TL;DR
- The Galaxy A36 will likely use the same rear cameras as the Galaxy A35.
- The selfie camera is being upgraded to a new 12MP sensor.
- The upgraded selfie sensor should offer better low-light performance
Samsung makes a lot of phones, and the headlines usually focus on the flagships, like the upcoming Galaxy S25 or the Z Fold and Flip series. They might be the exciting models, but Samsung’s A series is incredibly popular, providing excellent value at almost any price. The Galaxy A35 impressed us this year and it looks its successor will do the same with some tweaks to its camera hardware.
If we look at the pattern set by previous models, Samsung should launch the Galaxy A36 sometime in Q1 2025, and the leaks and rumors are only going to become more frequent as that time approaches. The cameras on the A35 impressed us for a phone in this price range, and the A36 will use the same primary 50MP sensor according to Galaxy Club. Details for the other two sensors are still unknown so they could remain unchanged as well, using the same 8MP ultrawide and 5MP macro sensors.
More exciting is the potential upgrade to the selfie camera. In our review the 13MP sensor on the A35 impressed us by taking more detailed photos than its competitors from Motorola and OnePlus, and Galaxy Club notes that this is the one sensor we know will be different in the A36, moving to a 12MP sensor.
On paper moving from a 13MP selfie camera to a 12MP sensor sounds like a downgrade, but megapixels aren’t everything. Hole-punch selfie cameras have to be tiny so as to fit inside our displays, and trying to squeeze light into a small sensor with a high megapixel count results in poorer low-light performance. This can be somewhat overcome with pixel binning but for the types of photos we take with selfie cameras, it’s best not to rely on that too much. Decreasing the megapixel count to take better selfies isn’t even an unprecedented move from Samsung — the Galaxy S22 Ultra exchanged the 40MP front camera from older models for a 12MP sensor and the quality was noticeably better.
Are you looking forward to the Galaxy A36? Would you prefer to see more camera upgrades than just the selfie sensor, or are there other parts of the phone you’d rather see improved? Let us know in the comments.
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