Makes the Galaxy A36 5G seem like a bad deal

Samsung’s Galaxy A series has long been a go-to recommendation for anyone shopping for a solid Android phone on a budget. These phones rarely push boundaries or chase trends, but they’ve consistently nailed the basics, and that alone has kept them relevant year after year.

The Galaxy A26 5G continues that tradition without trying to reinvent the wheel. In fact, it barely touches the wheel at all. But even with its modest upgrades, it still manages to hold its own, delivering just enough performance for daily tasks, just enough camera quality for social media, and just enough battery life to forget your charger at home. The Galaxy A36 5G that I recently tested didn’t clear the bar on a few of those counts, but the cheaper Galaxy A26 5G does.

It may not wow you, but for a certain kind of buyer, the Galaxy A26 5G might be exactly enough.

The Galaxy A26 5G is easily the most well-built phone in Samsung’s A2x lineup to date. For the first time, Samsung has given it a glass back, and not just any glass. It’s Gorilla Glass Victus Plus on both the front and the back. Just a couple of years ago, this level of protection was reserved for flagship phones. Now it’s here on a $300 device, and that’s a big win for durability.

I had the pleasure of unintentionally testing that out during a very scientific drop test (read: forgetting the phone was in my lap while getting out of my car). It hit the road, bounced once, and… survived. The back glass didn’t shatter or scratch, although the plastic frame did chip slightly. Still, it walked away from that fall in much better shape than I expected. The phone also comes with IP67 water and dust resistance, which means it can handle rain, spills, and even a quick drop into a pool.

Samsung hasn’t trimmed the A26 5G’s dimensions like it did with the A36 5G. This phone is slightly longer, wider, and heavier than its predecessor, the Galaxy A25 5G, but that’s understandable given the glass back and water resistance. It’s not too bulky, but it’s still a big phone, and one-handed use might be a stretch if you have smaller hands.

Samsung is still adamant about sticking with a waterdrop notch for the selfie camera here, even though most of the industry has moved on to punch holes. It’s a small detail, but one that makes the phone feel a step behind in design. Samsung has made one small change on the back: it has dropped the floating camera ring design and reverted to a vertical, pill-shaped camera island.

Currently, the phone is only available in a single Black color option. It’s a glossy finish that’s a nightmare to photograph and picks up smudges and pocket lint very easily. That said, I actually prefer the deeper black tone here over the Awesome Black colorway on the Galaxy A36 5G, which looked more grey than black.

There’s a side-mounted fingerprint scanner built into the power button, and it works exactly the way it should. It’s fast, reliable, and easy to reach. I’m honestly glad Samsung didn’t try to “upgrade” this to an in-display scanner, because if it were anything like the one on the Galaxy A36 5G, it would have been a constant source of frustration. The A26 5G consistently unlocked faster and with fewer failed attempts. You also get 2D face unlock if you want it, but it’s neither very fast nor very secure.

The SIM tray lets you use both a physical SIM and a memory card for storage expansion, which is something you won’t find on the more expensive Galaxy A36 5G or A56 5G that’s due for release later this year. On the flip side, the A26 5G has also jettisoned the 3.5mm headphone jack, following in the footsteps of its pricier siblings.

Samsung also made a questionable change to the audio setup, as the Galaxy A26 5G no longer has stereo speakers. Samsung simply chose not to use the earpiece as a secondary speaker, even though the hardware is capable of getting loud enough. As a result, sound comes from a single bottom-firing speaker, and it’s just not great. It’s fine for short videos or social media, but it sounds small, flat, and lifeless for anything beyond that.

If there’s one area where Samsung consistently beats the competition, it’s displays. That holds true here, too. The 6.7-inch Super AMOLED screen on the Galaxy A26 5G is easily the phone’s standout feature. It might not be a class-leading panel by Samsung’s usual standards, but it still looks great for a phone in this price range.

The colors are vivid, the contrast is deep, and viewing angles are excellent — all the things you’d expect from an AMOLED screen. It’s good enough for enjoying videos or scrolling through photos, even if the waterdrop notch makes the phone feel a bit stuck in the past. Brightness could be better, though. It’s usable outdoors, but only just.

On bright sunny days, I found myself squinting at the screen more often than I’d like. For context, the Moto G Power (2025)’s LCD screen is not too far away in terms of real-world brightness (even if the picture above might make it seem otherwise), but it struggles more with off-angle viewing and lacks the punchier colors Samsung’s AMOLED delivers.

The display also supports a 120Hz refresh rate, which helps the phone feel smoother when scrolling or navigating. However, unlike Samsung’s more expensive models, there’s no adaptive refresh rate option here. You either keep it locked at 120Hz or drop it down to 60Hz. I kept mine at 120Hz for a smoother experience, though it comes at the cost of some battery efficiency, which I’ll get into later.

Still solid where it counts

Speaking of smoothness, I came into the Galaxy A26 5G with low expectations. I had just finished reviewing the Galaxy A36 5G and was genuinely frustrated with how sluggish it felt in everyday use. So naturally, I braced myself for something even worse with the cheaper A26 5G. To my surprise, the experience wasn’t worse at all. In fact, the Galaxy A26 5G feels far more comfortable in daily use.

Whether scrolling through social media or switching between apps, the experience feels smoother than it does on the more expensive Galaxy A36 5G. Where the A36 5G struggled with constant animation stutters, the Exynos 1380-powered A26 5G handles One UI more easily. That’s especially surprising given that both phones are equipped with the same 6GB of RAM.

A look at benchmark scores backs this up, as the A26 5G consistently scores higher than the A36 5G in CPU performance tests. Of course, that doesn’t make this a high-performance phone by any standards. It’s still a budget device, and you’ll occasionally run into a pause when opening the camera or launching an app you haven’t used in a while. But, I’ve tested a few phones at this price, and it’s not easy to find one that noticeably outpaces the A26 5G in day-to-day responsiveness.

Graphics performance is the one area where the A36 5G pulls ahead. Its MediaTek GPU is more powerful, which allows it to run games like PUBG Mobile at 60fps on HD settings. The A26 5G, by contrast, tops out at 40fps on those same graphics settings, although you can get 60fps if you drop down to the lowest “Smooth” graphics mode.

That said, the gaming experience on the A26 5G is still decent. It handles casual games without issues and holds up fairly well with heavier titles as well. It doesn’t heat up much during gameplay, and while I did notice some performance dip around the 30-minute mark, it never got bad enough to ruin the experience. For the price, I’d call it acceptable.

Battery life falls into that same category. The A26 5G includes a 5,000mAh battery, which has been the norm for most budget Android phones over the past few years. I would have liked to see a slightly larger battery this time, especially considering the phone’s size, but what you get is still enough for a full day of moderate use. I regularly saw screen-on times of around five to 5.5 hours. I wouldn’t call it long-lasting, but it’s definitely not a battery anxiety-inducing phone either.

Charging is handled via Samsung’s usual 25W fast charging with PPS support, although a charger is no longer included in the box. In my testing, the phone charged from zero to full in about 90 minutes using a compatible USB-PD charger. There’s no wireless charging support, which isn’t surprising for a phone at this price, but it is worth noting that the Moto G Power (2025) does offer it.

The Galaxy A26 5G ships with Android 15 and is running the latest One UI 7. That’s something even Samsung’s flagships from last year can’t say yet. Samsung is also promising six major Android version updates and six years of security patches for this phone. It’s a seriously impressive commitment for a budget device, and it deserves credit.

But while the long-term software promise looks great on paper, I’m not sure the A26 5G will hold up as anyone’s primary phone for the full six years. I’d say you’ll start to feel its age in two to three years, if not sooner, depending on how you use it. Getting updates is great, but making sure your hardware can still run them well is a whole different challenge.

Nevertheless, as of now, there’s very little to complain about the phone’s software experience. One UI 7 introduces a handful of design tweaks and thoughtful changes throughout the system. The Quick Settings and Notification panels are now separated by swipe zones (Quick Settings on the right, notifications on the left), although you can still merge them back into a single panel if that feels more intuitive. The app drawer, Camera app, and Settings menus have also been rearranged slightly to bring key controls closer to the bottom half of the screen, which definitely helps with one-handed use on a big phone like this.

You also get a handful of AI features through what Samsung now calls Awesome Intelligence. This is a trimmed-down version of Galaxy AI that brings some of the key tools from Samsung’s premium phones to the budget segment. Circle to Search is genuinely useful, and Object Eraser for editing photos is the kind of AI feature you’ll actually use now and then.

If you’re more into Google’s ecosystem than Samsung’s, you’ll be happy to know that you can also use Google Gemini as your smart assistant here. It gives you full access to Gemini’s growing list of features, right from your home screen or voice commands.

One UI is still One UI, meaning it’s a heavy skin, and the A26 5G does occasionally struggle to keep up. There’s a bit of stutter here and there, and some app transitions can feel slow. Still, it’s not nearly as frustrating as what I experienced on the Galaxy A36 5G. It could be because Samsung has been using the Exynos 1380 for a couple of years now, and has had time to optimize its software for it. Either way, for this price point, the overall software experience is good enough.

The A26 5G worked reliably with a T-Mobile SIM in the Bay Area, and network reception and call quality were both consistent. You get NFC for contactless payments via Google Pay or Samsung Pay, which is always good to see in this price range. However, there’s no Wi-Fi 6 support here, and I noticed that downloads and streaming speeds were considerably slower than on the Galaxy A36 5G. Lastly, the vibration motor on the A26 5G is about what you’d expect: it’s dull, rattly, and not very satisfying. This is something that the Moto G Power (2025) does much better at again.

A decent main camera and not much else

The Galaxy A26 5G carries over nearly the same camera setup as its predecessor. You get a 50MP main sensor with OIS, an 8MP ultrawide camera, and a 13MP selfie camera. Samsung is also still including a 2MP macro camera, which is functionally useless: it has a fixed focus, barely gathers any light, and even when you line up a shot within its narrow 3- to 5-centimeter range, the results are muddy, noisy, and completely lacking in detail. It doesn’t just fail at being a good macro lens; it fails at being a functional one.

The Moto G Power (2025), which doesn’t even have a dedicated macro lens, actually produces much better close-up shots using a macro mode baked into its ultrawide camera. That shows just how little effort went into this 2MP sensor on the A26 5G. Honestly, it would have been more helpful if Samsung had just knocked five bucks off the phone’s price and skipped the macro camera altogether.

Thankfully, the main 50MP sensor is much better. It produces good results in daylight with solid sharpness and pleasing colors. You can shoot in the full 50MP resolution, but the default 12MP binned shots are more than enough for most people. In a few side-by-side comparisons with the Galaxy A36 5G, I could barely tell the difference in image quality.

The A26 5G trades blows against the Moto G Power (2025), which is its direct competitor in terms of price. It captures more detail in bright conditions, but its white balance often leans too far into the cool zone. Warm indoor lighting, for example, gets flattened out and rendered closer to white light, while the Moto manages to preserve it much better.

Portrait mode and photos of human subjects turn out well. The subject cutout is fairly clean, and the background blur isn’t too bad either. Both the main and selfie cameras tend to produce softer images in indoor settings, but they bounce back nicely in outdoor light.

The ultrawide camera is fine as long as there’s enough daylight. Once lighting conditions drop even a little, image quality takes a nosedive. Night Mode is available, but don’t expect miracles. Low-light shots from the main camera come out soft and lose a lot of details. But then again, the Moto doesn’t do much better here either.

One area where the A26 5G does stand out is video. You can record 4K footage at 30fps using the main rear camera, something the Moto G Power (2025) doesn’t support at all. The video quality is a step up too, with better colors and less noise. However, when compared to the Galaxy A36 5G, the 4K video on the Galaxy A26 5G trails behind in terms of stabilization and finer details. Both the selfie and ultrawide cameras are limited to 1080p video.

The Galaxy A26 5G once again delivers all the basics for the price. You get a big, bright AMOLED display that works great for watching content, a main camera that performs well in daylight, and a battery that easily lasts a full day. Samsung has also improved the build quality this year by adding a glass back and giving the phone an IP67 rating, which protects it from dust and water. On top of that, the six years of promised software updates make the A26 one of the most future-proof phones you can buy for under $300.

Of course, the phone cuts corners to reach this price. You won’t find wireless charging. The screen still has an outdated notch. The vibration motor feels weak and unsatisfying. The cameras, while serviceable, could use better tuning or stronger hardware. Battery life is fine, but not amazing.

The Moto G Power 2025 ($299.99 at Amazon) offers the closest competition to the A26 5G. It offers a nicer in-hand feel with its vegan leather back and also retains the headphone jack, adds wireless charging, and includes an ultra-flagship-grade IP69 rating. Its main camera produces slightly more balanced photos, and its macro mode actually works. What the Moto lacks is an AMOLED display and long-term update support. It also has a slightly weaker chipset, but its lighter UI makes it feel just as responsive as the A26 5G.

Normally, I’d tell you to just spend a bit more and get the next phone up in the series, but I can’t recommend that this year. The Galaxy A36  5G ($399.99 at Amazon) will give you a thinner build, a slightly brighter display, faster wired charging, and marginally better cameras — but none of that makes up for how sluggish and frustrating the phone feels in everyday use. If anything, I’d recommend trying to grab last year’s Galaxy A35 5G on sale. You’ll get similar performance and camera quality, though you’ll have to settle for shorter software support and an older version of One UI. Alternatively, you might want to wait for the Galaxy A56 5G to drop in the US later in 2025.

The other alternatives are a little more complicated. The excellent Google Pixel 8a ($499 at Amazon) has been replaced by the Pixel 9a, but if you’re lucky you might a Pixel 8a discounted now it’s reached the end of its lifespan. The wildcard is the superb CMF Phone 2 Pro ($279 at Amazon), which is a fantastic device for $20 less than the Galaxy A26 5G, but there’s a catch — it’s only available in the US via a developer program and carrier band support is hit-and-miss at best.

Overall, there’s a long list of things I wish Samsung had done better on the Galaxy A26 5G. But Samsung knows exactly what it can get away with, given the current competition, and it still manages to offer a compelling package at this price. The Galaxy A26 5G keeps things simple, plays it safe, and still walks away with a win.