Samsung Galaxy M31 review: Another compelling budget Galaxy phone

When Samsung launched the Galaxy M30s last year, we were shocked to run into how competitively the company had managed to cost the phone. The M30s instantly made the Galaxy A50 feel too costly, and rightly so: Except for the in-display fingerprint sensor and better looking design, the Galaxy A50 was pretty much the aforementioned telephone as the M30s, only with a considerably smaller battery.

Samsung could simply have permit the half-dozen,000 mAh battery on the M30s be the highlight, but information technology didn't. The Milky way M30s had the new Exynos 9611 processor under the hood, a 48MP triple camera setup at the back, and a cute 6.4-inch Super AMOLED console up front. In fact, Samsung told united states at the Milky way M31 launch that the camera, bombardment life, and display are the virtually important factors for young people nowadays, and those are the parameters it focused on when designing the Galaxy M31.

However, since the battery life and display quality on the M30s were pretty pinnacle notch for the asking toll, Samsung has focused on the camera experience with the Galaxy M31. There'due south a 64MP photographic camera at the dorsum along with a macro camera, in addition to an ultra-wide photographic camera and a depth sensor, while the front-facing camera has been upgraded to a 32MP sensor. Does the M31 have what it takes to exist the astonishing value proposition that the Galaxy M30s was final yr? Allow's detect out!

Galaxy M31 design and display

The Galaxy M31 has a polycarbonate body that's pretty much the aforementioned as the Galaxy M30s. Since there's a 6,000 mAh bombardment inside, the M31 is heavy, just not then heavy that it would plow you off. Even so, the phone doesn't feel very premium to agree, and that might not be to anybody's liking despite the rather affordable toll tag. The blueprint is quite utilitarian, in short, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your preferences.

At the back, the quad camera setup is housed inside a rectangular window in the upper left corner, with the words '64 megapixels' mentioned adjacent to the LED flash. It may come up off as inexpensive to some, but in my opinion the font used for the text makes it look quite stylish. There's besides a capacitive fingerprint sensor next to the cameras, which I even so call back is the best solution for fingerprint recognition on phones.

The 6.4-inch Infinity-U Super AMOLED display on the Milky way M31 is excellent for this segment of the smartphone market. Information technology has broad viewing angles, bright colors, deep blacks, and pretty good brightness levels that only fall brusque in the harshest of sunlight. Withal, since this is the same panel as the one on the Galaxy M30s, the bezels are rather big for a 2020 smartphone. The bottom bezel in particular is an eyesore, though I guess we can't mutter because the M31's toll tag.

The Galaxy M31 has a headphone jack, for those wondering. Merely yous will take to buy your own headphones, equally at that place are no earphones in the box. There's no case, either: All you get is a USB-C cablevision and a 15W Samsung fast charger, which was also the instance (no pun intended) with the Galaxy M30s. Y'all volition need a example, though, if yous want to keep the phone in a pristine condition, as the dorsum panel picks up scratches very easily.

Galaxy M31 camera

The M31 is Samsung's cheapest phone to characteristic a 64-megapixel rear photographic camera, and using pixel binning, it takes 16-megapixel photos in auto mode. And daytime functioning is pretty good. In that location'southward plenty of detail in the photos and skillful dynamic range. The same goes for video recording. The M31 is likewise the cheapest Samsung phone to sport 4K video recording (at xxx fps), and autonomously from a lack of stabilization, videos captured in daylight wait pretty good.

It's the night performance where the M31 drops the brawl. Get-go off, the phone simply has too much milk shake even when you lot hold information technology in 2 easily, and with a single mitt, well, good luck getting a perfectly clear picture. If y'all do manage it, y'all get sufficient detail and petty noise when at that place's good bogus lighting around. In the dark, things aren't so rosy. Samsung is marketing the M31 as having an amazing photographic camera Nighttime manner, merely that Night mode isn't exactly that great.

First off, the Night mode photos are cropped considerably so you see a lot less in the frame compared to standard photos. Secondly, Night manner photos have a watercolor painting effect and often accept their detail smudged when it should exist the other manner around. Finally, some scenes don't evidence noticeable departure when captured in Night mode. Night mode is great for brightening up a scene when it's besides dark, but otherwise, it doesn't really work also as Samsung would make you think.

Here are a couple of photos captured both in automobile mode and in Night mode:

The ultra-wide camera on the M31 is an viii-megapixel sensor similar the M30s' ultra-wide photographic camera. It'due south useful to capture a wider scene, simply don't expect to run into whatsoever fine detail when you zoom in, particularly at night. Every bit for the 5MP macro camera, it's groovy if you love taking close-upwardly shots, though it'south ofttimes difficult to understand exactly when the object is in focus, resulting in a few out-of-focus shots.

Here are a few samples from the rear cameras, including ultra-wide and macro shots.

For selfies, the Galaxy M31 has a 32MP camera and manages to take pleasing pictures outdoors. By default, you lot get 8MP photos, but you lot can switch to 32MP manner if you like to see more details in your selfies. At nighttime, detail is lost whether it's an 8MP photograph or a 32MP photo, and y'all can also expect some camera shake if you don't hold the telephone steady using all the willpower yous can muster.

In instance you're wondering, you tin capture 4K videos with the front camera besides. Other photographic camera features include Live Focus mode for bokeh shots with the front and rear cameras, which works pretty well most of the time (see some samples below). You can also capture Super Slow-mo and standard slow motion videos and create AR Emojis. Standard modes like Hyperlapse and Panorama are nowadays as well.

Galaxy M31 functioning

The Milky way M31 is powered by the same Exynos 9611 chipset that you lot find on the Galaxy M30s, Galaxy A50s, and Galaxy A51. It's the processor choice for Samsung's budget and lower mid-range phones, and all I tin say is that it gets the job done in solar day-to-solar day use. The M31 runs smoothly as long as you lot don't try to switch apps and browse through the user interface as well quickly. Apps mostly launch quickly, and since in that location's 6GB of RAM on both the 64GB and 128GB storage variants, multitasking isn't unremarkably an issue.

Gaming performance is pretty adept in titles likeCall of DutyandPUBG, at least at the default graphics settings. The phone can stutter here and there when you lot initially load a game and starting time playing, merely those stutters don't show upwards later on the start infinitesimal or two. It too didn't take problems running well at the ultra frame rate setting in PUBG, and games like Cobblestone ix and Modern Gainsay five too run fine. This is something I as well noticed on the Galaxy A50 and M30s – the Exynos 9610/9611 isn't great for the full general user interface, but its Mali-G72 MP3 GPU handles pop gaming titles very well.

Galaxy M31 software

Like every other Galaxy phone Samsung has launched in 2020, the Galaxy M31 runs Android 10 with One UI two.0 out of the box. Well, it runs One UI Core 2.0, which is a stripped down version of One UI 2.0 that Samsung also brought to the Galaxy M20 and Milky way M30 with the Android ten update. You don't get features like the congenital-in screen recorder or fifty-fifty something as basic as Secure Folder. Samsung Pay and Samsung Pay Mini aren't supported, either. Bixby is completely missing also, except for Bixby Vision in the photographic camera app.

And when I pressed Samsung about why the M series runs One UI Core even though devices like the M30s and M31 have the aforementioned processor every bit the Galaxy A51, which do get standard 1 UI 2.0 (though not with all features), I was told the company designs each telephone according to the target market. Merely that doesn't explicate why stuff like Samsung Pay Mini and Secure Binder aren't part of the bundle, and I can simply presume Samsung wants to keep some features exclusive to costlier phones.

Since the Milky way M31 runs Android 10 out of the box, it will receive an update to Android xi and Android 12 at some signal. Android 11 might make it rapidly – the Galaxy M20 and M30 received the Android 10 update before the Milky way Note 10 did, after all. Security updates are probable to come once every three months for the first two years, and whenever necessary from the third year onward.

Galaxy M31 battery life

With a 6,000 mAh battery nether the hood, it'south no wonder the Galaxy M31 tin can last a really long time on a single charge. I always got a full 24-hour interval of battery life with heavy usage, and with low-cal to not-as well-heavy use, you won't take to charge it until tardily evening the side by side 24-hour interval, at least if you lot stick to mostly Wi-Fi. Switching to LTE brings down battery life, naturally, but you lot tin can still get a full day out of information technology with fairly heavy utilize.

The M31 supports 15W fast charging. With such a big battery, faster charging speeds don't matter that much, and given the price point Samsung is targeting with the Yard serial, we probably won't see the fast charging specification change whatever time soon. Still, it would be nice to take, every bit a full accuse from 0 takes around two hours and a half. An hour of charging takes the charge to around 30 percent, though that thirty percent does last a considerable while.

Galaxy M31 audio and telephone call quality

The M31 has a single bottom-firing loudspeaker that gets the job washed if you're in a modest room but is too quiet to hear even at full book otherwise. It's the same story with every budget Galaxy telephone, and the M31 doesn't do anything to alter that. Like the M30s' speaker, the M31's doesn't misconstrue at the highest book, though, which is a plus. It could just do with a bit more depth in the low frequencies (bass).

For wired audio, you will demand to opt for a third-party product as no earphones are bundled with the phone. When used with earphones from other budget/mid-range Galaxy smartphones, the M31 produces sound that is very heavy on the loftier frequencies (treble) but lacks punch in the lower frequencies. As for call quality, I noticed no issues with either of the two SIMs I was using, except for the fact that both the earpiece and the loudspeaker are on the quieter side and brand it hard to hear what the person on the other stop is saying.

Galaxy M31 verdict

The Galaxy M31 is more or less a Galaxy M30s with a macro camera, a higher-resolution master photographic camera, more RAM on the base variant, and newer software out of the box. And the Galaxy M30s' base variant, priced at Rs 12,999, is the ameliorate pick if you're on an extremely tight budget. If y'all accept Rs 14,999 lying around, then the Galaxy M31 offers fantabulous value for coin. It would have been nice to see more than feature-packed software, better quality from the 64MP rear camera in depression calorie-free, and perhaps an Infinity-O display with smaller bezels, just for the asking toll, these are all nitpicks that shouldn't affect your determination to get the phone.

Pros	Cons
First-class Super AMOLED display	Some stutter and lag in general navigation
Astonishing battery life	Cameras don't practise bully in low-light conditions
Cameras perform well in daylight, 4K video recording support	Barebones software package, no screen recorder, Samsung Pay, or Bixby
Android 10 with 1 UI 2.0 out of the box	Plastic back picks upwards scratches easily
Good performance in games and most day-to-twenty-four hours tasks	Smaller display bezels would have been nice
6GB of RAM as standard

Source: https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/galaxy-m31/review

Posted by: whitttiver1990.blogspot.com

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