Samsung Galaxy A26 5G

The Galaxy A26 uses a similar camera setup as its predecessor, featuring a 50MP primary camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a 2MP macro lens. There's a 13MP snapper on the front for selfies and video calls. As mentioned, the rear cameras now come in a pill-shaped module, which sets the Galaxy A26 apart from its pricier Galaxy A-series siblings.Rear camera performance is fairly decent, offering good dynamic range. Colours tend to appear a bit muted compared to real life, and detail levels could be better, particularly in portrait shots.Low-light performance leaves room for improvement, particularly in delivering sharper results. On the plus side, the phone's native editing tools are simple to use, offering plenty of options to enhance your photos. Overall, the rear cameras get the job done, though both hardware and software tuning could be better for wider appeal. For me, the real highlight is the front camera, as it captures excellent selfies with near-accurate colours and well-preserved textures.I compared the phone's cameras against one of its key rivals, the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion (review). Here's how the two phones fared against each other: DaylightThere's a major difference between the Galaxy A26 and the Edge 60 Fusion's approach towards colours. The former typically prioritises cooler tones, while the shot with the Edge 60 Fusion is on the warmer side. They are evenly matched in detail and clarity levels, although the Galaxy A26's image may look aesthetically less appealing with softer colours.Ultra-wideBoth phones undergo colour shifts when switching to their ultra-wide lenses. The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion's ultra-wide shot features a strange yellow tint with average visibility due to high contrast. Samsung's image looks relatively better, though it's still not perfect. Based on details, Samsung still has some way to go with its ultra-wide camera.PortraitIn portrait shots, the Samsung Galaxy A26 delivers more natural colours and portrays a near-accurate skin tone. The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion also does a great job with the skin tone, although it tends to saturate the image a little heavily. In terms of facial details, the Edge 60 Fusion delivers slightly better results, while the Galaxy A26 smooths them out.SelfieThe Samsung Galaxy A26 sticks to natural colour reproduction for its selfies. The details are crisp, and it even preserves all the facial details with great clarity. The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion keeps the colours a lot more saturated, but it doesn't deliver as many facial details and has comparatively lower clarity.Low-light (night mode enabled)The Galaxy A26's low-light shot looks much better exposed and more vibrant at first glance. However, when looked at closely, the former's detail level isn't great, and the objects appear softer with poor edge detection. The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion, in comparison, preserves the texture and detail level.

The Samsung Exynos 1380 SoC powers the Galaxy A26, paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. The storage is further expandable with a microSD card. In terms of performance, the phone works pretty well for day-to-day use and general purposes.I did encounter some lag while trying to multitask and sometimes in the settings itself, although nothing too jarring. Looking at the benchmarks, you'll notice the phone isn't a powerhouse in the segment. This also means that hardcore gamers would prefer more juice for long hours of consistent gaming. While it will easily deliver decent performance in medium graphical settings in titles like COD: Mobile and BGMI, you may notice some frame drops if you push the settings higher.However, Samsung seldom boasts numbers and focuses on the software experience with its custom One UI. The phone ships with One UI 7 based on Android 15 out of the box with 6 years of OS and security updates promise, the highest yet in its segment.You can still enjoy AI features (Circle to Search, Object Eraser, AI Select, and Read Aloud) as a part of the Android 15 OS, but these are limited compared to other A-series phones. Smartphones Pre-installed Software support Samsung Galaxy A26536 OS upgrades + 6 security updatesPOCO X76.67-inch AMOLED3 OS upgrades + 4 security updatesMotorola Edge 60 Fusion433 OS upgrades + 4 security updates

The phone packs the same 5,000mAh battery with support for 25W fast charging. Samsung could've considered adding a bigger unit, as 5,500mAh to 6,000mAh batteries are slowly becoming the norm in this segment, with a few outliers even pushing up to 7,000mAh.In our lab tests, the phone dropped 29 percent over two hours of gaming and streaming, which is noticeably higher than the segment average of 24 percent. I got around 6 hours of screen-on time, with some 5G usage in between. Its PCMark score was also a bit average at just 12 hours.Smartphones BatteryCharging (20-100%)Samsung Galaxy A265,000 mAh69 minutes (25W)POCO X76,000 mAh51 minutes (45W)Motorola Edge 60 Fusion5,500 mAh44 minutes (68W)