Honor 400 vs Samsung Galaxy A56: What’s the difference?

Pricing and availability

The Honor 400 is the cheaper of the two mid-rangers, coming in at a surprisingly affordable £399 with 256GB of storage, with the 512GB model coming in at £449. It’s available to buy right now following the announcement, both on contract and SIM-free. 

The Samsung Galaxy A56, on the other hand, comes in at £499 – an additional £100 – with 256GB of storage. Like the Honor alternative, it’s readily available to buy both on contract and SIM-free right now. 

The Honor 400 has way more AI features

If there’s one massive difference between the Honor 400 and the Samsung Galaxy A56, it has to be the selection of AI tools available. 

While you might imagine the A56 might be jam-packed with AI smarts given the popularity of Galaxy AI on Samsung’s flagship range, that’s not actually the case. 

There are a small handful features, but these aren’t Galaxy AI features. Instead, you’ve got access to elements like photo subject removal tools, video editing tools and filter creation, along with support for Google’s Circle to Search, but that’s about it. 

The Honor 400, on the other hand, comes with many of the same flagship AI features as the Honor Magic 7 Pro, including elements like AI Translation, AI writing tools and more, along with Google’s new image-to-video tech – the first smartphone on the market to offer the tech. 

It’s relatively simple to use too; just pick your photo and AI will automatically analyse it and animate it in interesting (and sometimes unexpected) ways. 

Other AI features include AI-based transcription and summarisation, AI Deepfake Detection, AI outpainting and more – though most are cloud-based, rather than on-device, due to the use of a mid-range chipset. 

Regardless, it’s safe to say that the Honor 400 is way more capable in the AI department than Samsung’s alternative, even at this early stage.  

The Samsung Galaxy A56 has a bigger screen

When it comes to screens, the Galaxy A56 takes a win – in terms of sheer size, at the very least. At 6.7 inches, the A56’s screen is larger than Honor’s 6.5-inch alternative, though it’s not as clear-cut in other areas of screen technology.

Both offer the same AMOLED screen tech and 120Hz refresh rate, for example, but the Honor 400 has a higher resolution than the Galaxy A56 despite its smaller screen size, and that translates to a much more pixel-dense screen – 460ppi compared to 385ppi. 

Honor’s screen also gets much brighter, with a peak brightness of 5000nits leaving the 1900nits of the A56 in the dust. 

However, the Galaxy A56 has better durability with the flagship-level Gorilla Glass Victus Plus screen protection. The Honor 400, on the other hand, uses undisclosed screen protection. 

Both screens are solid for the price, but they have a slightly different focus – and it’ll largely be down to personal preference about which is best. 

The Honor 400 has a higher-res main camera

The Honor 400 bests the Galaxy A56 – and pretty much every other mid-ranger – when it comes to camera hardware, on paper at the very least. 

With a 200MP main camera, it’s not only way more pixel-packed than the A56’s 50MP alternative, but with a larger 1/1.4-inch sensor, it should be able to capture more light and detail too.

Both also sport a 12MP ultrawide lens, and the A56 also comes with a 5MP macro lens, but that’s largely just there to bump up the camera count – it’s not something most people will use all that often. 

That trend continues with the selfie camera, with Honor’s 50MP selfie snapper boasting way more pixels than the 12MP alternative from Samsung.

As ever, there’s more to a good-quality camera than megapixel count, but the additional pixels don’t hurt – especially when detail-boosting pixel binning tech is involved. 

The Samsung Galaxy A56 has better long-term software support

To be fair to Honor, the Honor 400’s software promise of six OS upgrades and six years of security patches is strong compared to brands like Xiaomi and OnePlus in the mid-range space – but it just falls short of Samsung’s alternative.

Despite its mid-range price tag, Samsung has committed to the same seven years of OS upgrades and security patches as its flagship Galaxy S25 collection.

This essentially means that the Galaxy A56 will eventually get the Android 22 update, while the Honor 400 will cap out at Android 21. It’s a small difference, but worth considering not only for long-term use but resale value down the road. 

The Honor 400 has a slightly bigger battery and faster charging

If you were to buy the Honor 400 outside of the UK and EU, you’d be treated to an absolute monster of a battery at 6000mAh, but due to EU restrictions on the size of batteries that can be shipped, it’s capped at 5300mAh locally. 

That is still a bigger battery than the Samsung Galaxy A56’s 5000mAh cell, but there isn’t as much in it as there would otherwise be without EU restrictions.

That said, Honor does take the win in the fast charging department with support for 66W fast charging compared to the Galaxy A56’s 45W. You will need a Honor-branded charger to hit those speeds, however, while the A56 should hit the advertised speeds with any sufficiently powerful USB-C charger. 

Early thoughts

Considering the Honor 400 retails at a whopping £100 less than the Galaxy A56, there’s a lot to like. It has a higher-res, brighter AMOLED screen, more capable camera hardware, faster charging and a 200MP main camera rarely seen at the mid-range price point. It’s also jam-packed with flagship-level AI tools, even if these aren’t run on-device. 

That said, Samsung’s mid-ranger still has a lot going for it; it has a larger screen with slimmer bezels, better durability, a longer software promise and compatibility with Samsung’s ecosystem of products. 

It’ll likely come down to personal preference, but we’ll save our final verdict for once we’ve spent more time with the Honor 400.