support HDR10+ and 120Hz refresh rate.

Battery life

Surprisingly, the Galaxy A55 offers longer battery life overall, even though the Galaxy A56 boasts a more energy-efficient chipset. The Galaxy A55 got a higher 13:27h Active Use Score in our proprietary tests with considerably longer call, video playback and gaming runtimes than the new A56.

Conversely, the Galaxy A56 edged out the A55 in the web browsing test by a small margin. All in all, the A55 seems to have the better battery life of the two.

Charging speed

Neither of the two is particularly fast when it comes to charging, but the Galaxy A56 now supports 45W fast charging, while the A55 is capped at 25W. Neither phone comes with a charger, but for the A56, you’d also have to get a 5 Amp cable too if you want the fastest charging possible, as the one in the box is rated at 3 Amp only.

The difference in charging speed is marginal. According to our tests, the A56 charges faster at the beginning of the charging cycle, reaching a higher percentage at the 15 and 30-minute marks, but it takes 10 minutes longer than the A55 to reach 100%.

Arguably, the A56’s charging curve is more practical because you likely won’t have to charge the phone to 100% when you are in a hurry.

Speaker test

When it comes to loudness, the Galaxy A55’s speakers are marginally louder, even though it earns a “Very Good” score as opposed to the A56’s “Good” score.

However, the tuning is different. The Galaxy A56 produces warmer, deeper sound with more prominent bass and potentially less distortion at higher volume, while the A55 offers cleaner vocals but flatter sound.

Performance

The newer Galaxy A56 runs on a more recent Exynos 1580 chipset, which is more powerful than the Exynos 1480 running inside the A55.

The two handsets offer identical memory configurations, but the A56 upgrades the storage from UFS 2.1 to UFS 3.1. So you will get slightly faster storage if you go for the A56.

Benchmark performance

The raw benchmark results show a significant performance gain with the Galaxy A56 this year. The Exynos 1580 outperforms the Exynos 1480 by around 16% in the pure CPU scenario and more than 30% in the GPU-intensive 3DMark benchmark. The combined test shows a 25% performance increase.

It’s quite obvious that if you are in for the performance, without a doubt, the A56 should be your first choice.

Camera comparison

The Galaxy A56 and A55 rely on the same camera hardware on the back. They have a 50MP main shooter joined by a 12MP ultrawide camera and a dedicated 5MP macro snapper.

As for the selfies, the A56 gets a newer, better 12MP sensor, albeit with a lower resolution compared to the A55’s 32MP sensor.

Below we have a few samples taken by the two phones at the same locations but at different times.

Image quality

Looking at the stills from the primary camera, it’s safe to say that there’s virtually no difference in overall quality. Rendition is very similar as well and we couldn’t find meaningful difference in daylight and nighttime scenarios.

Main camera: Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55 • Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55

Main camera: Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55 • Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55

The only difference we were able to spot is in the exposure. The A55 tends to have more balanced exposure with more natural-looking shadows at night, while the A56’s highlights are a bit too bright during the day as well as the shadows in the nighttime pictures.

The 2x zoom photos are very similar again, but the A56 pulls ahead with cleaner and sharper-looking stills during the day. Quality is pretty much identical at night, though.

Main camera: Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55 • Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55

2x crop zoom: Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55 • Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55

And as for the ultrawide, we couldn’t spot any difference, regardless of the lighting conditions.

Ultrawide camera: Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55 • Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55

Ultrawide camera: Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55 • Galaxy A56 • Galaxy A55

Video quality

Below we have a few framegrabs from the videos taken by the two phones at different times and locations.

Video recording quality is about identical. The nighttime video, on the other hand, looks generally better on the A56. It’s sharper, more detailed, but with a bit more pale colors compared to the A55.

4K video screengrabs: A56 0.6x • A55 0.6x • A56 1x • A55 1x • A56 1x low-light • A55 1x low-light

Verdict

As you can see, the Galaxy A56’s upgrade over A55 is modest, to say the least. So, no wonder people find it hard to decide between saving a few bucks and getting the older A55 instead, or just going for the latest and greatest.

For the Galaxy A56’s price premium, you will get a slightly more refined design, a better chipset, marginally faster charging, speakers with better tuning, better selfies, low-light video, and two extra years of software support (6 vs. 4 major OS updates).

Last year’s Galaxy A55, on the other hand, offers roughly the same camera experience, longer battery life, and has a microSD card slot.

So if you reside in a market where the difference between the two is small (like the EU), it makes all the sense to go for the newer model. However, if you already own a Galaxy A55 or your market has a large gap in the pricing between the two models, we suggest you stick with A55 or wait a bit more until the A56 pricing inevitably goes down.