Samsung Galaxy A36 5G vs Vivo X300 Ultra

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.

Vivo X300 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 plus Vivo's custom imaging silicon delivers flagship benchmark numbers and strong gaming, but the camera-heavy hardware runs hot — sustained stress tests show roughly 60–65% stability and the camera app warms it up fast.

• At the heart is Qualcomm's current flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, supplemented by Vivo's custom VS1 and V3-Plus imaging chips.
• It boots in 16 seconds (vs 21s for the S26 Ultra and 19s for the iPhone 17 Pro Max) and posts an AnTuTu score over 3,800,000, stronger than Samsung.
• In a prolonged stress test it throttled CPU performance to about 60% of peak — in line with other high-powered flagships — and 3DMark stability landed around 63–66%.
• It gets a bit hot after 30–40 minutes of gaming, but with no throttling even past an hour and never uncomfortable to hold; boost mode at max graphics gives around 4 hours of Wuthering Waves on a full charge.
• Native 120fps gaming with smooth/very-high graphics in many titles, with temperature barely crossing 35°C and power draw around 4W in battle-royale modes.

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.

Vivo X300 Ultra

Vivo grew the silicon-carbon cell 10% to 6,600mAh while keeping the body the same size. Real-world endurance is strong — ~16h active-use score, ~7h heavy screen-on, 13–14 hour days with charge to spare — and 100W wired refills it in under an hour, with 40W wireless.

• Vivo increased the battery by 10% to 6,600mAh despite the phone being practically the same size on paper.
• In our battery test it earned an active-use score of almost 16 hours; 100W charging took it 0–66% in 30 minutes and a full charge in 46 minutes, plus 40W wireless. A charger is in the box except in Europe.
• On the China version I'm finishing entire 13–14 hour days with 25–30% left; the global version keeps the 6,600mAh cell so battery life should comfortably last 12–13 hours of heavy use.
• Getting nearly 7 hours of screen-on time with very heavy usage from the 6,600mAh silicon-carbon unit, with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging support.
• After a 4-hour heavy-usage simulation the phone still had ~45% battery left, which is solid by today's standards, and 100W wired charging takes about 45 minutes to full.