Samsung Galaxy A36 5G vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold | TechTalkTown
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
Samsung
7.4
Long-supported budget Galaxy
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Samsung
7.1
Engineering marvel, software footnote
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
What Reviewers Agree On
Samsung's six-year OS and security update commitment is the longest in the budget Android segment and a class-leading reason to buy at this price.
The 6.7-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED with 120Hz refresh and ~1,900-nit peak HDR brightness punches above the phone's price bracket and is one of the best displays under $400.
Build quality is exemplary for the price — dual Gorilla Glass Victus+ front and back, IP67 dust/water resistance and a thinner, lighter chassis than the A35.
Wired charging has jumped from 25W to 45W, taking the 5,000 mAh battery from 0 to ~60-66% in 30 minutes and a full charge in ~68-70 minutes.
Real-world battery life from the 5,000 mAh cell easily lasts a full day, with reviewers regularly ending with 20-40% remaining.
Pros & Cons
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
Pros
Samsung's six-year OS and security update commitment is the longest in the budget Android segment and a class-leading reason to buy at this price.
The 6.7-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED with 120Hz refresh and ~1,900-nit peak HDR brightness punches above the phone's price bracket and is one of the best displays under $400.
Build quality is exemplary for the price — dual Gorilla Glass Victus+ front and back, IP67 dust/water resistance and a thinner, lighter chassis than the A35.
Wired charging has jumped from 25W to 45W, taking the 5,000 mAh battery from 0 to ~60-66% in 30 minutes and a full charge in ~68-70 minutes.
Detailed Comparison
Design & Build
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
Samsung gave the A36 a real glow-up in materials this generation: Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both the front and back, a thinner and lighter chassis than the A35, and IP67 dust/water resistance. The frame is still plastic, which keeps the A36 a step below the A56's aluminium-and-glass build, but reviewers consistently say it doesn't feel cheap. The unified camera island replaces the separate-lens look of the A35 and is divisive — some say it looks dated, others find it sleek and more S-series-like.
Build is dual Gorilla Glass Victus+ front and back with IP67 dust/water resistance, and the phone is now 14 grams lighter at 195g compared to the 209g A35.
The piano-black colorway attracts smudges and dust easily, and next to the Moto G Stylus or Nothing Phone (3a) under $400 the design feels generic and devoid of personality.
The A36's plastic frame and plastic camera surround feel a clear step below the A56's aluminium frame and flat metal camera surround, and the extra $100 for the A56 buys a noticeably more premium feel in hand.
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Awesome Intelligence (Circle to Search, AI Select, Object Eraser, Edit Suggestions, custom filters) brings a meaningful slice of Galaxy AI features down to the A-series without the bloat seen on the S25 line.
Deal Breakers
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 is barely an upgrade over 2022's Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and benchmarks at or below the outgoing Exynos 1380 in the cheaper A35 — multiple reviewers reported stutters, with one Wired test finding the carrier-locked A36 actually slower than the $100-cheaper A26.
Samsung removed the microSD card slot that the A35 still had, so 128 GB or 256 GB is the storage ceiling — repeatedly flagged on Reddit as a deal-breaker for long-term-update buyers.
No wireless charging — competitors like Motorola's Moto G Power and Moto G Stylus 2025 offer it at the same or lower price.
The rear cameras are the exact same hardware as the A35 (50MP main, 8MP ultrawide, 5MP macro) with only a new ISP and Awesome Intelligence software changes; ultrawide and low-light output remain noisy.
USB 2.0 only and Wi-Fi 6 only (no 6 GHz / Wi-Fi 6E) — connectivity is dated for a 2025 phone you're meant to keep for six years.
The optical under-display fingerprint sensor is slow and inconsistent compared to the A26's side-mounted capacitive sensor, requiring multiple taps to unlock.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
What Reviewers Agree On
The 10-inch 4:3 inner display fundamentally changes what a foldable can be — 16:9 video plays roughly 50–84% bigger than on the Z Fold 7, and apps actually reformat for tablet density instead of stretching.
At 3.9–4.2 mm per panel unfolded, the TriFold is the thinnest phone Samsung has ever shipped — the USB-C port is the same thickness as the entire chassis, which reviewers across the board call genuinely impressive engineering.
The dual Armor FlexHinge mechanism is solid, snappy, locks completely flat when fully open, and ships with a haptic-plus-vibration warning that yells at you when you try to fold the camera-side first.
Folded, the TriFold can pass for a chunky phone — 12.9 mm thick is only fractionally chunkier than a Z Fold 6 despite carrying a third more screen.
Battery life beats the Z Fold 7 in real-world testing — multiple reviewers landed at 7–9 hours of screen-on time, and a video loop pushed past 12 hours.
Samsung's U-shape design protects the inner screen completely when folded, unlike Huawei's Mate XT where one soft panel rides face-out and is exposed to keys and lint.
On-device Samsung DeX runs natively without needing an external display — it's the only Samsung phone that can do this, turning the trifold into a credible laptop-replacement experiment.
Deal Breakers
The 10-inch main display peaks at just 1,600 nits — lower than the three-year-old Galaxy Z Fold 5 and well below the 2,600 nits on the Fold 7, S25 Ultra, and the TriFold's own cover screen, and Snazzy Labs found sustained brightness drops further after 40 seconds outdoors.
JerryRigEverything's durability test failed the TriFold catastrophically — the right hinge snapped and pixels tore under a routine bend, and dust audibly grinds into the hinges almost immediately despite the IP48 rating; 9to5Google called it a 'horrific defeat.'
The inner flexible screen and its non-replaceable factory protector are soft enough to be gouged by a fingernail — Mrwhosetheboss left deep gouges just by leaning the phone against a vase, and the top-voted comment on 9to5Google's durability writeup called the soft screen 'an absolute dealbreaker.'
Unlike the Huawei Mate XT's accordion fold, the Z TriFold is all-or-nothing — you cannot use it half-unfolded as a 7.9-inch in-between size, so the trifold experience is either single-panel phone or full tablet with no middle ground.
The chip is the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, not the newer Elite Gen 5 already shipping in the S26 Ultra, so the most expensive phone Samsung sells is lagging behind a $1,300 Ultra from launch.
Real-world battery life from the 5,000 mAh cell easily lasts a full day, with reviewers regularly ending with 20-40% remaining.
Awesome Intelligence (Circle to Search, AI Select, Object Eraser, Edit Suggestions, custom filters) brings a meaningful slice of Galaxy AI features down to the A-series without the bloat seen on the S25 line.
Cons
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 is barely an upgrade over 2022's Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and benchmarks at or below the outgoing Exynos 1380 in the cheaper A35 — multiple reviewers reported stutters, with one Wired test finding the carrier-locked A36 actually slower than the $100-cheaper A26.
Samsung removed the microSD card slot that the A35 still had, so 128 GB or 256 GB is the storage ceiling — repeatedly flagged on Reddit as a deal-breaker for long-term-update buyers.
No wireless charging — competitors like Motorola's Moto G Power and Moto G Stylus 2025 offer it at the same or lower price.
The rear cameras are the exact same hardware as the A35 (50MP main, 8MP ultrawide, 5MP macro) with only a new ISP and Awesome Intelligence software changes; ultrawide and low-light output remain noisy.
USB 2.0 only and Wi-Fi 6 only (no 6 GHz / Wi-Fi 6E) — connectivity is dated for a 2025 phone you're meant to keep for six years.
The optical under-display fingerprint sensor is slow and inconsistent compared to the A26's side-mounted capacitive sensor, requiring multiple taps to unlock.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Pros
The 10-inch 4:3 inner display fundamentally changes what a foldable can be — 16:9 video plays roughly 50–84% bigger than on the Z Fold 7, and apps actually reformat for tablet density instead of stretching.
At 3.9–4.2 mm per panel unfolded, the TriFold is the thinnest phone Samsung has ever shipped — the USB-C port is the same thickness as the entire chassis, which reviewers across the board call genuinely impressive engineering.
The dual Armor FlexHinge mechanism is solid, snappy, locks completely flat when fully open, and ships with a haptic-plus-vibration warning that yells at you when you try to fold the camera-side first.
Folded, the TriFold can pass for a chunky phone — 12.9 mm thick is only fractionally chunkier than a Z Fold 6 despite carrying a third more screen.
Battery life beats the Z Fold 7 in real-world testing — multiple reviewers landed at 7–9 hours of screen-on time, and a video loop pushed past 12 hours.
Samsung's U-shape design protects the inner screen completely when folded, unlike Huawei's Mate XT where one soft panel rides face-out and is exposed to keys and lint.
On-device Samsung DeX runs natively without needing an external display — it's the only Samsung phone that can do this, turning the trifold into a credible laptop-replacement experiment.
Cons
The 10-inch main display peaks at just 1,600 nits — lower than the three-year-old Galaxy Z Fold 5 and well below the 2,600 nits on the Fold 7, S25 Ultra, and the TriFold's own cover screen, and Snazzy Labs found sustained brightness drops further after 40 seconds outdoors.
JerryRigEverything's durability test failed the TriFold catastrophically — the right hinge snapped and pixels tore under a routine bend, and dust audibly grinds into the hinges almost immediately despite the IP48 rating; 9to5Google called it a 'horrific defeat.'
The inner flexible screen and its non-replaceable factory protector are soft enough to be gouged by a fingernail — Mrwhosetheboss left deep gouges just by leaning the phone against a vase, and the top-voted comment on 9to5Google's durability writeup called the soft screen 'an absolute dealbreaker.'
Unlike the Huawei Mate XT's accordion fold, the Z TriFold is all-or-nothing — you cannot use it half-unfolded as a 7.9-inch in-between size, so the trifold experience is either single-panel phone or full tablet with no middle ground.
Despite the plastic frame and plastic rear, the A36's build quality is exemplary, gaps are even, and it does not feel cheap.
The three rear lenses have been unified into a single oblong camera island, and the A-series no longer looks like an S-series phone — a draw for some, a downgrade for others.
The Awesome Lavender colorway has a holographic rainbow finish that shifts color depending on the angle and adds genuine character to an otherwise utilitarian design.
Reddit's r/Android sums up the build verdict as 'Superb build, dual Gorilla Glass, IP67' — a rare community pro for a budget Galaxy.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Two hinges, three panels, and the thinnest chassis Samsung has ever shipped — 3.9 mm at its thinnest point and 12.9 mm folded, with each panel a fractionally different thickness so they nest cleanly. Reviewers near-universally call the engineering exquisite, but the trade-offs are real: 309 g on the official spec sheet (closer to 320 g in practice once you add a case and a SIM), a fiber-reinforced polymer back that picks up fingerprints, and a USB-C port the same thickness as the chassis itself.
Folded thickness is 12.9 mm — just a smidge chunkier than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 (12.1 mm) despite carrying a 50% larger main display.
At 3.9 mm at its thinnest point the TriFold is the thinnest phone Samsung has ever made — thinner than even the Fold 7 and 1.5 mm thinner than the iPhone Air's thinnest point.
The USB-C port is the same thickness as the entire device — go any thinner and the phone has to go portless.
It is very, very heavy for a phone — 309 g on Samsung's spec sheet, and a real-world unit measured 320 g with a SIM installed and no case.
The fiber-reinforced polymer back is slightly sticky, very shiny, and persistently picks up fingerprints across all six faces of the device.
Samsung's left and right segments fold inward behind a separate cover screen — Huawei's Mate XT folds in a Z-shape using part of the main screen as the cover.
The right panel is fractionally longer than the others — that protrusion is intentional, giving you a lip to grab when unfolding without digging fingernails into the screen.
The included aramid-fiber case only covers one of three panels when unfolded, and there is no kickstand — Samsung sold a kickstand case in some regions but never in the US.
Performance
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
The A36's Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 is the phone's most consistent weak point. Notebookcheck found it benchmarks roughly the same as the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 from 2022, and in many tests the older Exynos 1380 in last year's A35 was actually faster. Wired's review went further: the carrier-locked A36 actually felt slower in daily use than the $100-cheaper Galaxy A26 sitting next to it. Reviewers agree it's still fast enough for everyday browsing, social, and light gaming, but anyone who games heavily should look elsewhere.
The carrier-locked AT&T A36 produced visible stutters and felt sluggish out of the box, with the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 actually scoring lower in benchmarks than the Exynos 1380 in the $100-cheaper A26.
Aside from slightly higher clock rates, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 is functionally the same chipset as 2022's Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, and the Nothing Phone (3a)'s Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is roughly 10-15% ahead in Geekbench.
Benchmarks on the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 are roughly the same as last year's A35, with only a minor boost in raw graphics — overall performance is adequate for daily tasks and light gaming.
Geekbench 6 results land at roughly 1,019 single-core and 2,947 multi-core after a year of updates — clearly on the lower end of the $400 bracket compared to phones like the Galaxy S25 FE.
Genshin Impact ran at an average 43fps on lowest graphics in lab testing, but only 24fps at high settings — playable but not what gamers should buy this phone for.
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 has about half to a third of the gaming performance of a couple-generations-old flagship — daily browsing and social are fine, but heavy 3D games will struggle.
Despite the modest chipset the A36 doesn't get hot under sustained load and survived the prolonged 3DMark Wild Life stress test without significant throttling.
Long-time A-series user on r/Android reports the A36 'is just as stuttery as the A35 and A54' — small generational chip refreshes don't seem to be moving the needle.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
The TriFold ships with the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and 16 GB of RAM — fast, but already a generation behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the S26 Ultra. With no vapor chamber and a ~4 mm-thick chassis the thermal headroom is limited, so the trifold actually runs slower than other 8 Elite phones under sustained load. Most reviewers report smooth real-world performance, including high-refresh gaming on the inner display, but flag thermal hot spots on the back during intense sessions.
It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy with 16 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage — top-shelf, but it's the last-gen 8 Elite, not the newer Gen 5.
Due to thermal constraints the TriFold ran slower than other 8 Elite phones like the S25 Ultra — a chassis this thin has very limited room for any dedicated cooling.
Both foldables don't have the S25 Ultra's peak speed but don't throttle that hard either — they're so thin they may not even need a vapor chamber.
For intense gaming there is a pretty hot hot spot on the back of both foldables — the thinness means heat has nowhere to go.
Gaming at 120 Hz on the inner display is a spectacular experience — Arknights Endfield and similar 3D-heavy games look absolutely amazing.
Camera
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
The camera hardware is essentially unchanged from the A35 — 50MP main with OIS, 8MP ultrawide and 5MP macro on the back, with a new 12MP selfie (down from 13MP but with larger pixels). Reviewers agree the new selfie is a genuine improvement; everything else lives or dies by Samsung's image processing and Awesome Intelligence software. Main-camera daylight shots are punchy but sometimes oversaturated, the ultrawide is best avoided in low light, and there's no telephoto — just digital zoom up to 10x.
Main-camera daylight shots have plenty of detail and a nicely wide dynamic range, but exposure and color rendition can be inconsistent and Samsung's processing brightens shadows too much.
Colors can be a little off and you need to stay very still in low light to avoid a blurry image — the usual faults of camera phones in this price bracket.
The new 12MP front camera is a real upgrade over the A35's 13MP unit — selfie image quality has excellent detail and natural skin tones.
Selfie camera looks great with super-natural skin tones — Short Circuit found the front camera the strongest shooter on the phone.
All three rear lenses (50MP main, 8MP ultrawide, 5MP macro) carry over from the A35 — only the ISP and Awesome Intelligence software are new, so don't expect a hardware leap.
The 8MP ultrawide is mostly only useful in broad daylight, and the low-megapixel macro lens isn't worth the bezel space at this point — Nothing managed to fit a 2x telephoto into the Phone (3a) Pro at a similar price.
Compared to the A56, the A36's 1/1.96" main sensor is smaller than the A56's 1/1.56" sensor and pairs with an 8MP ultrawide vs the A56's 12MP — the A56 is the clear pick if camera matters.
Zoom tops out at 10x digital — there's no telephoto lens, so anything beyond 2x relies on crop-from-50MP processing.
Both rear and front cameras can record 4K at 30fps with 10-bit HDR on the selfie cam — solid video specs for the price.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
The TriFold's cameras are lifted directly from the Z Fold 7 — 200MP main, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto, plus 10MP selfie cameras on the cover and inner displays. Reviewers agree the system is competent but underwhelming on a $2,900 phone, particularly compared to the S25 Ultra's 50MP 5x telephoto and high-res ultrawide. Foldable-specific tricks include letting subjects see themselves on the cover screen and using rear cameras for higher-quality selfies.
The camera lineup is identical to the Z Fold 7 — a 200MP main, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto and two 10MP selfies — and the module protrudes meaningfully from the back.
The cameras are fine, but it sure feels like they could be better at this price — a decent 200MP main, middling 3x telephoto and ultrawide.
Compared to the S25 Ultra you're losing the high-res 5x telephoto and the high-res ultrawide — for $2,900 the TriFold should have at least the better ultrawide.
Selfie cameras max out at 10 MP and f/2.2 on both screens — not what buyers expect from one of the most expensive phones money can buy, and Samsung should bump resolution and sensor size next time.
Battery & Charging
Samsung Galaxy A36 5G
The 5,000 mAh battery is unchanged from the A35 but the bigger story is charging: 45W wired charging (up from 25W) now hits 60-66% in 30 minutes and full in around 68 minutes — faster than the Galaxy S25 itself. Real-world battery life lands around a full day with 20-40% to spare. The catch: no wireless charging, no charger in the box, and you'll need a separate 45W brick with a 5A-rated cable to hit the advertised speeds.
The 5,000 mAh battery comfortably lasts a day, with Wired regularly ending with 30-40% remaining and occasional heavy-use days dropping to 20% by 11pm.
Samsung's quoted charging math — 30 minutes to 65% and full in 68 minutes — matches what reviewers measured in practice and is faster than the Galaxy S25 itself.
Active-use battery score of 11 hours 38 minutes in GSMArena's standardised test is decent for the class, but actually a touch below last year's A35.
There's no charger in the box, and you'll need a Samsung 45W brick (or compatible USB-PD adapter) with a 5A-rated cable — the 3A cable Samsung ships won't unlock full 45W speed.
No wireless charging at all — Motorola's $300 Moto G Power and $400 Moto G Stylus 2025 both offer it at this price.
After a year of use Dave2D's retrospective measured the A36 charging from 0 to 66% in 30 minutes with no degradation in real-world battery longevity.
The charge bump from 25W to 45W is more about wall-clock time than the spec itself — a full charge is only about 12 minutes faster than the A35 in head-to-head testing.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Samsung split a 5,600 mAh cell into three packs, one per panel, to fit the chassis — that is 27% more capacity than the Z Fold 7 to power 50% more screen, but the lower 1,584×2,160 resolution helps offset the draw. Real-world numbers land between 7 and 9 hours of screen-on time, with a 12h 53m video-loop result in the most exhaustive drain test. Charging is 45 W wired (matching the S25 Ultra) and 15 W wireless — both faster than the Fold 7's, but slower than Huawei's 66 W wired on the Mate XT.
The triple-cell battery system comes out to 5,600 mAh — only a bit larger than batteries in phones with one small screen, so you may not get much use per charge with the TriFold fully unfurled and running multiple apps.
First-battery testing returned nearly 7 hours of screen-on time, including roughly 3.5 hours of YouTube on the inner display and almost 2 hours of gaming at max brightness.
With mixed use, multitasking and video playback, the TriFold averaged about 8 to 9 hours of screen-on time — the Z Fold 7 by comparison lasts around 6 to 7 hours on a charge.
In a looped-video drain test the TriFold lasted 12 hours and 53 minutes — about two hours less than a Z Fold 7 doing the same task, the extra screen real estate eating into the larger battery.
Samsung discontinued the Galaxy Z TriFold roughly three months after launch in both Korea and the US — Reddit's r/gadgets and r/Android megathreads both noted the device 'lasted roughly 6–7 Concords' and was 'always going to happen' at this price point.
At $2,900 it costs more than a flagship phone plus a flagship tablet combined — every publication review explicitly says you can buy an S25 Ultra and an iPad and an accessory loadout for less.
The chip is the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, not the newer Elite Gen 5 already shipping in the S26 Ultra, so the most expensive phone Samsung sells is lagging behind a $1,300 Ultra from launch.
Samsung discontinued the Galaxy Z TriFold roughly three months after launch in both Korea and the US — Reddit's r/gadgets and r/Android megathreads both noted the device 'lasted roughly 6–7 Concords' and was 'always going to happen' at this price point.
At $2,900 it costs more than a flagship phone plus a flagship tablet combined — every publication review explicitly says you can buy an S25 Ultra and an iPad and an accessory loadout for less.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy in the TriFold dominates the Kirin 9010 in Huawei's Mate XT on raw performance and benefits from 5G and modern Wi-Fi the Mate XT lacks.
You can switch the camera preview to the outer screen and shoot rear-camera selfies fully unfolded — but you're going to look like a doofus if you do.
Photos from the 200MP main are punchy, and the ultrawide has autofocus — a versatile setup, but not a meaningful step up over the Z Fold 7.
45 W wired charging finally matches the S25 Ultra and is a massive bump over the Z Fold 7 — 20 minutes nets ~46% and 30 minutes ~65%.
Samsung still trails Huawei on speed — the Mate XT charges at 66 W wired and 50 W wireless versus Samsung's 45 W and 15 W on the same nominal 5,600 mAh capacity.
If the TriFold had silicon-carbon battery tech like the Honor Magic 8 Pro's 7,100 mAh cell, the phone could be lighter, longer-lasting, or both.
