The Galaxy A56 and Galaxy A36 are here to bolster the company’s mid-range presence, and while they are not as exciting as the fresh new Pixel 9a with its large battery or the well-performing iPhone 16e, they have some exciting upgrades too. And surprisingly, some features make them feel like a better deal than the standard Galaxy flagship.
Yes, don’t roll your eyes, of course, the Galaxy S25 is the better all-around device, but the new A series serve a few surprises.
Charging: When the flagship is no longer a flagship
First up, we get fast 45W wired charging on both mid-rangers. While that’s fairly low compared to most devices hailing from China, it’s currently the maximum charging speed on a Samsung phone.
The way pricier Galaxy S25 Ultra and the S25 Plus come with the same 45W wired charging speed, so this can be easily labeled ‘flagship feature’.
How does that compare to the vanilla Galaxy S25? Well, it is only outfitted with 25W wired charging, quite embarrassing.
Samsung’s foldable Galaxy Z Fold 6, another premium phone, also supports just 25W of wired charging. In A series equivalent, that’s as good as the $300 Galaxy A26.
This doesn’t sit well with me. Samsung might have had its reasons to outfit both the base Galaxy S25 and the Fold 6 with slow 25W charging. Still, it’s 2025 now, and I can’t imagine any of those hypothetical reasons would resonate with the potential Galaxy consumer.
One UI 7: A delay that was uncalled for
It’s the year of software update blunders.
Samsung’s One UI 7 software update, which was to bring Android 15 to a hefty amount of Samsung phones, is currently only available on the Galaxy S25 series and… the Galaxy A56, A36, and A26.
No other phone has One UI 7 currently, save for those adventurous Galaxy S24 users who run the beta. It’s now been six months since Android 15 was released to Pixel phones, with the Galaxy S24 series getting no whiff of a software update. If you’ve missed the news, it’s coming April 7 if you live in Europe or Asia, or April 10 if you’re in the US.
Do you know how long it took for the Android 14-based One UI 6 software update to hit the then-current Galaxy S23 series? Only 26 days! Android 14 was released on October 4, 2023, and Samsung started rolling out One UI 6 to the Galaxy S23 on October 30. Talk about a quick turnaround, especially when compared with the One UI 7 situation that we have right here. However, the delayed One UI 7 release pales in comparison to the disastrous Apple Intelligence delay.
The other day, Apple threw the baby with the bathwater by revealing that the smarter Siri with the contextually aware features won’t arrive this year, but in 2026. Quick to pounce on a fallen enemy, a class action lawsuit was immediately filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose to sue Apple over false advertising.
Conclusion
Samsung has been complacent with its flagship lineup for a few years now, but you’d only notice it if you inspect the intergenerational upgrades that never made it to the standard Galaxy S flagship phone.
Cameras and charging speeds have not been upgraded in years; it’s safe to say that the compact Galaxy S flagship is the most “unloved” device in Samsung’s roster.
Having literal mid-range phones with some better hardware features is simply disappointing.
