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Samsung Galaxy M36 Review: All Style, No Substance?

Samsung Galaxy M36 Review: All Style, No Substance?

Samsung’s Galaxy M36 cuts a few corners over its predecessor to get a fresh, new look. Here's our review.

Written by Sheldon Pinto, Edited by Ketan Pratap | Updated: 15 September 2025 12:22 IST

Samsung Galaxy M36 Review: All Style, No Substance?

The Samsung Galaxy M36 is priced from Rs. 17,499 in India

Highlights

The Galaxy M36’s gets a slimmer design with new colourways
It lacks stereo speakers offered by its predecessor
It has a smaller battery over the previous model

In India's rather competitive budget smartphone segment, smartphone brands constantly strive to offer more value. Year on year, manufacturers attempt to introduce at least one new feature that may make headlines, but more often than not, they end up adding value. Indeed, only a few of these budget offerings come close to delivering the experience they promise on paper. The Galaxy M35 was Samsung's robust budget offering, which aimed to deliver the basics. It stood out mainly because it delivered on some fronts in spite of its humble processor. However, unlike the Galaxy M35, Samsung's new Galaxy M36 offers a brand-new design, but instead of adding new features, it ends up cutting down a few.

Now brands are known for cutting corners, but they often do this to push out new hardware or upgrades in other areas. Armed with just a cosmetic overhaul, Samsung has somehow tried to justify the Galaxy M36's downgrades by reducing the price of the base model this year. But after weeks of using it, I somehow find it hard to recommend and here's why.

Samsung Galaxy M36 Design

Samsung's Galaxy M-series has never been high on design. The brand has always gone with basic polycarbonate shells, while making way for better hardware choices (like bigger batteries). This year's Galaxy M36 (a rebadged Galaxy F36) stands out, mainly because of its new colourways. Available in Orange Haze, Velvet Black, and Serene Green, the new colourways offer a two-tone finish, with a matte silver polycarbonate frame and a contrasting yet stylish coloured rear panel.

Samsung Galaxy M35 Review: Budget Star

The Orange Haze unit we received for review looks modern with its iridescent copper orange sheen, which also adorns the slightly raised capsule-shaped camera module.

Samsung aims to deliver a slim (7.7mm versus 9.1mm) design, which mimics a premium metallic appearance. To an extent, its overall weight (which is quite heavy at 197g) does lend it that feeling. But I quickly realised its budget roots after I was left with a rather sticky and smudge-filled rear panel within minutes of use. Indeed, I would have preferred something more basic or practical versus this stylish design that feels “inexpensive” when held.

Samsung's Galaxy M36 sure is slimmer than the Galaxy M35 it replaces

Samsung now offers a slightly (just a wee bit) bigger, 6.7-inch full-HD+, Super AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. It's protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus+, which isn't easy to smudge and is quite the contrast to the messy rear panel. It shows the usual saturated colours, which Samsung AMOLEDs are known for, and also gets sufficiently bright when used outdoors.

The dated waterdrop notch display, despite showing marginally thinner borders, still has a very thick chin

But this is where you will notice the first downgrade. Samsung, for the sake of marginally thinner bezels, decided to switch to a dated waterdrop notch for its selfie camera instead of the hole-punch camera on the Galaxy M35.

Samsung Galaxy M36 Performance

One area where the Galaxy does get a guaranteed upgrade is its software. Samsung has committed to 6 years of OS and SMR updates for the Galaxy M36, which just cannot be matched by smartphones offered by other brands at this price point.

Of course, long-term software support also raises other questions about whether the Galaxy M36's humble hardware can even handle future Android updates.

The phone currently runs Android 15, powered by One UI 7.0 and the software experience is typically Samsung. It also comes with a few third-party apps baked in, some of which cannot be uninstalled. Given the humble Exynos 1380 (5nm) processor, the bloated One UI software does feel a bit heavy, but it also brings plenty of AI features (Gemini Live, translate and more) that many users may find useful. Indeed, there's plenty more to come in terms of new Galaxy AI features and tools, as we await the Android 16-based One UI 8.0 update, which should drop in soon.

The single speaker is loud but sounds very treble-heavy and one-sided. It's also quite easy to block when playing games or watching videos.

Benchmarks	Samsung Galaxy M36	Realme P3 Pro	CMF Phone 2 Pro
Display resolution	FHD+	1.5K	FHD+
Chipset	Exynos 1380 (5 nm)	Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 (4nm)	MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro
AnTuTu v10	6,00,808	8,42,381	6,91,275
PCMark Work 3.0	14,358	13,816	12,102
Geekbench 6 Single	1,015	1,185	1,013
Geekbench 6 Multi	2,976	3,209	2,928
GFXB T-rex	95	60	60
GFXB Manhattan 3.1	43	39	51
GFXB Car Chase	23	21	29
3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL	4,683	5,405	NA
3DM Slingshot	5,813	6,871	NA
3DM Wild Life	2,718	4,101	3,148
3DM Wild Life Unlimited	2,676	4,183	3,148

Given the modest hardware, the Samsung Galaxy M36 can still run moderately demanding 3D titles just fine. I tried out Asphalt Legends, and the phone could run the game smoothly at the highest possible graphics settings in 60fps mode. The phone did warm up while doing so, but performance did not take a hit, mainly because of the VC cooling system, which was thankfully not removed when cutting corners. The same also kept the phone running cool when using the camera app outdoors.

The Samsung Galaxy M36 offers the same cameras as the older Galaxy M35

Samsung goes with the same camera setup as on last year's Galaxy M35. We have a 50-megapixel optically-stabilised primary camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera. There's also the 2-megapixel macro camera, which is simply in place to fill up a spec sheet, as its performance is very poor, managing blurry photos at best. A 13-megapixel selfie camera remains in charge of selfies.

The primary camera captures decent images in daylight but performs poorly in low light. Top to bottom: 2X primary, 1X primary camera, 1X primary, 1X Primary low-light (Tap images to expand)

The details aren't the best I've seen at this price point, as the phone struggles to capture finer details like foliage. I also noticed that it overexposes objects in the background, leading to some clipped highlights. However, I could use its 2X digital magnification and capture better close-ups of objects, managing sharper (if not the best) images compared to the dedicated macro shooter. The primary camera's low-light performance is modest at best. Noise is under control, and dynamic range is decent with some detail available in the shadows, but textures are smudgy, and so, there's not much detail when you pixel peep.

The ultra-wide camera performs decently in daylight, offering a wide field of view, but struggles to capture finer details in textures. There's some noticeable purple fringing around brighter objects and blur towards the edges of the image. Its low-light performance is not useful as photos come out both soft and noisy. (Tap image to expand)

The selfie camera does a good job in daylight, managing sharp textures, but edge detection (in Portrait mode) is not very accurate. (Tap image to expand)

As for video, the camera can capture 1080p video at 30 and 60 fps. 4K video recording is also available, but limited to 30 fps. Videos captured in daylight show good detail and dynamic range with a steady framerate. 4K video hits the sweet spot with impressive detail and good stabilisation. In low-light video recordings, the footage becomes very noisy.

The Samsung Galaxy M36 can barely make it through a day with heavy usage

In our HD video loop test, which plays a video in a loop till the battery runs out, the Galaxy M36 lasted a rather disappointing 17 hours and 55 minutes, which is a far cry from the 47 hours and 17 minutes achieved by the Galaxy M35. PCMark's Work Battery Life test, which runs a bunch of daily tasks in a loop, also managed a below-average score of 10 hours and 1 minute. For reference, the Realme P3 Pro with a 6,000mAh battery managed 26 hours and 54 minutes in the video loop test and 17 hours and 30 minutes in the Work Battery Life test, respectively.

With real-world usage, the 5nm processor and 5,000mAh battery combination barely lasts a day of heavy and continuous use. Charging is also relatively slow at 25W. The phone took 1 hour and 28 minutes to fully charge. Unlike most competing smartphones available at this price point, Samsung does not include a charger in the box.

Samsung Galaxy M36 Verdict

The only reason I would recommend the Samsung Galaxy M36 is for its long-term software support. Of course, this does not mean that this humble Galaxy M-series phone will be the first to receive updates (there will be plenty of waiting involved for sure). But those who hang on to their budget phones for years will definitely find it a good enough reason to invest in the Galaxy M36.

With the 8GB RAM variant priced at an additional Rs. 1,500, it's a no-brainer to skip the 6GB variant, which we reviewed. However, I find it challenging to recommend the Galaxy M36, as the older M35 offers more value with its larger 6,000mAh battery.

That said, Realme's P3 Pro (which has now been replaced with the P4 Pro) currently retails at a much lower price of Rs. 19,999 on Realme's website (since launch) and is a much better deal as it offers a better camera, vegan leather design, and a bigger battery with faster charging. Nothing's CMF Phone 2 Pro is also a solid purchase for those who would like to try out something different. The phone also offers immense value for money with three rear-facing cameras, as explained in our review. Lastly, there's also the brand-new Realme P4, which aims to deliver solid performance with its MediaTek Dimensity 7400 Ultra processor and a massive 7,000mAh battery in a slim 7.58mm package.

Samsung Galaxy M36 5G

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Design
Display
Software
Performance
Battery Life
Camera
Value for Money

Good
Vibrant 120Hz SuperAMOLED panel
Smooth software operation
6 years of software updates
Runs cool when stressed

Bad
Average daylight and poor low-light cameras
Design is a smudge magnet
Slow charging
Battery life barely lasts a day
No charger in box

Read detailed Samsung Galaxy M36 5G review

Display 6.70-inch

Front Camera 13-megapixel

Rear Camera 50-megapixel + 8-megapixel + 2-megapixel

RAM 6GB, 8GB

Storage 128GB, 256GB

Battery Capacity 5000mAh

OS Android 15

Resolution 2340x1080 pixels

More Samsung mobiles Samsung mobiles price in India

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Further reading: Samsung, Samsung Galaxy M36, Samsung Galaxy M36 5G, Samsung Galaxy M36 Design, Samsung Galaxy M36 Software, Samsung Galaxy M36 Performance, Samsung Galaxy M36 Specifications, Samsung Galaxy M36 Features, Samsung Galaxy M36 Cameras, Samsung Galaxy M36 Battery

Sheldon Pinto

Email Sheldon Pinto

Sheldon Pinto is based in Mumbai, and has several years of experience in reviewing smartphones and gadgets. As a Senior Reviewer at Gadgets 360, you will always find him deeply immersed in his reviews, switching from one phone to another. When the battery dies out, Sheldon is always browsing the web for a good sci-fi movie or reading up on cars and bikes. He also loves creating lists of interesting places to eat and travel. Sheldon is available on Twitter at @shellshocd, and you can mail him at ...More