Skip to main content

Samsung confirms its next budget phone is just around the corner

The Samsung Galaxy A35 and Galaxy A55's cameras.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Samsung has confirmed that the upcoming Galaxy A series — the A36 and A56 — will be unveiled on March 2. While it didn’t mention the Galaxy A26, multiple leaks suggest it might also make an appearance.

Last week, these three phones appeared on the Chilean Samsung Service website. That told us they were likely coming soon, but didn’t provide an exact timeframe. Samsung will debut the phones on March 2, and they will likely be available for purchase shortly after.

Recommended Videos

The Galaxy A56 is the most powerful of the bunch, expected to sport a 6.7-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate and run on an Exynos 1580 chip. It’s also slated to have a 5,000mAh battery and support 45W charging, giving it better battery life and charging speeds than the Galaxy S25 flagship.

A video playing on the Samsung Galaxy A35.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The Galaxy A36 positions itself as a solid Google Pixel 9a competitor. Of the three handsets, the A36 is the most likely to launch in North America, potentially holding on to the $399 price of the Galaxy A35. Unlike the A56, the A36 will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 SoC, but it will share the same charging speeds and battery capacity as its slightly more powerful cousin.

It also looks better, in our opinion. The Galaxy A36 has a design language that feels a bit more refined than that of the Galaxy S25, with a pill-shaped camera enclosure versus a boring (and vulnerable) row of lenses. It’s even thought to support some Galaxy AI features, although likely not all — especially if the rumors of a 6GB RAM configuration prove to be true.

If Samsung is able to maintain the $400 price range for this handset, it could offer one of the best value propositions in recent years for a mid-range phone. In terms of power, it obviously won’t compete with the top-end models, but the Galaxy A36 could provide a low-cost phone with minimal compromises.

Patrick Hearn
Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it's a…
My adventure with the Galaxy S25 Ultra only confirmed how I feel about it
A person holding the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

As I prepared for a long weekend break, I wanted to take a capable Android phone with a good camera with me, ready to capture my adventures. I put my SIM card into a fresh Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and set the phone up purely for entertainment, as I wanted to ignore work emails and messages as much as possible. I spent four days with the phone, and here’s what I discovered revisiting the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

The shape is still a problem

Read more
Samsung will fix Now Bar for Galaxy Z Flip phones, but not anytime soon
Someone holding the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, showing the cover screen turned on.

Samsung's Now Bar is one of the most attractive features of One UI 7. The pill-shaped interface on the lock screen and dynamically adjusts based on the most important activities on your phone, much like the iPhone's Dynamic Island. The feature, however, looks a bit under-cooked on foldables, especially Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip series phones, being limited to only the internal screen. Thankfully, Samsung is working to fix this, though the patch may take some time.

The fix supposedly comes not as part of the existing One UI 7 but Samsung's next platform upgrade -- One UI 8 based on Android 16. An account by the username @Gamer0mega on social media X shared a video preview of Now Bar in action. Instead of the inner screen, the clip shows Now Bar running on the cover screen of a Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Flip 5.

Read more
Galaxy S25 Edge announcement date is confirmed, and it’s better than expected
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge dual camera array

Not much of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge remains a secret. Samsung proudly showcased the design at least twice at two major events, and an outpouring of leaks has enforced a good impression of what to expect from the soon-to-launch thin-and-light phone. While its launch remains certain, and at the mercy of unconfirmed and conflicting rumors, a fresh new leak gives a convincingly good idea of when the phone launches finally.

Leaker Evan Blass has shared an official-looking poster, which potentially hints at the Galaxy S25 Edge launch. The tagline in use, "Beyond slim," fits the phone perfectly, following previous leaks suggesting it would be just 5.8 in thickness (excluding the camera bump). The poster also points at the launch date of "13 maggio 2025," where "maggio" is the Italian name for the month of May.

Read more
OSZAR »