Galaxy A36 Review: The BEST Samsung Phone Under $300?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve tested the new Samsung Galaxy A36 5G extensively – not just in the studio, but also in everyday use. We put in a SIM card and used it as our daily device, took photos in direct comparison with similarly priced competitors, streamed music, ran benchmarks, and played games for hours. We also discovered a strange bug that kept annoying us. More on that later.

A quick note about price: The MSRP for the phone is 400 dollars, but you can already get it for around $270. Hence why we compared it to the CMF Phone 2 Pro from Nothing and the Poco M7 Pro, which you can find for a similar price. A detailed comparison should be coming soon.

Design & Build: It’s alright

With a thickness of 7.4 mm and a weight of 195 grams, the Galaxy A36 feels quite pleasant in the hands, at least as long as you use both hands. Because it’s so wide, it’s hard to use with just one hand without dropping the phone.

Visually, we like the design. The flat edges are a bit reminiscent of Apple’s iPhones but still feel unique thanks to the rounded area around the power and volume buttons. These are located on the right side. The frame is made of plastic, but it feels surprisingly premium and almost metallic. The back and front are made of Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is supposed to protect well from scratches and drops. However, the back is quite slippery. We strongly recommend using a case.

On the bottom, we find a USB-C 2.0 port, two SIM slots but no microSD card slot, a big letdown since last year’s model still had one. Here we also find the speaker and microphone openings. Additional microphones are on the top. The selfie camera is subtly integrated into the display as a punch-hole, and the second speaker is cleverly hidden in the earpiece.

Display: Bright 120Hz AMOLED as a Highlight

The Galaxy A36’s 6.7-inch AMOLED display is without a doubt one of the smartphone’s strengths. It offers a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, a refresh rate of 120Hz, and a peak brightness of 1200 nits. Content looks super sharp and very smooth.

In everyday use, the panel scores with good readability, even outdoors. HDR content is supported, which clearly enhances videos on YouTube and Netflix. But in direct comparison with the CMF Phone 2 Pro, we noticed that the A36 is a lot dimmer. This becomes especially obvious when comparing the two phones under the sun. 

Speakers: Great for the price

Samsung has installed a stereo speaker system in the A36. The earpiece acts as the second speaker, which actually creates a noticeable stereo effect. The sound quality is decent: voices sound clear, music is played back loud enough, and distortion is limited. Bass is understandably lacking a bit, but overall the sound is clearly better than on the CMF Phone 2 Pro. 

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Camera: Solid Main Camera, Weak Ultrawide Performance

Samsung uses a triple-camera setup on the Galaxy A36: the main camera offers 50 megapixels at f/1.8, plus there’s an 8MP ultrawide and a 5MP macro camera.

The main camera of the A36 takes photos in 12 MP by default. In 12 MP mode, the images already look quite sharp, with high dynamic range and nice, though sometimes slightly exaggerated colors due to image processing. In direct comparison, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is slightly sharper.

That changes in 50-megapixel mode. Here, the Samsung is noticeably sharper than the Phone 2 Pro and also clearly sharper than the Poco M7 Pro, both of which also have 50 MP modes. It’s a pity that 50 MP can’t be set as the default.

Since a telephoto lens is missing, shots of far-away objects are blurry. Swapping the macro lens for even a mediocre telephoto lens is something we’d like to see on next year’s A37. Although we’re sure there’s some overjoyed macro photo enthusiast out there who’d hate to see it go.

The ultrawide camera delivers mixed results. Photos are usable but lose a lot of detail and look kind of smudged. The macro camera exists, but only delivers mediocre results and is hardly relevant, to be honest.

RAW shooting is not possible with the A36, so you can’t post-process the photos very well. That’s a feature Samsung reserves for their premium Galaxy S lineup. 

Videos are not the A36’s strength, at least not compared to more pricey phones. The main camera can record in FHD at 30 or 60 FPS or in 4K at 30 FPS. All around, that’s not too bad.

More weaknesses appear with the ultrawide camera. As mentioned earlier, photos aren’t very sharp. It only gets worse in video. Recordings look like they were made with a cheap chinese digital camera you’d find in a tourist trap. The image is blurry, fine details are completely lost, and even the colors look weird. Really disappointing.

The A36 redeems itself with its selfie camera, which boasts a 12-megapixel resolution. Photos and videos taken with it are noticeably sharper than those from the CMF Phone 2 Pro and POCO M7 Pro.

Performance & Daily Use: 6GB RAM is Not Enough

Inside the A36, you’ll find the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3. Our test device has 6GB RAM and 128GB UFS 2.2 storage. If you want more, you can pay $80 extra for 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. That upgrade might be worth it, since that 6GB of RAM is clearly limiting, even in everyday use. Importantly, pricing and storage configurations can vary significantly depending on region. In the US, you can find 128GB models with 8GB of ram as well. 

In practice, the low RAM in our device means that if you’re using many apps at once, you’ll hit the limit quickly. Spotify, several Chrome tabs, and TikTok running at the same time really strains the system. Animations start stuttering, background apps often need to reload, and response time suffers. Multitasking is possible, but barely. With a game open in the background, performance feels even more lackluster.

In Geekbench tests, the A36 performs decently. In CPU speed tests, the A36 is about as fast as other budget phones like the Motorola Edge 50 and the CMF Phone 2 Pro from Nothing. The GPU score is even slightly better than those two. That’s quite respectable for the entry-level.

Gaming: More Suitable for Casuals

The A36 is mainly suited for casual games and less demanding titles.

Genshin Impact runs at around 35 to 45 FPS on the highest settings relatively steadily, but consumes a lot of power and drains the battery quickly. Warzone Mobile is also playable, but only at the lowest graphics settings. In the first few minutes, the game stutters significantly, but later stabilizes at about 35 FPS.

Things look much better in Fortnite: with 100 percent 3D resolution on the lowest settings, the A36 consistently reaches 60-70 FPS. The 120Hz display and the Snapdragon chipset ensure a surprisingly smooth gaming experience. Here, the A36 clearly performs better than the CMF Phone 2 Pro, and on the Poco M7 Pro Fortnite isn’t even supported.

Anyone who only plays indie games like Vampire Survivors will be rewarded with constant 60 FPS and barely noticeable heat. The battery also lasts much longer here.

Overall, the A36 should be good enough for casual gamers. Demanding titles do run, but with some limitations.

Battery & Charging

With a 5000 mAh battery, the Galaxy A36 has plenty of juice for an average day. With about 3.5 hours of screen-on time per day, we usually had around 40 percent battery left by evening. You’ll only get two full days of battery if you’re very frugal with your phone use. 

In our YouTube battery test, where an HD video runs in a continuous loop at max brightness, the A36 achieves a strong 22.75 hours. That puts it only about 10 to 20 percent behind more expensive models like the Xiaomi 15 or Galaxy S25 Ultra, which also have brighter displays, to be fair. However, the battery drains quickly during gaming, and the device gets noticeably warm while charging.

The A36 charges via USB-C with up to 45 watts, but only supports USB 2.0. That limits data transfer speeds noticeably. A full charge takes a little over an hour.

Unlock Options: Below Average

Samsung includes an optical fingerprint sensor under the display and facial recognition. Unfortunately, both methods are not implemented the best. The fingerprint sensor is positioned too low, forcing you to contort your hand unnaturally just to unlock the phone. Also, it’s not very fast or reliable. It’s significantly slower than the CMF Phone, or any phone with an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. Other models, such as the Galaxy A26 and A16, offer a better solution with a fingerprint sensor on the power button.

Facial recognition is pretty slow, has problems with glasses, and often straight up fails. Overall, this is one of the more annoying parts of using the A36.

Software: Extensive, But Bloaty

The A36 runs Android 15 and One UI 7. Samsung promises six years of security updates, which is remarkable for this price range. One UI is as intuitive and feature-rich as usual, but the copious amount of preinstalled bloatware is unacceptable. Facebook, Microsoft apps, games, and a plethora of Samsung apps are included, and some of them can’t be uninstalled. 

Bug or feature: The Gyro Sensor

From the get-go, we noticed that the device detects rotations way too slowly. When switching from portrait to landscape mode, the gyro sensor reacts with a significant delay, sometimes several seconds, sometimes not at all, and sometimes instantly.

Sometimes we have to shake the phone aggressively for it to finally respond. Whether it’s a software bug or hardware issue, we don’t know, but this problem shouldn’t happen on any new device, no matter the price.

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Conclusion: A Lot of Smartphone for the Money

Right now, for around $260, we find the Samsung Galaxy A36 very compelling. It offers a nice display, good speakers, a surprisingly strong and sharp main camera, and good build quality for the price. The six years of security updates are great for long-term use. And in our gaming test, it performed better than both of our comparison devices.

There’s a couple big issues though: the facial recognition and fingerprint sensor are quite bad, the gyro sensor is terrible, and with only 6GB RAM, the system quickly hits its limits. If you need more multitasking power, you should go for the 8GB version or directly go for the Samsung A56.

But if you’re looking for a good everyday smartphone with strong media features and a solid support period, you can’t go wrong with the Galaxy A36. For around $270, the overall package is great.

If mobile gaming isn’t your thing, do check out our review of the CMF Phone 2 Pro as an alternative. Overall, we found its cameras a bit better, and it has a telephoto lens and can even shoot in the RAW format.