Samsung Galaxy A26 Design
The Galaxy A26, probably the most inexpensive mid-range style in its A sequence, seems to be and feels top class. Samsung has used Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus+ for each the entrance and rear panels. Of the 2, most effective the rear panel is excellent at rejecting smudges.
The telephone’s general design has now not modified and looks acquainted to the Galaxy A25 introduced ultimate 12 months. The small raised bump at the proper aspect of the flat body, highlighting the amount and tool buttons, remains to be there, making them simple to search out given the telephone’s dimension.
The raised bump across the quantity and tool buttons makes it more uncomplicated to search out them
The Galaxy A26’s general design makes an impact, giving a way of high quality and premium-ness, however turn it over, and the sensation is going away right away.
Despite the scale improve from 6.5 to six.7 inches, the Super AMOLED panel keeps the thick borders from its predecessor, together with the unsightly water drop notch and thick backside edge. It unquestionably feels misplaced on a mid-range smartphone in 2025, and it truly makes one surprise why they’re paying such a lot for a tool with an old-fashioned show—extra in this within the efficiency phase.
The show glass at the Galaxy A26 will get smudged simply
The shiny rear panel blended with the matte-finish polycarbonate mid-frame does make the telephone very slippery. It’s excellent to position on a case (now not incorporated within the field) in case you are clumsy. On that observe, Samsung additionally gave the A26 an IP67 mud and water resistance score. Going by means of the usual, this telephone can resist immersion in freshwater (as much as 1 meter). However, identical to all producers, injury because of water ingress isn’t lined beneath guaranty. So, use it in water provided that it’s important to.
Samsung Galaxy A26 Performance
Despite the scale improve, now not a lot has modified in comparison to the former style. The show’s colors seem somewhat saturated even within the Natural display color mode. Viewing angles are nice even supposing the brightness ranges don’t seem to be the most efficient at school. So, it’s not supreme for viewing content material outside even supposing it is sufficiently shiny indoors. Naturally, you aren’t getting HDR10+ make stronger, not like some smartphones at this worth level. But I’m glad to peer Widevine L1 streaming high quality supported.
There’s only one bottom-firing speaker and it does now not sound excellent
Given that it is a mid-range instrument, I used to be somewhat stunned to peer only one bottom-firing speaker at the Galaxy A26. The speaker is slightly deficient relating to sound replica and produces very treble-heavy audio, which sounds extra frustrating than wealthy at excessive quantity. Some smartphones be offering a lot better audio high quality at this worth level.
The instrument runs Samsung’s One UI 7 out of the field. Based on Android 15, it gives quite a few customisation together with the brand new glance that model 7 delivers. Software operation is slightly easy. Samsung’s optimisations apart, this may be all the way down to the 120Hz panel, which all the time sticks to the 120Hz refresh price when set to High movement smoothness. This has different implications relating to battery lifestyles.
The SuperAMOLED panel gives deep blacks however are you able to get previous the ones thick borders and that notch?
There are lots of AI equipment to mess around with however I discovered the language translation instrument slightly helpful. The symbol modifying instrument used to be up for the process however may just now not take care of quite complicated object-erasing queries just like the high-end Galaxy fashions. The Now Bar relays Live Notifications from quite a lot of apps (together with gadget apps) to the lock display making it slightly helpful.
There’s the standard Samsung suite of apps but in addition a couple of 1/3 social gathering apps from Microsoft, a VPN app and a few pre-installed video games. Out of those, the VPN app may just now not be uninstalled. One demanding factor I spotted when the use of the telephone is the lock display commercials (from Samsung) being relayed by means of the Glance Lockscreen integration. The atmosphere to disable this demanding default has been moved to the Wallpaper and magnificence menu in Settings, the place you’ve gotten to select ‘None’ as a substitute of Dynamic, Glance or Samsung Global Goals.
Samsung’s One UI 7 gives quite a few AI equipment
Gaming efficiency could be very mid-range. With maximum video games, you’re going to get get right of entry to to mid-level graphics choices because of the telephone’s chipset and RAM barriers. Still, I may just play fast paced video games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt Legends Unite easily at default settings, which defaulted to medium settings with maximum results grew to become off. Cranking up the settings didn’t make the Galaxy A26 sweat both. It’s simply that the warmth (in spite of the graphite sheets) in the end builds up, which is whilst you begin to see slowdowns or skipped frames. Touch-sampling is enough and there is no noticeable touch-input lag when enjoying video games.
Samsung has nonetheless executed a excellent process dealing with warmth, so I didn’t see any pop-ups or notifications when the use of the digicam outside or when enjoying video games. As for benchmarks, the telephone’s efficiency is very similar to what different telephones have completed at this worth level, save for the gadgets with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 SoC, which carried out higher.
| Benchmarks | Samsung Galaxy A26 | Nothing Phone 3a | Poco F6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Exynos 1380 (5nm) | Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 (4nm) | Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (4nm) |
| Display answer | FHD+ | FHD+ | 1.5K |
| AnTuTu v10 | 6,08,318 | 8,04,179 | 14,57,491 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 14,250 | 13,554 | 15,743 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 1,013 | 1,158 | 1,835 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 2,932 | 3,255 | 4,693 |
| GFXB T-rex | 98 | 60 | 120 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 | 47 | 55 | 112 |
| GFXB Car Chase | 26 | 28 | 71 |
| 3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL | 4,688 | 5,485 | 5,481 |
| 3DM Slingshot | 5,820 | 6,954 | 4,655 |
| 3DM Wild Life | 2,805 | 3,988 | Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 2,733 | 4,175 | 11,734 |
Like the former style, the Samsung Galaxy A26 gives 3 rear-facing cameras. The 50-megapixel number one (OIS), 8-megapixel ultra-wide and 2-megapixel macro setup stay the similar as earlier than. The selfie digicam additionally keeps the outdated 13-megapixel sensor.
Samsung Galaxy A26 Primary digicam samples (faucet pictures to amplify)
The number one digicam produces respectable footage at highest. The symbol high quality is sub-par even in sunlight (with quite overcast prerequisites). The footage pop out somewhat overexposed, dynamic differ is somewhat off, however my largest downside with this digicam is that it isn’t in a position to tug out main points from a scene. Images are incessantly low on resolved element. In many circumstances, I additionally spotted random blurred patches the place the digicam perceived to have given up on processing finer patterns. Foliage seems like an oil portray. Colours seem herbal however there is a quite bluish tone to they all. Indeed this used to be sudden for the reason that this digicam has optical symbol stabilisation (OIS).
There’s an excessively noticeable watercolour impact in low mild, which means the textures appear to be artwork, in spite of switching to the auto-night mode. (faucet symbol to amplify)
Selfies display excellent color element and feature excellent distinction. However, there’s a noticeable halo-like ring across the topic, hinting at moderate edge detection. (faucet symbol to amplify)
Portraits from the principle digicam got here out positive. Skin tones are correct, however textures are low on resolved element, edge detection is somewhat too competitive. (faucet symbol to amplify)
The macro digicam produces very deficient footage with very low answer, making it pointless. I controlled higher photos from the principle digicam because it let me get with reference to the topic. (faucet symbol to amplify)
Samsung Galaxy A26 ultrawide digicam pattern (faucet symbol to amplify)
Photos from the ultrawide digicam pop out somewhat darker, and feature much less element and restricted dynamic differ, which means it is arduous to identify any main points within the shadows and darker colored gadgets even in sunlight. There’s additionally very noticeable pink fringing within the brighter spots and quite a few lens barrel distortion. Low-light footage are slightly deficient with the digicam slightly in a position to control noise.
4K video recordings controlled the most efficient main points however tended to skip center of attention whilst panning. The 4K 30 fps pictures additionally lacks stabilisation and looks wobbly when panning or strolling. 1080p video captured at 60 fps has a gentle body price but in addition displays some wobbling when panning. 1080p 30 fps recordings controlled the most efficient stabilisation with quite watered-down high quality. When capturing in low mild, 1080p video recorded at 30 fps controlled probably the most strong pictures however with very low element. 4K 30 fps video recordings gave the impression wobbly and had numerous noise.
Despite packing a 5,000mah battery, the Galaxy A26’s display time figures don’t seem to be spectacular
Charging speeds and battery capability have not modified because the Galaxy A25. So, we now have an ordinary 5,000mAh battery that fees 30 % in half-hour and completes the fee at an excessively leisurely tempo in 1 hour and 57 mins when plugged right into a third-party 100W PD charger.
Battery lifestyles is not nice both. Our PCMark Battery Life check, which runs a chain of day-to-day duties in loop, returned a low ranking of 8 hours and 53 mins. The Nothing Phone 3a with a similar-sized battery controlled 17 hours and 40 mins with the similar check. As for our HD video loop battery check, the Galaxy A26 controlled an similarly deficient 17 hours and 11 mins, which is a number of hours not up to what maximum telephones at this worth level set up. Simply put, our trying out signifies that the telephone will slightly ultimate a piece day (9AM to 6PM) with heavy and steady utilization. Casual customers will have to get an afternoon’s battery lifestyles equipped the telephone is not driven to its limits.
Samsung Galaxy A26 Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy A26’s standout options are recently restricted to its device dedication and IP67-rated design. Everything else falls brief or is a step at the back of competing smartphones at this worth level. And so, it is truly arduous to counsel except all you need from a smartphone is AI options and nice device make stronger.
There’s additionally a sea of competing smartphones to choose between. Nothing’s Phone 3a is a succesful and snazzy smartphone for the ones searching for one thing other or particular at this worth level. Those searching for higher uncooked efficiency can have a look at the Poco F6 and the just lately introduced iQOO Neo 10R, which might be priced under and above the Galaxy A26. If you need mega battery lifestyles, then the Vivo T4 with its large 7,400mAh battery is a perfect selection. And in case you are pondering of spending upwards of Rs. 26,000, then OnePlus’ Nord 4 is a forged all-rounder.
Source: www.gadgets360.com
