In Canada, Samsung’s Galaxy A36 is the second-most affordable phone of the year at $529.99. Despite its affordability, the phone has considerable features, including a 5,000mAh battery, 45W charging, and a 120Hz refresh rate.
Samsung offers the best range of devices in the North, whether customers want a budget, mid-range, or flagship phone. The Galaxy A36 is an excellent example because it is affordable and has good specifications and features.
My time with the A36 has been pleasant. Although I dislike some aspects of the handset, I can ignore them, especially given the pricing. This phone isn’t necessarily for me, but read on to hear who it is for.
Give and Take
Firstly, the Galaxy A36 only comes in Awesome Black in Canada, which is a bit annoying; I like when there are options. From my understanding, black colour variants sell the best, but I always think having options is best. The rear panel is a glossy Gorilla Glass Victus+, which makes the handset feel less premium. Nowadays, phones typically have some sort of matte backing, which prevents smudges and fingerprints. It’s not a big concern, but it’s a budget experience. I liked that it has a 6.7-inch display, and even though it’s not the best screen resolution, 1080 x 2340 is acceptable. I’m also impressed with the 120Hz refresh rate, which makes playing Marvel Snap and scrolling feel great.
The phone feels slightly too wide for my hand, with a width of 78.2mm, which is a bit wider than even the Galaxy S25 Ultra. It’d be nicer if the phone were slimmer, but thankfully, the handset isn’t too thick. The Galaxy A series also has a protruding side with the volume rocker and power button. I think this is incredibly weird, but ultimately, it doesn’t take away from the experience.
One of the things I dislike most about the Galaxy A36 is its haptics. The vibrations feel horrible under my fingers, and it’s much better to just turn the feature off. Samsung isn’t bad at haptics on its flagships, so it’s annoying that it’s not great on this phone. The Samsung Galaxy A36 lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, which seems pretty odd for a mid-range phone, and it also lacks a microSD card slot, which means you’re stuck with 128GB of storage, encouraging people to use cloud storage.
The phone is IP67 dust and water resistant, meaning it can sit in one metre of water for up to 30 minutes. Flagships are typically IP68, which provides better water protection, but IP67 means you can shower with it, so that’s not bad.
Decent specs
The Samsung Galaxy A36 has a 5,000mAh battery life and is pretty acceptable, and it lasted me about six and a half hours of screen-on time. This equated to a day of life, where I browsed the internet, scrolled through social media and swiped right on dating apps. It doesn’t support wireless charging, which is pretty regular for mid-range handsets, but it offers 45W wired charging, which is pretty solid for this handset. This beats the Galaxy S25 Edge and is similar to the other S25 series smartphones.
The handset also has a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip with 6GB of RAM. In Geekbench tests, it scored 832 for single-core and 2,890 for multi-core. Benchmarks don’t equate to real-life experience, but this isn’t good. That being said, I didn’t notice any issues with the device. I played Marvel Snap, scrolled through social media, and watched a few YouTube videos, and it worked like a charm.
Camera-wise, the Galaxy A36 delivers a serviceable picture with a 50-megapixel primary shooter. Photos on the handset have a decent colour range and capture many details, but the images are overexposed. However, pictures are inconsistent between the main and ultra-wide cameras. Unfortunately, the primary shooter captures far better colours and details than the ultra-wide.
Who is this for?
The Galaxy A36 shows how Samsung has a full-service portfolio in Canada. The handset isn’t for me, I’m a flagship guy, but if you’re not interested in the bells and whistles, this might be for you. My little brother uses his phone to listen to music, make calls and text his friends. This is all he would need. Similarly, my dad doesn’t use his phone often, and I would have no problem recommending this to him either.
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