Samsung's formula for mid-range smartphones has not really changed for the better over the years. Year after year, we keep seeing slightly refreshed designs, which look and feel familiar, packed with hardware that powers a software experience, which also feels… very familiar. This isn't “familiar” in a good way, but more in stagnated form, that some of its customers may actually prefer. Indeed, many go to Samsung for their software update commitment and the new Galaxy A26 does not disappoint on that front. It also gets design and display upgrades. While all of this sounds great, it's still stuck behind the growing competition and here's why.

Samsung Galaxy A26 Design

The Galaxy A26, the most affordable mid-range model in its A series, looks and feels premium. Samsung has used Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus+ for both the front and rear panels. Of the two, only the rear panel is good at rejecting smudges.

The phone's overall design has not changed and appears familiar to the Galaxy A25 launched last year. The small raised bump on the right side of the flat frame, highlighting the volume and power buttons, is still there, making them easy to find given the phone's size.

The raised bump around the volume and power buttons makes it easier to find them

The Galaxy A26's overall design makes an impression, giving a sense of quality and premium-ness, but flip it over, and the feeling goes away instantly.

Despite the size upgrade from 6.5 to 6.7 inches, the Super AMOLED panel retains the thick borders from its predecessor, along with the ugly water drop notch and thick bottom edge. It definitely feels out of place on a mid-range smartphone in 2025, and it really makes one wonder why they are paying so much for a device with an outdated display—more on this in the performance section.

The display glass on the Galaxy A26 gets smudged easily

The glossy rear panel combined with the matte-finish polycarbonate mid-frame does make the phone very slippery. It's good to put on a case (not included in the box) if you are clumsy. On that note, Samsung also gave the A26 an IP67 dust and water resistance rating. Going by the standard, this phone can withstand immersion in freshwater (up to 1 meter). However, just like all manufacturers, damage due to water ingress is not covered under warranty. So, use it in water only if you have to.

Samsung Galaxy A26 Performance

Despite the size upgrade, not much has changed compared to the previous model. The display's colours appear a bit saturated even in the Natural screen colour mode. Viewing angles are great even though the brightness levels aren't the best in class. So, it isn't ideal for viewing content outdoors even though it's sufficiently bright indoors. Naturally, you don't get HDR10+ support, unlike some smartphones at this price point. But I'm happy to see Widevine L1 streaming quality supported.

There's just one bottom-firing speaker and it does not sound good

Given that this is a mid-range device, I was a bit surprised to see just one bottom-firing speaker on the Galaxy A26. The speaker is quite poor when it comes to sound reproduction and produces very treble-heavy audio, which sounds more irritating than rich at high volume. Some smartphones offer much better audio quality at this price point.

The device runs Samsung's One UI 7 out of the box. Based on Android 15, it offers plenty of customisation along with the new look that version 7 delivers. Software operation is quite smooth. Samsung's optimisations aside, this is also down to the 120Hz panel, which always sticks to the 120Hz refresh rate when set to High motion smoothness. This has other implications when it comes to battery life.

The SuperAMOLED panel offers deep blacks but can you get past those thick borders and that notch?

There are tons of AI tools to play around with but I found the language translation tool quite useful. The image editing tool was up for the job but could not handle slightly complex object-erasing queries like the high-end Galaxy models. The Now Bar relays Live Notifications from various apps (including system apps) to the lock screen making it quite useful.

There's the usual Samsung suite of apps but also a few third party apps from Microsoft, a VPN app and some pre-installed games. Out of these, the VPN app could not be uninstalled. One annoying thing I noticed when using the phone is the lock screen ads (from Samsung) being relayed via the Glance Lockscreen integration. The setting to disable this annoying default has been moved to the Wallpaper and style menu in Settings, where you have to choose ‘None' instead of Dynamic, Glance or Samsung Global Goals.

Samsung's One UI 7 offers plenty of AI tools

Gaming performance is very mid-range. With most games, you will get access to mid-level graphics options due to the phone's chipset and RAM limitations. Still, I could play fast-paced games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt Legends Unite smoothly at default settings, which defaulted to medium settings with most effects turned off. Cranking up the settings did not make the Galaxy A26 sweat either. It's just that the heat (despite the graphite sheets) eventually builds up, which is when you start to see slowdowns or skipped frames. Touch-sampling is satisfactory and there's no noticeable touch-input lag when playing games.

Samsung has still done a good job handling heat, so I did not see any pop-ups or notifications when using the camera outdoors or when playing games. As for benchmarks, the phone's performance is similar to what other phones have achieved at this price point, save for the devices with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 SoC, which performed better.

Like the previous model, the Samsung Galaxy A26 offers three rear-facing cameras. The 50-megapixel primary (OIS), 8-megapixel ultra-wide and 2-megapixel macro setup remain the same as before. The selfie camera also retains the old 13-megapixel sensor.

Samsung Galaxy A26 Primary camera samples (tap images to expand)

The primary camera produces decent photos at best. The image quality is sub-par even in daylight (with slightly overcast conditions). The photos come out a bit overexposed, dynamic range is a bit off, but my biggest problem with this camera is that it's not able to pull out details from a scene. Images are often low on resolved detail. In many instances, I also noticed random blurred patches where the camera seemed to have given up on processing finer patterns. Foliage appears like an oil painting. Colours appear natural but there's a slightly bluish tone to all of them. Indeed this was unexpected given that this camera has optical image stabilisation (OIS).

There's a very noticeable watercolour effect in low light, meaning the textures appear like paintings, despite switching to the auto-night mode. (tap image to expand)

Selfies show good colour detail and have good contrast. However, there is a noticeable halo-like ring around the subject, hinting at average edge detection. (tap image to expand)

Portraits from the primary camera came out fine. Skin tones are accurate, but textures are low on resolved detail, edge detection is a bit too aggressive. (tap image to expand)

The macro camera produces very poor photos with very low resolution, making it useless. I managed better pictures from the primary camera as it let me get close to the subject. (tap image to expand)

Samsung Galaxy A26 ultrawide camera sample (tap image to expand)

Photos from the ultrawide camera come out a bit darker, and have less detail and limited dynamic range, meaning it's hard to spot any details in the shadows and darker coloured objects even in daylight. There's also very noticeable purple fringing in the brighter spots and plenty of lens barrel distortion. Low-light photos are quite poor with the camera barely able to manage noise.

4K video recordings managed the best details but tended to skip focus while panning. The 4K 30 fps footage also lacks stabilisation and appears wobbly when panning or walking. 1080p video captured at 60 fps has a steady frame rate but also shows some wobbling when panning. 1080p 30 fps recordings managed the best stabilisation with slightly watered-down quality. When shooting in low light, 1080p video recorded at 30 fps managed the most stable footage but with very low detail. 4K 30 fps video recordings appeared wobbly and had a lot of noise.

Despite packing a 5,000mah battery, the Galaxy A26's screen time figures aren't impressive

Charging speeds and battery capacity haven't changed since the Galaxy A25. So, we have a standard 5,000mAh battery that charges 30 percent in 30 minutes and completes the charge at a very leisurely pace in 1 hour and 57 minutes when plugged into a third-party 100W PD charger.

Battery life isn't great either. Our PCMark Battery Life test, which runs a series of daily tasks in loop, returned a low score of 8 hours and 53 minutes. The Nothing Phone 3a with a similar-sized battery managed 17 hours and 40 minutes with the same test. As for our HD video loop battery test, the Galaxy A26 managed an equally poor 17 hours and 11 minutes, which is several hours less than what most phones at this price point manage. Simply put, our testing indicates that the phone will barely last a work day (9AM to 6PM) with heavy and continuous usage. Casual users should get a day's battery life provided the phone isn't pushed to its limits.

Samsung Galaxy A26 Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy A26's standout features are currently limited to its software commitment and IP67-rated design. Everything else falls short or is a step behind competing smartphones at this price point. And so, it's really hard to recommend unless all you want from a smartphone is AI features and great software support.

There's also a sea of competing smartphones to choose from. Nothing's Phone 3a is a capable and snazzy smartphone for those looking for something different or special at this price point. Those looking for better raw performance can look at the Poco F6 and the recently launched iQOO Neo 10R, which are priced below and above the Galaxy A26. If you want mega battery life, then the Vivo T4 with its massive 7,300mAh battery is an ideal choice. And if you are thinking of spending upwards of Rs. 26,000, then OnePlus' Nord 4 is a solid all-rounder.