Last month, Samsung jacked up the price of two of its flagship smartphones by $100. Now, its two new midrange models—the Galaxy A37 5G and Galaxy A57 5G—are getting $50 price bumps, despite minor hardware updates over last year’s Galaxy A36 and A56. Samsung has also trimmed the lineup—there’s no successor to the Galaxy A26 this year, at least not yet.
These price increases may be indicative of the economic climate, what with tariffs, higher oil prices due to the war in Iran, and the memory shortage that has driven up RAM and storage costs across the board. If a phone’s price doesn’t go up, it could still mean fewer meaningful hardware upgrades to keep costs down, very much like the recent Google Pixel 10a. (The outlier is the iPhone 17e, which managed to add features like MagSafe and a new processor, along with a few other upgrades, without a change to the price over the iPhone 16e.)
“Price increases or ‘down‑speccing’ have become the norm,” writes Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC, in an email to WIRED. “Unfortunately, consumers will need to adjust to this new reality. The biggest bottleneck for brands right now is memory, with suppliers facing tight availability and significantly higher costs than in past years.” Ubrani says that while geopolitical factors haven’t yet affected hardware pricing, they are adding uncertainty that could increase costs in the future.
Samsung did not comment on exactly what is driving the price bump. However, it says consumers eyeing its A-series phones prioritize upgrading out of necessity—maybe their current phone just broke or is really old—and they don’t care much for AI features. Value for money is the number one purchase driver, above performance and battery life. So it’s a little odd to see the company raise prices, though Samsung hopes the improvements are compelling.
The Galaxy A57 5G costs $550 with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, and $610 if you bump storage to 256 GB. Meanwhile, the Galaxy A37 5G starts at $450 for 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, or $540 for 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. They both officially go on sale on April 9.
Small Updates
Processor upgrades are the main highlight for these phones. The Galaxy A37 is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 1480, which should offer 14 percent better CPU performance, 24 percent better graphics, and, perhaps shockingly, 167 percent better neural processing performance—helpful for AI tasks. That’s compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip in last year’s Galaxy A36.
The Galaxy A57 sports the Exynos 1680, which isn’t a huge leap over the Exynos 1580 in the Galaxy A56, but still offers a nice lift: 10 percent better CPU performance, 7 percent faster graphics, and 42 percent improved neural processing. Both of these phones still have the same 5,000-mAh battery capacity and charging speeds. (There’s no wireless charging, despite competing phones like the iPhone 17e or Google Pixel 10a offering the feature.)
