The Samsung Galaxy A57 is a distinctly mid-range smartphone – and I don’t imply that as an insult.
The Galaxy A57 separates itself from a lot of the mid-range competitors with a very premium glass and aluminium construct that’s each thinner and lighter this 12 months, together with Samsung’s polished One UI 8.5 software program, a smattering of latest AI options and a for much longer OS improve promise, making the £529 price ticket for the entry-level 256GB mannequin a lot simpler to swallow.
Nevertheless, it’s not precisely the right telephone – the concentrate on a premium construct has meant sacrifices in different areas.
The 6.7-inch Tremendous AMOLED display, for instance, has slimmer bezels, however they’re nonetheless not symmetrical like these on the cheaper Honor 400, whereas the digicam setup leaves a lot to be desired.
The 50MP primary digicam is pretty well-specced for the worth, however the accompanying 12MP ultrawide and 5MP macro lenses have all however been outshone by the competitors, notably the Nothing Telephone 4a Professional, which is each cheaper and boasts higher-res, extra superior lenses. Actually, you’d anticipate finding these secondary lenses on one thing within the sub-£300 market from some other model.
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It’s additionally not precisely a efficiency beast, that includes Samsung’s distinctly mid-range Exynos 1680 chipset and 8GB of RAM. It’s advantageous for day-to-day use in early testing, however it may possibly’t maintain a candle to the flagship-level A19 chipset within the iPhone 17e, nor to the Snapdragon 8 Elite within the Poco F8 Professional.
However, once more, at £529, you possibly can form of settle for these shortcomings. It’s not a full-fat flagship, in spite of everything, and most mid-rangers have a specific ‘focus’, be it digicam {hardware}, design or efficiency, the place different areas take a success to get to the worth level.
Nevertheless, that metric adjustments fully once you have a look at the 512GB/12GB mannequin, which moderately inexplicably, prices £699.
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That’s £170 extra, for 4GB extra RAM and an extra 256GB of storage, the previous of which you in all probability gained’t discover all that usually in on a regular basis use. £699 isn’t mid-range – that’s premium, virtually flagship-level cash, and the A57’s shortcomings are a lot tougher to forgive at that worth level. What I’m making an attempt to say is, keep away from that mannequin in any respect prices.
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Significantly better choices obtainable on the worth
For £699, there are many extra succesful telephones than the Galaxy A57 obtainable to you – living proof, Samsung’s personal Galaxy S25 FE. The telephone is available in at £649, and whilst you don’t get the identical 512GB of storage because the A57, you do get rather more bang on your buck in different areas.
The telephone has a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with an LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh price and people all-important symmetrical bezels, together with higher efficiency from the Exynos 2400 chipset and good extras like wi-fi charging – all for £50 lower than the A57.
It’s even tougher to vouch for the Galaxy A57 when you look past Camp Samsung on the worth level. That’ll web you a telephone just like the £649 OnePlus 15R with its larger, sooner 6.8-inch 165Hz AMOLED display, a way more highly effective Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor, a frankly large 7400mAh battery and equally fast 80W charging.
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There’s additionally the £699 Motorola Edge 70, and whereas it doesn’t supply a lot of an uptick within the efficiency division, it’s impressively skinny and light-weight at 6mm and 159g, making it one of many slimmest choices available on the market – and full with a comparatively large 4800mAh battery and a beautiful 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED display.
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Xiaomi’s 15T Professional is one other stable various, coming in at £649. It packs not solely the flagship-level Dimensity 9400+ chipset but additionally a premium digicam setup comprising a 50MP primary with a big 1/1.3-inch sensor, a 50MP 5x periscope, and a 12MP ultrawide, together with a 6.8-inch 144Hz AMOLED show that’ll give a number of the greatest round a run for its cash.
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In truth, you possibly can even get correct flagship-level telephones for the worth. The Nothing Telephone 3 value £799 at launch in late 2025, however on the time of writing, it’s obtainable for simply £559 at Amazon with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM – and also you’re getting a a lot extra succesful telephone than the Galaxy A57, with change to spare.
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You’re getting oodles of energy within the type of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, together with a correct high-end 6.6-inch display with an LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh price and a peak brightness of 4500nits, a stable digicam mixture comprised of triple 50MP primary, ultrawide and 3x periscope lenses, and to high all of it off, Nothing’s trendy Nothing OS expertise.
And that’s not even mentioning the design, with the Telephone 3 providing some of the distinctive seems to be of any smartphone round proper now.
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Frankly, the Galaxy A57 pales compared to any of those telephones, and also you’d be a lot higher off with these than the overly costly 512GB mannequin.
It’s probably right down to the spiralling value of RAM
However why is the 512GB Galaxy A57 so rather more costly than the 256GB mannequin? Whereas Samsung hasn’t confirmed it outright, I’d count on that all of it comes right down to the quickly growing value of elements, notably storage and RAM.
For the reason that worth of RAM skyrocketed within the second half of 2025, pushed primarily by AI knowledge centres hoovering up as a lot RAM as doable, reviews and leaks have advised that cell producers would primarily go that value on to customers. And that’s what’s beginning to occur. It’s not the primary telephone we’ve seen with a notable worth bounce in comparison with its 2025 equal – although the opposite instance is, as soon as once more, from Samsung.
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The Samsung Galaxy S26 has jumped to £879, an £80 enhance on final 12 months’s Galaxy S25, whereas the S26 Plus is available in at £1099, a £100 distinction in comparison with the S25 Plus – and with very few upgrades to talk of. The one mannequin that didn’t actually see a lot of a worth hike was the already-premium Galaxy S26 Extremely, which prices an analogous £1,279 to final 12 months’s S25 Extremely.
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Samsung is aware of that the S26 Extremely would little doubt be the most well-liked within the vary, so making it costlier wasn’t actually an choice. As an alternative, the much less common fashions would cowl a lot of that hit, particularly for the bigger storage choices. The 512GB Galaxy S26, for instance, prices £1049 – £170 extra.
It’s just about the identical story right here: Samsung has tried its greatest to maintain the entry-level 256GB A57 mannequin as inexpensive as doable and is making an attempt to recoup more money from the 512GB/12GB mannequin to offset any potential losses.
That is smart for Samsung, however truthfully, it makes zero sense for customers to go for it at such an inflated worth – particularly when extra succesful telephones can be found on the similar worth.
