Is this the most interesting Samsung phone by design? Galaxy F36 5G attracts not only with its leather back

Samsung has officially unveiled the new Galaxy F36 5G in India without much fanfare. The new device primarily boasts a premium design with a leather pattern on the back in three attractive colors – Coral Red, Luxury Purple, and Onyx Black. The phone features an exceptionally thin profile of just 7.7 mm while retaining a robust battery and decent camera setup. The Korean manufacturer is clearly targeting customers looking for a stylish smartphone with long-term software support at an affordable price.

Premium Display and Familiar Internals

The front is dominated by a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen is protected by durable Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is rather rare for phones in this price category. The design is only interrupted by a small waterdrop notch, which houses a 13Mpx selfie camera with 4K video support.

Performance is handled by the Exynos 1380 chipset along with 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The option to expand storage via a microSD card by up to 2 TB is a welcome feature. Incidentally, the same processor was used in the Samsung Galaxy A54 or last year’s Galaxy A35 5G. Today, better chips could certainly be found, so the processor cannot be considered a particularly strong point of the device.

Triple Camera Setup

The Samsung Galaxy F36 5G comes with three cameras on the back. The main 50Mpx sensor features an f/1.8 aperture and, most importantly, optical image stabilization (OIS), which helps minimize shakes. It is complemented by an 8Mpx ultra-wide-angle lens (f/2.2) and a 2Mpx macro camera (f/2.4). The icing on the cake is 4K video support for both the main and front cameras.

The cameras also support a range of AI features such as Object Eraser for removing unwanted objects from images, Image Clipper for cutting out objects, and Edit Suggestions, which offer automatic editing proposals. The Circle to Search feature from Google is also present, allowing you to search for anything by circling it on the screen.

Battery, Connectivity, and Excellent Software Support

Power is supplied by a 5,000mAh battery with support for 25W fast charging. Compared to solutions from Chinese phones, neither of these values is particularly attractive, but we are already used to this more conservative approach from Samsung. In terms of connectivity, the phone offers 5G, dual Wi-Fi AC, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, and NFC with Tap and Pay functionality. IP67 water and dust resistance is also included.

Undoubtedly, the software is a significant draw. The Galaxy F36 5G comes with Android 15 and the modern One UI 7 overlay. Furthermore, Samsung promises six generations of operating system updates and six years of security updates, which is above average in this price category. The phone will therefore receive updates until 2031.

Price and Availability

The Samsung Galaxy F36 5G will be available in India from July 29 at a price of 17,499 rupees (approximately 4,300 CZK) for the 6/128 GB version and 18,999 rupees (about 4,700 CZK) for the 8/128 GB variant. The model will not officially be released on the Czech market. Instead, it is worth considering, for example, the Samsung Galaxy A36 5G or the cheaper Galaxy A26 5G.

What do you think of the design and features of the Galaxy F36 5G?

Sources: Samsung, Gizmochina, GSMArena