AI features trickle down to Samsung A phones, get extended update cycle

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The A36 and A56 now get features such as Object Eraser and Best Face, along with Circle-To-Search, which Samsung says are the most used of its AI features

MANILA, Philippines – About a year and a few months since Samsung started packaging its set of AI capabilities as Galaxy AI via its flagship S-series, starting with 2024’s S24, Samsung is finally pushing the feature set onto its midrange A-series phones, the A56 and A36.

Leading the pack is Circle-To-Search, a way to search for whatever’s currently on your phone’s screen by encircling them, and is accessed by long-pressing the home button. To be clear, Samsung first quietly brought the feature in August 2024 to that year’s crop of A phones. Now, with this year’s models, the brand is putting the feature front and center as part of the phones’ “Awesome Intelligence” feature set.

The version of Circle-To-Search on the new A phones are in line with what’s currently on the recently released S25 flagship, with the new ability to detect a song either from a hum or by listening to whatever’s playing.

Back in July, Samsung said that its Galaxy AI features have become available on 200 million devices, surpassing the initial 100-million target for 2024 it originally announced.

At the time, Samsung’s Jisun Park, executive vice president and smartphone software project leader, told Rappler how the company was going about possibly bringing Galaxy AI to the A phones: “We are kind of investigating and looking into the possibility of expanding features to A series as well. There are many factors that we need to consider – especially for on-device [AI] features, there are hardware constraints, and many other factors. So we are investigating it, and we will figure out what the right set of features that we can deploy to or expand to A series. But nothing has been decided yet.”

After being launched on the S24, Galaxy AI, which has been credited by analysts for encouraging sales for the said model, has trickled down to previous generation flagships up to 2022’s S22, the “budget” flagship variant FE models, and current Samsung tablets.

The number now grows bigger with the AI features arriving on the A phones.

The number of AI features that will be coming from the S flagships to the A phones are limited though. Aside from Circle-To-Search, there’s Best Face, which allows you to select from a number of AI-generated faces to replace yours if needed.

For example, in a group photo, everyone’s faces look ok, but you happen to have blinked or didn’t look at the camera. Best Face lets you generate a different face where your eyes are open, or are looking at the camera.

A demo of Samsung’s Best Face

There’s also Object Eraser, which allows you to remove unwanted elements in a photo, which was one of the most touted AI features from the S phones before. A new feature called Filters also let you create a custom filter based on a photo you took.

It will also have AI Select, which is a contextual menu on the phone based on what’s on the screen, which debuted on the S25.

Notable features such as live translation, transcription, audio eraser, and chat assistant unfortunately didn’t make the jump from S to A. One possible explanation, as we’ve discussed before, may be that the A’s chipset simply cannot handle those processes yet. Those functions are processed on-device and not via the cloud. Circle-To-Search and Object Eraser are cloud-based functions.

Apart from the select AI features, key improvements on the A36 include a slightly bigger screen (6.7 inches up from 6.6); 45-watt fast-charging up from 25 watts; a 4nm Snapdragon 6 Gen chipset replacing last year’s 5nm Exynos chipset; a new 12MP front camera sensor that now has video HDR capabilities; and a new eSIM capability.

The A56 also now has a 12MP video HDR-capable front camera, faster fast-charging (25 watts to 45-watts); a slightly bigger screen, and a new Exynos chipset.

The biggest improvement though may be its jump in number of OS and security updates. Samsung promised 4 OS updates, and 5 years of security updates for previous generation A phones. This time, they get 6 OS updates, and 6 years of security updates — following the precedent set by its S phones, which have a longer 7 years of OS and security updates.

The two phones are still both IP67 water and dustproof.

For the A36, the 128GB variant is priced P19,990 while the 256GB variant is P21,990. The A56 starts at P23,990 (128GB) and tops out at P25,990 (256GB). They will be available on March 17. – Rappler.com