Samsung Galaxy A57 review: More premium, more pricey

Best Prices Today: Samsung Galaxy A57

In a tumultuous year for the smartphone industry, the Galaxy A57 should be a safe harbour for Samsung. Free from the obligation to innovate, this is where the company’s peerless manufacturing process should be able to turn out another solid, dependable handset without squeezing its margins.

Elsewhere in this corner of the mid-range smartphone market, Google recently got away with releasing the exact same phone for the second year running (more or less) in the Pixel 10a, all while holding firm with its pricing.

Samsung has pushed things just a little more. The Galaxy A57 is a leaner, faster phone than the Samsung Galaxy A56 – a definite improvement – but you’ll have to pay a little more for these subtle enhancements, with one model coming at a shocking price.

Is it still the best Samsung phone for most people? I’ve been testing it for a couple of weeks to find out.

Design & Build

• Even slimmer design
• Significantly lighter
• Upgraded durability

Samsung has retained the look of the Samsung Galaxy A56 (and earlier models) here, but has gone even further in slimming the A57 down and making it feel more premium.

Signature features such as a pill-shaped camera module, supporting three distinct lenses, and a ‘key island’ (containing the power and volume buttons) that bulges out from the right side of the phone remain.

However, at 161.5 x 76.8mm, the Galaxy A57 has a fractionally smaller footprint than its predecessor, thanks to slightly slimmer bezels.

But the really consequential figure here is 6.9mm. That’s the thickness of the Galaxy A57, which means that it has shed a significant 0.5mm from its waistline.

In trimming down to this degree, Samsung has shaved a noticeable 19g from the weight of the phone, bringing it down to just 179g. Previous phones in the range have felt substantial, if not downright heavy, but the Galaxy A57 feels just so.

Despite this, the Samsung Galaxy A57 feels every bit as premium as its predecessor, with an aluminium body and Gorilla Glass Victus+ to the front and rear. Indeed, Samsung has actually improved the build quality with a superior IP68 dust and water resistance rating.

My model comes in a slightly dull shade called Awesome Icyblue, which looks like a white T-shirt that has been put through the wash a few too many times. You can also specify it in Awesome Gray, Awesome Navy, and Awesome Lilac.

Screen

• 6.7-inch 120Hz Full HD+ Super AMOLED display
• 1200nits (High Brightness Mode or HBM), 1900nits (peak)
• Optical in-display fingerprint sensor

Samsung hasn’t touched the display of the Galaxy A57 compared to last year, but it remains a pleasure to use all the same. It’s a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED with a Full HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate.

Unlike other manufacturers, Samsung doesn’t let you force that maximum resolution to be active all the time, but the company’s automatic implementation is good enough that you won’t notice it stuttering or slowing down.

The Galaxy A56 introduced a newly bolstered maximum brightness of 1200 nits in high brightness mode, and 1900 nits in HDR scenarios. That remains the case with the Galaxy A57.

It’s not the brightest screen in its class – both the Pixel 10a and the Motorola Edge 70 Fusion make mincemeat out of it – but it’s bright enough in general outdoor conditions, while HDR content looks suitably vibrant.

The in-display fingerprint sensor isn’t the snappiest I’ve used, even for a mid-ranger, but I found it to be sufficiently reliable.

Specs & Performance

• 4nm Samsung Exynos 1680 chipset
• 13% larger vapour chamber than A56
• 8 or 12GB of RAM

Samsung’s A-series phones have never exactly been renowned for their speed, even within the more modest mid-range class. The Galaxy A57 doesn’t top any benchmark tables either, but it easily warrants the ‘fast enough’ description.

The brand new Exynos 1680 chip (Samsung’s own) makes its debut here, and it’s a decent performer. Benchmark tests suggest a 16% boost in CPU multi-core performance and about a 13% boost in GPU performance.

It’s not a huge boost, but it supplies valuable headroom when it comes to day-to-day running. Flicking between home screens and menus isn’t far off flagship-smooth, and jumping between open apps tends to yield only a minor pause.

As mentioned already, the fingerprint unlock system can feel a little ponderous, but the biggest sign that you’re using a cheaper phone comes with the camera app. It takes a beat longer to boot up than the very best phones, and night shots can require a patience-testing amount of shutter time.

When it comes to its rivals, the Galaxy A57 is roughly equal to the Pixel 10a and Nothing Phone (4a) Pro in CPU terms, but can’t match up to either with its GPU. Considering it’s the most expensive of the three, that’s not a great look and you might expect better gaming prowess from Samsung.

I’m particularly impressed by the Galaxy A57’s performance stability, however. After the Galaxy A56 increased the size of its vapour chamber by 15%, Samsung has boosted the size by a further 13%, and it reaps dividends. Running the extended Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, it barely varied from the first graphical workout to the last, indicating a lack of thermal throttling, which even some flagship phones succumb to.

When it comes to gaming, I couldn’t get my usual first port of call – Destiny Rising – to run without crashing the whole phone, hinting at some potential early driver or stability issues. Ubisoft’s The Division Resurgence, however, ran well enough on a default combination of High graphics, Medium resolution, and Standard framerate – albeit with a few pauses.

Elsewhere on the Galaxy A57 spec sheet, you get Bluetooth 6.0, WiFi 6e, NFC, GPS and dual-SIM capability (5G, of course. It’s all pretty standard fare.

Cameras

• 50Mp f/1.8 main w/ OIS + 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide + 5Mp f/2.4 macro camera
• 12Mp f/2.2 selfie camera
• Up to 4K/30fps video front and back

It’s somewhat disappointing to note that Samsung hasn’t really done anything with the Galaxy A57 camera system. It’s the same modest dual camera set-up that we saw in the Galaxy A56, which actually dates all the way back to the Samsung Galaxy A54 from 2023!

There’s the same 1/1.56″ 50Mp f/1.8 main camera, allied to the same 12Mp f/2.2 ultra-wide. I’m not counting the 5Mp macro camera as a separate concern, as if such components were of any serious practical use, you can be assured that top-end flagship phones would be using them.

Advances in image processing and the new and improved Exynos 1680 chip mean that there have been improvements, but they’re relatively minor.

The main camera continues to take decent shots in good lighting, with solid dynamic range (for a mid-ranger) and those signature Samsung punched-up blue skies. They’re not the most natural shots, but they’re undoubtedly easy on the eye and eminently shareable.

The 12Mp ultra-wide can’t match up to the main camera on detail or dynamic range – to be expected – but Samsung’s image processing expertise ensures a relatively consistent tone between the two.

In the absence of a dedicated telephoto, the Galaxy A57 has to crop in on that main sensor for zoomed shots. This produces tonally consistent shots, though detail starts to falter at 4x, and you probably shouldn’t even bother with 10x.

There’s a 12Mp camera around front, which turns out passable selfie shots. I find Samsung’s portrait algorithm to be a little iffy at separating subject from background here, but it does a solid job of capturing natural skin tones.

While the AI offering is nowhere near as extensive as on the Samsung Galaxy S26 range, Samsung has included a couple of AI tools through its Gallery app. You can Remaster shots to almost-instantly make them clearer and crisper, while there’s also a decent Object Eraser function. Just circle to make objects disappear.

Video recording extends to a mere 4K at 30fps, which is fairly typical of phones at this price. However, it does place it behind the Pixel 10a and Pixel 9a, both of which can hit 4K at 60fps.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5000mAh battery
• 45W Super Fast Charge 2.0 wired charging
• No wireless charging

Samsung might have reduced the dimensions and weight of its latest mid-range smartphone, but the Galaxy A57 keeps the same 5000mAh battery as before.

This is in danger of dropping below what we’d consider to be an average size for a larger phone such as this, amidst a wider trend of increased capacities. It still proves ample in daily use, though.

It’s more than able to see you through a full day of quite heavy usage without even threatening to run out of juice. On one day of relatively brief (three hours and fifteen minutes of screen-on time) but intensive use, which included an hour and a half of web browsing, 50 minutes of gaming, and 30 minutes of YouTube, I was left with 41%.

With that said, the Galaxy A57 didn’t exactly set the world alight with its PCMark 3.0 battery test results. It scored more than an hour worse than the Galaxy A56, in fact, and fell several hours shy of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro and the Google Pixel 10a.

45W Super Fast Charge 2.0 fast charging makes a return, making this one of the speedier chargers in the Samsung line-up. I was able to get the Galaxy A57 from empty to 65% in 30 minutes.

You won’t be getting wireless charging here, however. This still isn’t a common feature in the sub-£500/$500 class, but it’s one that key rival Google offers with the Pixel 10a and Pixel 9a.

Software & Apps

• One UI 8.5 with Android 16
• 6 years of OS & security update support
• ‘Awesome Intelligence’ in place of Galaxy AI

At a time when owners of older Galaxy S phones have been complaining about the delay in getting the latest One UI 8.5 update, it’s gratifying to see the Galaxy A57 shipping with Samsung’s latest UI right out of the box.

This sits atop Android 16, providing the phone with most (but not all) of the features and UI elements of the Samsung Galaxy S26 range.

Samsung’s UI is one of the freshest and sharpest-looking on the market, reflecting the company’s long-term commitment to the Android platform and close relationship with Google.

I particularly like the sharp, colourful widgets that populate the main Home Screen, though it’s a shame that there’s still no sign of the convenient Now Brief tool from the Galaxy S series. The lock screen Now Bar widget that we get here isn’t quite the same thing, despite the shared nomenclature.

Another thing that’s missing is Samsung’s much-vaunted Galaxy AI suite of machine learning tools. In its place is what the company calls ‘Awesome Intelligence’ – a leaner, simpler roster of AI-enhanced features.

AI Select gives you a series of context-sensitive actions based on the present contents of the screen, Read Aloud provides a text-to-speech function for web pages, and Voice Transcription does the opposite for voice and call recordings.

Samsung has maintained its admirable streak of extensive software support promises, with only Google’s Pixel series able to beat its six-year guarantee.

Price & Availability

It may be a solid refinement of the Galaxy A56, but these minor improvements have to be considered within the context of an unwelcome price rise.

The baseline 256GB model of the Samsung Galaxy A57 starts from £529, which is a £30 increase over the 2025 model. This positions the phone between the Google Pixel 10a (£499) and the iPhone 17e (£599).

This time around, you can also bump that capacity up to 512GB, which also gives you extra memory at 12GB of RAM, but you’ll have to pay the somewhat ridiculous price of £699 for the privilege.

Over in the US, the storage provision is slightly different. There’s a 128GB model for $549.99, or a 256GB model for $609.99.

You can buy it from the likes of Samsung, Amazon and plenty of other retailers.

As we noted in our hands-on preview, the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE starts from £649, so you’d really have to need that extra capacity over the latter’s superior-everything-else to make it worthwhile.

Check our guide to the best mid-range phones to see our current top 10 recommendations.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy A57?

Samsung has created its most premium mid-range phone yet in the Galaxy A57. Design improvements make it a more pleasing phone to live with than any previous model, bringing it even closer (in feel at least) to the flagship Galaxy S range.

With that said, this is another case of refinement over innovation. It’s a shame there hasn’t been more attention paid to the phone’s stagnant camera system, in particular, as well as its battery – even if it’s a fairly solid performer in both respects.

We’re not thrilled with Samsung bumping up the price, given the relative lack of advancement and the existence of better-performing or more exciting rivals for less money.

An awful lot of people simply want the best Samsung phone within their budget, however, and it’s never been easier to recommend the top Galaxy A model as the one that most people should get.

If you want to save money, look to the Galaxy A37 instead.

Specs

• Android 16, One UI 8.5
• 6.7in, FHD+, OLED, 120Hz, flat display
• In-display optical fingerprint sensor
• Exynos 1680
• 8GB/12GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 256GB/512GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.8 main camera
• 12Mp macro camera
• Up to 4K @ 30fps rear video
• 12Mp front-facing camera
• Stereo speakers
• Dual-SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e
• Bluetooth 6.0
• 5000mAh battery
• 45W charging
• 161.5 x 76.8 x 6.9 mm
• 179g
• Launch colours: Awesome Navy, Awesome Gray, Awesome Icyblue, Awesome Lilac