Samsung just updated its mid-range models, and there’s quite a bit to go through. It’s always great to see the company’s latest and greatest flagship models, of course, but the truth is that most individuals simply don’t need those top-of-the-line phones. The sales numbers tell the story perfectly. Not as flashy maybe, but the Galaxy A-series is what moves units and actually generates the profits for Samsung. So, every new set of phones is important.
We got to spend some time with the new Galaxy A36 and Galaxy A56 and have some first impressions to share. We didn’t have the Galaxy A26 to hand, unfortunately, but we’re sure we’ll lay eyes on it soon enough.
We’ll start with the Galaxy A36 and work our way up. First things first, the new Galaxy A trio (A26, A36 and A56) all now have the same 6.7-inch display-diagonal and 1080p+ resolution. The panels aren’t the same across the three, but the size has been unified in the end, which is a 0.1-inch increase over last year’s Galaxy A35. The display is said to reach up to 1,200 nits of brightness in high brightness mode with a 1,900 nits peak.
Galaxy A36
The camera island is a bit changed visually, but the camera hardware itself is mostly the same. Samsung also preserved the battery capacity at 5,000 mAh but upgraded the charging to 45W. We will go through the rest of the specs details on the following pages.
Moving on to the Galaxy A56, while the A36 gets a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset, its higher-tier sibling sports the new Samsung Exynos 1580. Samsung says the chip should offer a big performance boost over the Galaxy A55. Unfortunately, the rumors weren’t true, and the A56 still only has 8GB of RAM to pair with the chipset, not 12GB.
As we said, all three phones now have a 6.7-inch display-diagonal with FullHD+ resolution. The display here is rated for the same 1,200 nits of regular brightness and 1,900 nits peak. We believe the A36 and A56 might share the same display panel. The A26, however, definitely has a different one since it has a selfie camera notch instead of a punch hole.
Galaxy A56
Just like the Galaxy A36, the A56 has Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both sides, but it has an aluminum frame instead of a polycarbonate one. The battery capacity hasn’t changed at 5,000 mAh, but again you get 45W of charging, which was previously reserved for flagship models only.
Speaking of things that used to be more or less flagship exclusives, Samsung has really extended the software support window for the new Galaxy A models. Both the Galaxy A36 and A56 come with the promise of a whopping six major OS updates. Plus, they launch with the latest Android 15 and One UI 7 combo, chuck-full of Galaxy AI goodies. Even the Galaxy S24 generation is yet to receive its One UI 7 and Android 15 update, so that’s an interesting titbit.