The Galaxy A56 will soon go on sale and undercut the Galaxy S24 FE by around $150 in the USA and a whopping €270 in Europe. No surprises, the Galaxy A56 is cheaper than the S24 FE, for good reasons. The Fan Edition phone is technically superior in almost every way — “Almost” being the keyword here.
If you fork over the extra cash for the Galaxy S24 FE, you get perks including:
- A more powerful Exynos 2400e chip instead of Exynos 1580.
- A higher IP68 rating, up from IP67.
- A better camera setup with a marginally more useful 8MP telephoto camera instead of a 5MP macro unit.
- 8K video recording capabilities.
- A superior Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen rather than a Super AMOLED — albeit both seemingly have identical brightness characteristics on paper. They also share the same 6.7-inch footprint.
- Support for Samsung DeX. This feature can be valuable if you intend to use your phone as a desktop PC powered by Android apps.
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You can see how the Galaxy S24 FE can do more things better than the Galaxy A56. But credit where credit is due, Samsung's new mid-range phone is no slouch, especially given its lower price. And more importantly, it will outperform the Galaxy S24 FE in one key area.
Galaxy A56 has superior battery specs and longevity
We discussed this briefly earlier this week, but the Galaxy A56 has incredible battery life. On paper, it beats the Galaxy S24 FE thanks to a 5,000mAh (versus 4,700mAh) unit that can charge at 45W instead of 25W.
In practice, things are looking even better for the Galaxy A56, as it can deliver on Samsung's two-day battery life promises. In our early Galaxy A56 tests, we achieved around 53 hours of usage on a full charge, with mixed usage, and we still had 7% juice left.
We've never achieved this level of battery performance using the Galaxy S24 FE. The Galaxy A56 has the FE phone beat.
Better battery life and specs might not be a good enough reason to buy the Galaxy A56 instead of the S24 FE if you're looking for a better phone overall, but it is something to consider. The A56 is surprisingly good in some areas.
On a final note, assuming you care about such characteristics, the Galaxy A56's battery setup is great but not perfect, as unlike the Galaxy S24 FE, it lacks wireless charging capabilities. Stay tuned for our review.
