Samsung has kicked off the One UI 9.0 beta for the Galaxy A36 5G, and India is the first market to get it. The rollout puts the A36 among the earliest Galaxy A-series phones to run Samsung’s Android 17-based software ahead of its stable release, and it comes just months after the same phone was one of the first mid-rangers to test One UI 8.5.
The first build is tagged A366EXXUCZZHI and weighs in at roughly 2.38GB, matching the SM-A366E variant sold in India. It’s confirmed straight from Samsung’s own Members community board, where Samsung says registrations for the program are now open. Anyone on an eligible A36 in India can sign up through Samsung Members, then head to Settings > Software update to download and install once accepted. As with any early beta, expect the usual rough edges, occasional bugs, faster battery drain, and app compatibility hiccups until later builds iron things out.
The A36 has quietly become a regular in Samsung’s beta program. It joined the One UI 8.5 beta back in April 2026, again as an India-only rollout, after picking up the stable One UI 8 update in South Korea the previous September. Under the hood, it’s still running the same Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset that turned in solid results in phoonomo’s own A36 benchmark testing, so the hardware has enough headroom to handle Android 17 without much fuss.
One UI 9 itself is built on Android 17, and Samsung first showed it off in beta form on the Galaxy S26 series back in May 2026, pitching it as an update focused on personalization, creativity, accessibility, and security. On the A36, that translates to a reworked Quick Panel with more customization options, DeX tweaks aimed at the desktop-style experience, general usability upgrades in Samsung Notes, and additional accessibility and security improvements baked into the system. Not every flagship-level Galaxy AI feature will necessarily carry over, though, since some of Samsung’s more demanding on-device AI tools need hardware the A36 simply doesn’t have.
What makes this rollout stand out is where the A36 sits in Samsung’s pecking order. The One UI 9 beta reached the Galaxy A57 first, then the Galaxy A56, which had already turned heads with its own strong showing in phoonomo’s A56 AnTuTu testing, and now the A36, Samsung’s most affordable device yet to get early access to the update. It’s a shift from previous cycles, when beta testing rarely extended past the S and Z series, let alone this far down the A-series lineup.
Long-term, the A36 is covered for six major Android upgrades and six years of security patches, so One UI 9 is really just the second stop on a road that started with Android 15 and is set to run all the way to Android 21. There’s no word yet on a stable release date, or on whether the beta will expand beyond India, but the current progress, moving from internal test builds spotted in late August straight into a public rollout by early September, suggests Samsung is moving through this cycle at a decent clip.
M Adnan Akram is the founder and lead writer at Phoonomo, covering mobile technology with a primary focus on Apple and the broader smartphone industry, alongside emerging developments in AI. He follows product launches, spec leaks, and industry trends closely to keep readers informed with timely updates.
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