Samsung Galaxy A56, A36, and A26 are here with a good surprise for US fans

Summary Samsung has announced three new mid-range phones: the Galaxy A56, A36, and A26.
All 3 phones have 6.7-inch displays with 120Hz refresh rates, 6 OS updates, AI features, and more.
The Galaxy A56 will come to the US, but we’ve yet to get a clear release date. The two other phones will land by the end of the month.
Just over a month has passed since the introduction of the Galaxy S25 series, and Samsung is back already with three new phones. This time, Samsung’s attention is focused on the mid-range with its A Series designed to compete with the likes of the Google Pixel 8a (and the rumored Pixel 9a ) as well as Apple’s new iPhone 16e .
There are three new handsets, which are the Galaxy A56 5G, Galaxy A36 5G, and the Galaxy A26 5G. The big surprise for those in the US is the Galaxy A56 5G is confirmed to be coming to North America. The Galaxy A55 skipped the market last year for Samsung to encourage buyers to go toward the Galaxy FE range, but Samsung is changing tact this year and bringing it to US fans.
Joining the Galaxy A16 5G, which was the first of this new series of devices, the Galaxy A56 5G leads the pack with the best specs of all the phones.
All three new phones come with 6.7-inch Full HD+ AMOLED displays with 120Hz refresh rates. In a short hands-on briefing, I tried out both the A56 and A36, seeing very little difference between the screens on both phones. All three phones sport 5,000mAh batteries. Both the A56 and A36 have 45W charging, which is a noticeable improvement for the A36.
There’s 128GB of storage for all variants, and you won’t be able to get any further space as Samsung isn’t selling larger versions and there’s no microSD support. Those who opt for the Galaxy A56 will get 8GB of RAM, while the other two devices sport 6GB of RAM.
Improved software support, but not the full seven years
You’ll also be able to use these phones for longer. Each comes with Android 15 software, albeit in Samsung’s own One UI 7 style, and there are six generations of Android OS updates to come. That’ll take you all the way through to Android 22, or whatever Samsung decides to call that iteration of One UI. This doesn’t match the company’s flagship promise of seven years of updates, but it’s a marked improvement on the four generations it offered for last year’s Galaxy A series.
Cameras are where these phones really differ, and you should expect to see Samsung market all three of these phones around their selfie prowess. The Galaxy A56 sports a 12MP ultra wide with f/2.2 aperture, a 50MP main camera, a 5MP macro camera, and a 12MP front camera for those selfies. The Galaxy A36 sports the same, aside from an 8MP ultra-wide rather than the 12MP.
The Galaxy A26 5G comes with that same ultra-wide and main camera. The macro camera is slightly lesser at only 2MP, while the front camera looks better on paper at 13MP, but you should expect that to give worse results than the other two phones. We’ve yet to learn what Samsung has changed there, but it’s likely to be worse tech than the more expensive variants.
As with most phone launches nowadays, the Galaxy A series is all about AI changes. The Galaxy A56 5G features the company’s Best Face technology, which allows you to edit together multiple photos from the same shoot. Say a friend is blinking in one shot, but everyone else looks great, you can take one of their faces from that other photo and bring it over to the better shot. We’ve seen similar features on Pixels, but this is the first time Samsung’s cheaper phones have offered the feature.
All three phones also have Samsung’s most recent version of its Object Eraser that uses AI to edit out elements of a photo you don’t want to be there anymore. I played around with this briefly during the hands-on demo and it worked okay with most examples having clear artifacts remaining, so it didn’t blow me away. This is a fun thing to play around with, but I wouldn’t rely on the tech to properly enhance photos you want to share.
The Galaxy A26 5G is the cheapest in the range at $300. It’s available in black and it’ll go on sale on March 28. The Galaxy A36 is $100 more at $400 in three colors, with Awesome Black and Awesome Lavender the two main variants. There’s a Best Buy exclusive color of Awesome Lime, which you’ll be able to get from March 26.
Finally, the Galaxy A56 5G is set to cost $500 matching the Google Pixel 8a’s price at its launch, but we’ve yet to hear when the phone will go on sale for those in the US. All Samsung has said so far is it’ll be “later this year”, so we’ll have to wait and see. It’s out in other markets such as Europe on March 19.