Samsung’s A-series has rapidly expanded in the past couple of months and one of the devices contributing to that growth is the Galaxy A36 5G. While we have already reviewed the Galaxy A56 5G and we liked how it performed in most areas, here’s a review of its younger sibling, the Galaxy A36 5G, which starts at Rs 32,999.
Design and Display
The design of the Galaxy A36 5G departs from its predecessor’s design and looks similar to the Galaxy A56 55G. In fact, you may not even be able to make out whether it’s the A56 or the A36 from a distance, until you hold them in your hand.
That’s where the major difference lies, where the A56 5G has a superior build quality with a metal frame while the A36 5G gets a plastic one. While it may not feel as premium, it still does a good job at providing grip due to its flat nature and how slim it is.
The keys feel tactile when clicked but keep in mind that by no means the Galaxy A36 5G is a small device. You’ll always have to use both your hands to reach the corners of the device.
The Lavender shade we got looks great in real life, also because of the rainbow deflection of light. The redesigned camera module adds to the aesthetic appeal of the device.
The haptics, however, are quite disappointing and weaker than Galaxy A56 5G’s. The stereo speaker setup sounds good in terms of clarity and vocals. It does have a hint of bass but don’t expect anything extraordinary.
The Galaxy A36 5G is IP67 rated as well so splashes and dirt shouldn’t be an issue for the handset to handle.
Coming to the display, it is a 6.6-inch Full HD+ sAMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection (both on front and back), 1900 nits peak brightness, a punch-hole notch, and 1080 X 2340 pixels resolution.
Being a Samsung panel, it does great at handling colours and brightness as well, even under direct sunlight. The viewing angles are decent while the responsiveness, sharpness, and smoothness of the display also remain high. The bezels around the display aren’t even but don’t look poor in daily use. To sum up, I basically had no issues with the display.
The in-display fingerprint sensor could have done a better job in terms of speed. However, it was accurate enough to not cause any troubles in that particular area.
Software and Performance
The Galaxy A36 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 Chipset under the hood and gets up to 12GB RAM and 128GB/256GB internal storage.
The device performed decently in most areas. In terms of smoothness, it could have been better in select areas, like when unlocking the device or closing apps where I could notice some jitters occasionally. Aside from that, RAM management was fine and switching through apps was a breeze.
The device received the April 2025 security patch around mid-April and it does support seamless updates as well which means you can continue with your work while the update installs in the background.
Samsung is promising 6 generations of OS upgrades and 6 years of security patches but how timely these updates will be is still a question that time will answer considering how Samsung lost its speed with the One UI 7 rollout even for its flagships.
As for gaming, you can expect to play casual games like RL sideswipe and Bullet Echo without any issues. Titles like BGMI and CODM handle the supported graphics fine. However, the device did get slightly warm even when playing casual games like Bullet Echo.
One UI 7 on the device is quite smooth except for the few jitters I talked about earlier. You get most of the bells and whistles including the new Now Bar, the redesigned quick settings, revamped animations, etc. As for AI features, not all of them are the same as Galaxy A56 5G’s, where features like Best Face and Auto Trim were missing from the A36 5G.
The Now Bar can show you ongoing activities like the Media Player, even on the lock screen and Always-on display. However, same as the A56 5G, its positioning is a little awkward.
Bloatware includes apps like Truecaller, Snapchat, MapmyIndia, Junglee Ludo, Glance lock screen, and more. These can, fortunately, be uninstalled.
Connectivity performance, including that of NFC, 5G, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth, remained optimal.
Battery Life
The Samsung Galaxy A36 5G runs on a 5000mAh battery with 45W fast charging.
With moderate use, including chatting on WhatsApp, browsing the web, listening to music, watching YouTube, etc., the device lasted me slightly less than a day with close to 7 hours of screen-on time which is decent backup. However, I feel the total usage time could have been better.
With heavier use, the usage time as well as the screen-on time can drop further, to around 6 hours of screen-on time. The numbers are decent but not the best in my opinion.
As for charging time, the device can take around 1h 15m to charge from 0 to 100% which is again, decent, but not as good as the competitors.
Cameras
There are triple cameras on the back, consisting of a 50MP primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture, LED flash, and OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide angle lens with f/2.2 aperture, and a 5MP Macro lens with f/2.4 aperture. The phone gets a 12MP f/2.2 snapper on the front for selfies.
Coming to shots from the main rear sensor, the 50MP sensor performs nicely in most lighting conditions. When outdoors, you get to see plenty of details in the shot and a decent dynamic range. Detailing and sharpness are on the higher side, too. Overall, the device does a decent job when there’s a good amount of light.
Ultra-wide angle photos look good and there’s not much colour shift over the photos from the primary sensor which is great. The sharpness could have been better for higher detailing but unless you zoom in, the shot looks nice and usable with enough dynamic range.
Portrait photos are impressive as well, with a natural bokeh effect and a good amount of details and sharpness. The EDGE detection is also accurate.
Selfies from the front sensor could have been slightly better in handling skin tones but you do get to see the minutest details if you zoom in which is again quite impressive.
Macro shots from the tertiary sensor are okay in terms of colours and detailing which are the two most important characteristics for macro shots.
The camera doesn’t struggle even in low lighting conditions where you don’t get to see any noise but an overall well-detailed shot with nicely handled colours. Under artificial lighting, shots look even better with an even higher amount of details.
Speaking of night mode, it does a decent job at illuminating the whole shot with higher exposure but with pitch black conditions, you do get to see slight noise. What’s commendable is the device’s ability to lock focus on the subject even in pitch black conditions.
However, if you enable night mode, there’s sometimes a delay in capturing the shot. This delay of a second or two after tapping on the shutter button is quite annoying and results in blurry shots.
