Samsung is bringing a “flagship feature” to the A-series but is it enough to make you reconsider?

Before we even get started discussing the upgrade we should first address the elephant in the room: 45W wired charging is ancient. Samsung, Google and Apple are all adamant on staying far behind their competitors in this space. Both this year’s Pixel phones and the new iPhone 16 also support up to 45W charging, and that “up to” phrase does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to Apple’s newest phones.Reports up till now claim that the Galaxy S25 Plus and Ultra will come with 45W wired charging speeds, same as their predecessors. Battery capacity will also remain largely the same as Samsung focuses more on slimming its phones down even further. It’s gotten to the point where one phone is beating the other by 0.2 mm: an ego contest no consumer really cares about.

Contrast these 45W charging speeds with what can be found on competitors and it’s honestly a bit disappointing. Chinese phones in particular offer much faster charging and even budget offerings charge at double the speed that the S25 lineup will. Many of these phones actually have faster wireless charging than the wired charging found on Samsung’s phones.

Now there is one good excuse for this.

Perhaps the most repeated reason for Samsung and its other big-name competitors not adopting faster charging technology is the fact that that tech is also a bit more dangerous. Batteries are safest when they’re being charged at very low wattage and remain in better condition for longer if they’re never fully charged or completely depleted.

However, this isn’t as big of a problem as many make it out to be and it’s not like Samsung’s never had phones explode in people’s pockets (lest we forget the infamous Galaxy Note 7). Furthermore, recent “adaptive charging” modes have made phones a lot smarter when it comes to keeping their batteries happy.

These modes adapt to user behavior and charge accordingly: faster during the day and slower at night if said user works during daytime. There are also options to limit batteries to charging up to only 80 percent and then stopping. Samsung doesn’t really have any strong reasons to still be sticking to 45W charging. And if the A56 is getting it we might finally see the flagships take it up a notch.

All of this brings us to the question: is Samsung’s mid-range series finally catching up to its flagships? And honestly, I don’t think anyone will say yes to that. The flagships and the mid-rangers have their separate target demographics: those who want the latest and greatest and those who just want a solid phone respectively.

Galaxy A56 will have decent amounts of RAM (likely 8 GB with 12 GB for some markets) and a decent enough Exynos processor. It will also very likely receive six years of software support similar to the Galaxy A36, which makes it an excellent purchase for people who don’t obsessively upgrade each year.

But you know what it won’t have? That super snappy response time for power users or that absolutely brilliant screen with the anti-reflective coating. It also won’t have the convenience of wireless charging or options for massive amounts of storage. And if we’re being completely vain for a second, it won’t be the eye-catching stunner that its flagship counterparts will be.

But it will most likely have excellent screen protection and an aluminum frame like the Galaxy A55. It will also take very good photos — even if not the best — and come with Android 15 out of the box. So if nothing else it will still be able to provide a pretty impressive experience even if it’s not as premium as the flagships.

45W charging for the A56 doesn’t really show the waning gap between flagships and mid-rangers as much as it shows the slowing down of innovation for Samsung’s best models. The company really needs to step up its game especially after being accused of copying Apple’s product design this year.

If you do go for an A56 next year remember that you’ll need to purchase a 45W charger separately because you won’t get one in the box. Now that’d be a flagship feature I’d love to see return.