While the Samsung mobile landscape is dominated by the launches of the flagship Galaxy S and Galaxy Z lines, the announcement of their latest budget Galaxy A-Series handsets last month was a big deal, with the Galaxy A37 and A57 now available in Australia.
The two phones share a similar design, but have distinct differences including a metal frame on the Galaxy A57, and a few updates under the hood for performance and connectivity.
Both devices include a brighter AMOLED+ display and a 50MP main camera sensor with an Ultrawide and macro sensor on-board for a fairly well rounded camera system.
Priced at $749, the Galaxy A57 is positioned to take on the likes of the Pixel 10a and the iPhone 17e in terms of budget, so is it a good pick for a budget phone?
I’ve been using the Galaxy A57 for about a week and here’s how it went.
Very little has changed in terms of design visually since the previous model, however the weight has been shaved down by almost 20 grams to a svelte 179 grams so it sits lighter in your pocket.
The look though is the same with the rear design of Samsung phones pretty established across its ranges. The vertically stacked camera array has been with us for a few years now, it’s familiar, and you can instantly recognise a Samsung phone a mile away. It is raised quite significantly and surrounded by an actual island which increases the 6.9mm profile a little.
That rear is covered in a glass panel that has a glazed ceramic look, and comes in either Awesome Navy or Awesome Lilac.
I’m quite a fan of phones not ‘black’ and the lilac on the Galaxy A37 review model that Samsung sent over looks great. It’s not too overbearing and looks a little different each time you look at it depending on the light you catch.
Unlike a lot of devices on the market, there’s no shell or case in the box to protect the phone, which means the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ glass will be working overtime to protect against bumps and scrapes. The phone also now has an IP68 rating (up from an IP67 last year), meaning it can now stand a little more water pressure.
The metallic rails on the side do add that little premium touch between the Galaxy A37 and Galaxy A57, with the volume rocker and power button looking good.
Onboard you have a 6.7-inch 1080p, 120Hz Super AMOLED+ display, and it uses the same stereo audio setup as last year.
The AMOLED display added a ‘+’ over last year’s model. It’s simply a different way of displaying the subpixels, with AMOLED+ utilising an RGB strip as opposed to the PenTile arrangements.
It doesn’t make a huge difference visually, it’s just as bright and vibrant as you’d expect from a Samsung phone display. The colour profile is just as saturated as you’ve come to expect from a Galaxy phone – though as usual there’s tuning in settings if you want to adjust it, but I love the colours and how the photos pop on the screen.
There’s absolutely minimal bezel around the edges – just 1.5mm around the top and sides, and it sits flush with that metal frame which feels excellent in the hand.
The display is bright, again a little brighter this year, topping out at 1900 Nits peak brightness. It’s a good phone to surf on during the day even in the bright sun. It’s not quite as bright as some of the flagships we’re seeing, but very serviceable.
There’s an in-display optical fingerprint sensor, which is ok. It does the job, a little slower than the ultrasonic sensors on flagships but it works.
Just like the rear, the display is covered in Gorilla Glass Victus+ and it works well to stop even the micro-scratches that pop up just carrying a phone in your pocket.
Under the hood, the Galaxy A57 is powered by an Exynos 1680, an octa-core processor paired with 8GB RAM, and 128GB of on-board storage on the base model with an option for 256GB if you want more.
As a whole, the phone handles really well. It’s fast to boot and loads into Android/OneUI quickly and multi-tasking without any issues.
The smooth scrolling 120Hz refresh rate on the screen works wonder here in concert to produce a very smooth running device overall.
Contributing to this, like most phones these days, Samsung uses a RAM Boost – or RAM Plus as they call it in settings. This allows the phone to use unused storage as virtual memory. It’s set to 4GB by default, but you can double that (with a restart) if you want.
Overall the phone handles well on most of your day-to-day work. If you throw a big game at it, there’s a longer load up time, but overall it works quite well once it’s loaded.
Just as the design of the vertical camera island on the rear hasn’t changed, Samsung hasn’t changed anything on the camera specs either. You’ll find a 50MP primary camera, 12MP ultrawide camera, and a 5MP macro camera on the rear and 12MP selfie camera embedded in the display.
That 50MP main sensor does a lot of heavy lifting for the Galaxy A57,giving a great shot in good light, with decent results in low-light. The tap-to-shot speed has improved over the generations, but there’s occasionally shots you need to reshoot because of blur.
On the other sensors, the 12MP Ultra-Wide can also bust out a good shot in the right lighting, but can’t quite get to the same quality and definition of the higher resolution main sensor.
The macro sensor is, well, it’s there. At 5MP it’s not taking in huge amounts of light, but the glass does a decent job of capturing subjects up close.
As far as the whole package goes it does a good job if you take the time to frame your shots, but a basic telephoto option instead of the Macro sensor would do a lot more for this camera system next year Samsung…..just saying!
There’s a 5,000mAh battery in the Galaxy A57, with support for 45W wired charging, though as with most phones these days, there’s no power brick in the box – with Samsung charging for their 45W charger.
The battery lasts a decent amount of time, well into the second day – though I was looking for a top-up around mid-morning of the second day as battery anxiety got the better of me.
Top ups are fast though, with support for Samsung’s ‘Super Fast Charging 2.0’, which Samsung lists as letting you ‘charge up to 60% in just 30 minutes’. The official specs list 45W charging support, so I plugged in my trusty 65W PD charger and it nailed the estimate, though tapered off at the end as you’d expect.
The phone comes with Android 16 and Samsung’s OneUI 8.5 running over the top. It’s pre-loaded with the January 1st 2026 Security Patch, though there doesn’t seem to be any further updates available as of April 14.
Samsung has committed to up to six generations of OS upgrades and up to six years of Security Maintenance Release (SMR) updates, so it’s likely we’ll see quarterly updates based on the current release schedule.
The Samsung OneUI experience improves each year, with OneUI 8.5 a distinct Samsung experience. The interface is easy to navigate, but if you’re coming from a Samsung phone you’ll have no issue with jumping in here.
Samsung does include some bloatware when you first load into the device, with Spotify and Netlix pre-installed, alongside Perplexity.
Perplexity was included as an additional AI-agent on the Galaxy S26, with additional hooks into the OS – but it doesn’t seem to be an option on the Galaxy A57.
What you do get is Samsung’s ‘Awesome Intelligence: AI for Everyday Tasks’.
Samsung’s AI implementation is built into their apps like Voice Transcription in the Voice Recorder app. There’s also AI Select in their Edge panel which analyses the screen and suggests GIFs you can create, or turning a pic into wallpaper. It even helps seamlessly transfer data across multi-window apps like Samsung Browser and Notes.
Samsung also integrates Gemini from Google including Circle to Search so you can get instant answers to what’s on your screen.
Samsung have done a really great job with their Galaxy A-Series devices. They have the look and feel of the flagships, but have their own identity as a great mid-range option, a tradition the Galaxy A57 carries on.
The phone hits just the right notes for the 9 price-point, and if you can get it on special, it’s an absolute steal.
There’s some merit to stepping up to the likes of the Pixel 10a at 9 for the improved photos alone, but there’s also strong competition from the likes of the Nothing Phone (4a) in the cheaper price bracket, so Samsung needs to sharpen their pencils to maintain that edge.
As it goes though, Samsung have produced another great A-Series phone in the Galaxy A57, bringing good design, performance and camera for a good price.
You can check the Galaxy A57 out on the Samsung website.
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
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