I'm far from a phone enthusiast. My phones have all been relatively mid range Moto G phones over the years and I've been reasonably happy with them. My Moto G Stylus (2022) was working fine after almost three years, but was done with security updates and started exhibiting some quirky behaviors like extremely long restarts, a finicky fingerprint reader, and a bit of slow down overall. Given that electronics are about to skyrocket in price, I figured rather than waiting until it was completely unusable, I'd be proactive in getting a new phone until (hopefully) all this instability calms down.My wife's Moto G Power from 2020 was in rough shape, so I looked at the new mid range Moto G line and was somewhat unimpressed, especially at the continued lack of longer support. When I stumbled upon the A36 for the same price as the Moto G Stylus 5G from the previous year, I figured I'd give it a shot. With a decent SOC, camera, etc. and six years of OS and security updates from Samsung being promised, it seemed like it was time to move away from Moto. We both have Samsung tablets we've been happy with, so I wasn't concerned about One UI being much different from the more vanilla Android the Moto phones have. She loved her A36 so much right out of the box, I figured I'd get one too. Once I had (painlessly) moved everything over from my old phone using the transfer app, I was equally happy.The fast charging is awesome. The battery hasn't even dipped below 50% for my average day, and I now get 5G with my carrier, which has some speed perks with it. This thing also syncs up much quicker with our wireless Android Auto. I use an adapter with my Honda--ironically the Moto one--and my wife's newer Subaru has wireless natively, but was hit or miss and ran so slow with her old Moto, but no more!She opted for the purple color, which is nice, and I just went for black because I'm boring. They're nice looking phones. The sound is loud and clear and I have no complaints, though I have probably heard better. In general, this is a solid mid-range phone that will hopefully last me the full six years it has for support. I've already recommended it to my my brother who still uses a flip phone but can't stand how terrible it is since he had to switch with the 3G shutdown. For those that don't need latest and greatest, this is a solid pick.

Very nice phone. Started very easily with a cord to switch everything from my old phone to it. Loads fast,takes fantastic pictures. Cheap price for a new Samsung phone

Got it at a nice price during Prime days, which made the investment (for me) possible. Great screen and camera, nice and stable operation. I don't play games on it, so haven't stressed its capabilities. Very happy with extended software support, so plan to use it for a number of years. HOWEVER, I really wish it had more than 6GB RAM (an 8GB model is supposed to be released later this year in the US, to match the rest of the world). Still, I wish it had 12GB+, which would give me more confidence in its long-term viability. I would NOT consider the international version if you're in the US. After looking up the frequencies the international model can access and those that T-Mobile operates on, there seems to be no overlap. Specifically look up the frequencies for other carriers. I really wanted an A56, but no US model was available. This A36 seems to be a good compromise, with a lot of A56 capabilities.

I recently purchased the Samsung A36 5G (4GB RAM, 256GB storage), and after giving myself a couple of weeks to really use it, I can say overall I’m happy with it—especially as this is my first Samsung phone.The setup process was a bit frustrating. Not everything transferred from my old phone, which was about four years old. Only my contacts (including some from two phones ago) and my pictures came through. I think part of the issue was that my previous phone didn’t support some of the newer features, which made the transfer process more difficult.Another concern at first was how long the phone took to update. It took about three days, which made me think something was wrong. That’s one of the reasons I waited before writing this review.As for the phone itself, I really like it. It’s much lighter and noticeably faster than my previous phone. The design is sleek, and it feels good to use. The camera quality is decent (perfectly fine for me, since photography wasn’t a major factor in my purchase).One thing to note: the phone does not come with a charging plug or headphones, so you’ll need to purchase those separately. It does include a charging cable and the SIM card tool. I bought a case and screen protector at the same time as the phone, but didn’t think about the plug, so keep that in mind.The main downside for me is the battery. It doesn’t last as long as my old phone’s battery, and the phone can get warm when multiple apps are open. On the plus side, it does charge faster than my previous devices.For $349.99, it’s a good phone, though the battery could be better.Overall, despite a few drawbacks, I’m satisfied with the Samsung A36 5G. It’s a solid phone with good performance, especially if you’re upgrading from an older device.