Samsung Galaxy A57 review

Display

The Galaxy A57 may seem like it's using the same 6.7-inch Super AMOLED screen as the Galaxy A56, but it's not. While the panel still offers similar specs - 1080 x 2340 pixel resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+, there is one key difference - it's a Super AMOLED+ panel.

Super AMOLED Plus has a regular RGB subpixel matrix, while the Super AMOLED has the more widespread Diamond Pentile matrix with fewer blue subpixles. Back in the day there was an obvious difference between those two, as the displays were of lower resolution. But now, even if there are more subpixels on this panel, you cannot really see the theoretically crisper image on the A57 if you out it next to the A37 or the A56.

It's been a while since we've seen Samsung use Super AMOLED Plus panels. The last phone to have one was possibly the Galaxy A73. So why has Samsung returned to using the 10-year-old technology, which hasn't seen much use because it is probably more expensive to produce? Well, our best guess is that this panel is either thinner or lighter or both, which is what helped the Galaxy A57 shave off some thickness and weight.

Anyway, Samsung has the following max brightness specs listed: 1,200 nits for maximum automatic and 1,900 nits for peak brightness.

In our own standardized testing, we got a 427 nits of maximum manual brightness reading, 1,259 nits of maximum automatic brightness. The peak number we achieved with a 10% white patch was 1,869 nits.

We also repeated our display test inside the Gallery app, and we found that it offers a minor boost for the maximum manual and automatic brightness - 479 nits and 1,309 nits.

Refresh rate

Samsung offers two refresh mode options inside the Settings menu - Adaptive and Standard.

The Adaptive mode is what its name suggests - it uses 120Hz for the UI and all compatible apps, and it dials down to 60Hz for video streaming, HRR incompatible apps, and for idle screen.

Oddly, when the display is showing a static picture, the refresh rate indicator displays two red lines, which is how Samsung phones usually show the close-to-1Hz reading. Samsung hasn't advertised similar functionality here, so it's likely not LTPO, and the refresh rate indicator is likely glitching.

The Standard mode operates at 60Hz no matter what.

HDR and streaming

The Galaxy A57 screen supports HDR10 and HDR10+. It is successfully recognized as an HDR10-capable smartphone across all popular streaming apps, Netflix included.

Battery life

The Samsung Galaxy A57 is powered by a 5,000mAh battery, the same capacity as the Galaxy A35, A55, A36, A56, among others.

The Galaxy A57 scored an Active Use Rating of 13:59h, an improvement over the A55 and A56. It did incredibly well on the video streaming and offered a boost on the gaming runtime compared to the Galaxy A56.

Charging speed

The Galaxy A57 supports up to 45W of fast wired charging, or as Samsung calls it - Fast Charging 2.0 (which is really based on Power Delivery w/PPS). There is no need for a 5A cable to get the maximum charging power, the bundled 3A one will allow you to get the maximum from compatible USB PD+PPS charger.

We used a 45W charger by Samsung for our charging test, and here is what we got.

The battery went from 1% to 35% in 15mins, and up to 64% in 30 mins. The A57 reached full charge on the 69-minute mark, which is plenty fast for this class.

If you want to prolong the lifespan of your battery, the software gives you a couple of options to preserve battery health. For instance, you can limit the charging to one of the few preset levels above 80% or disable fast charging altogether.

Speakers - loudness and quality

The Galaxy A57 has a hybrid stereo speaker setup, where the earpiece is pulling double duty. Naturally, the earpiece is quieter and somewhat shallower compared to the bottom speaker, but together, those two sound adequately balanced.

The speakers scored a Good mark on our loudness test, and we can rate the sound output as very good with deep and rich sound, with great vocals, rich high frequency range and good bass presence.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.