Samsung Galaxy A36 5G vs Galaxy S24 FE: Main differences to expect

Intro

The Galaxy A36 5G is coming next year in order to become Samsung’s new mid-range hope for 2025. It will feature a slightly different design language, a new Qualcomm chipset, and likely an unbeatable price.

Will the Galaxy A36 5G be able to beat that?

Design and Size

The Galaxy A36 5G is coming with generally the same design language as its predecessor, following the now signature Galaxy styling with a flat frame, flat display. The rumor mill is sparse on potential considerable changes, but rumors have it that the Galaxy A36 5G could be 7.4mm thin.

A unified camera island comprising all three camera lenses at the rear will be the most considerable change that will come to the Galaxy A36‘s rear design. Most Galaxy phones these days have separate camera lenses, but the Galaxy A36 will move into a new direction. The Key Island, which houses the hardware buttons, will remain on the right side of the phone.

The Galaxy A36 5G will most likely be a plastic phone.

In comparison, the Galaxy S24 FE, on the other hand, has an aluminum frame and could end up being slightly narrower and thicker than the Galaxy A36. It follows the design language of the Galaxy S24 lineup pretty closely, but has no differentiating features. 

There’s no Key Island here: the right-hand side of the phone is flush, which is definitely a more premium flagship-like feature. 

Colors-wise, the Galaxy S24 FE is available in Blue, Graphite, Gray, Yellow, and Mint colors. We are not sure what colors the Galaxy A36 5G could adopt, but we expect a flurry of fun colors.

Display Differences

The Galaxy A36 5G’s screen will grow to 6.64 inches, compared to the Galaxy A35’s 6.60-inch screen. We know the display will be a Super AMOLED one with a 120Hz refresh rate, but we’re not sure if it’ll drop back to 60Hz or if Samsung will give us a lower minimum refresh rate; chances are it will be a 60/120Hz one. 

The Galaxy S24 FE comes with a slightly larger 6.7-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen with a smooth refresh rate that maxes out at 120Hz, and from a quality perspective, it’s a pretty decent AMOLED screen, like most of Samsung’s previous ones.

One area in which the Galaxy S24 FE will likely emerge victorious is peak brightness: the latter hits 1100 nits in our in-house benchmark test, and we believe that would be enough to best the Galaxy A36 5G. As a comparison, the Galaxy A35 hit 933 nits of peak brightness in our tests. 

The Galaxy S24 FE has an optical fingerprint scanner, and we expect the Galaxy A36 to follow suit. In the hierarchy, those are a step below ultrasonic fingerprint sensors, which are both faster and more accurate.

Performance and Software

The Galaxy A36 5G could use the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 or the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, things are a bit uncertain on that front as of now. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 could be a safer bet, though the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 is the more potent one. This would be yet another chipset change for the Galaxy A36, as its predecessors switch up between Exynos and MediaTek chips each year. 

We expect some AI features to be present on the Galaxy A36 5G. 

The Galaxy A36 is expected to feature either 6GB or 8GB of RAM (or possibly both, depending on the phone’s variations). The mid-ranger will probably come with 128GB or 256GB of storage and a microSD card slot. 

The Galaxy A36 5G will likely receive four years of support, like the Galaxy A35. 

In the other corner, the Galaxy S24 FE relies on an in-house chipset: the Exynos 2400e, which is a very potent chipset with pretty impressive graphics performance. It’s just a tad slower than the Exynos 2400 inside Samsung’s Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus, so it’s definitely nearly flagship-grade. 

The Fan Edition has some 8GB of RAM, which gives it access to most AI features that are also available on the Galaxy S24. 

The Galaxy S24 FE will be supported for seven years, just like the company’s proper Galaxy S24 flagship lineup. Great!

Camera

The Galaxy A36 5G will likely have a mostly unchanged camera system in comparison with the Galaxy A35. This means we could get a 50MP main camera, 8MP ultrawide, and a 5MP macro camera. Not a particularly exciting camera setup, but it will do the job for the occasional photo, just don’t count on the quality being in the same ballpark as the Galaxy S24 FE.

That one comes with a 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom, which is a drastically more versatile and usable setup. 

Battery Life and Charging

We are not sure what battery will make its way to the Galaxy A36 5G. It could be a 5,000mAh in the best-case scenario, but due to the significant slimming of the phone, we might get a slightly smaller battery, like a 4,700mAh one.

Interestingly, that’s the same battery that has made its way inside the Galaxy S24 FE. What a monumental coincidence and source for speculation! Could the two devices battle it out on an even ground?

If this happens to be the case, we’d expect the faster chipset to ultimately decide which one’s the more durable device, and if our expectations pan out, then the Galaxy S24 FE could ultimately happen to be the battery king. 

Both phones are likely sharing the 25W wired charging support, meaning that they could possibly charge at a pretty comparable pace. The Galaxy A36 5G won’t have wireless charging, but the Galaxy S24 FE supports that, as well as reverse wireless charging. 

Specs Comparison

Summary

Ultimately, however, you get what you pay for, and the much lower price of the mid-ranger is pretty telling. It will certainly end up being slower, not as powerful, and with less impressive camera than the Galaxy S24 FE. 

If that’s something you can live with, then few phones will likely be able to match the potential value of the Samsung Galaxy A36 5G.