Hmm, my purchases generally circle around my current tech not working for some reason or the other. My s20 + is now out of commission and being in warranty I sent it to a Samsung service centre to be brought back to life. I like that they have a pickup and drop service for 200 Rs.
My old s6 edge plus is too slow to use, with some functions looking like it’s taking too long to respond. To end this torture, I picked up the galaxy M51, a midrange phone with surprisingly great spec’s. Let’s check it out in this video.
I have here the Samsung Galaxy M51, yes there are a lot of other phones in this price point I could have looked at but being used to Samsung phones didn’t look anywhere else. Also Samsung did cripple their phones using their Exynos SOC, which is why I was looking out for a phone which at least has a Snapdragon processor instead. The m31 looked good, but is Exynos, not that it’s bad but it does have some shortcomings. Raise the budget a bit and we have the galaxy M51.
This phone is part of the new monster series of phones, which have massive batteries, this one specifically having a 7000 mAh battery which is unheard of. 7000 mAh, I hope that does translate into better battery life.
Let’s open the box, we have the phone right on top. It’s massive, size wise similar to my s20 plus, but heft. Yeah, it’s there, it does feel a bit heavy, not much but.
We have a 25 watt fast charger, a usb-c to usb-c cable.
As usual the documentation and sim tool are present on the top half of the box. Sadly, there’s no case in the box, and also the earphones seem to be missing. Do phones in this price range not provide any earphones, or it only Samsung?
Back to the phone, I have the electric blue version. There is also a celestial black option available.
Here’s the back of the phone, electric blue, looks quite nice. It has a glass sheen to it, but this is actually plastic or glasstic as advertised. With a 7000 mAh phone I expected it to be quite heavy, but it feels good in the hand. Samsung has done their homework and the weight distribution seems to be well done.
It’s a heavy phone but doesn’t feel like it in the hand.
The sim tray is dual sim and one memory card slot. Samsung, why don’t you implement this in your flagships. Here I can use two sim cards and a memory card, on my s20 plus I can either use two sims or one sim and one memory card.
This is one major feature I feel is missing in your flagships.
Now let’s turn it on. Hope it has some charge in the battery, generally manufacturers charge up devices to 50% while packing. Oh, i didn’t expect knox at this price point, knox is basically Samsung’s mobile security solution. Great to see that it’s available at this price point.
It’s ready, and we are greeted by the huge 6.7 inch display. Super AMOLED plus, Samsung makes the best displays and this is no slouch. Super AMOLED plus displays are quite thin, which effectively reduced some mm on the overall phone’s lateral height. 2400x 1080 pixels FHD+ resolution, 20:9 ratio, 393 ppi density with Glass front (Gorilla Glass 3), Samsung should have gone with at least gorilla glass 5 which is a bit disappointing. My s6 edge plus a phone from 2015 has Gorilla glass 4.
We have an ambient light sensor on the phone which changes the display brightness as per ambient light conditions.
420 nits, bright enough for outdoor viewability. Bezels are quite thin, which is a plus. This panel is 60hz, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for high refresh rate displays.
But that aside the colours look awesome.
On the side we have the power button which is also the fingerprint sensor and above that we have the volume rocker. Not sure why they moved the volume rocker to this side, just like it’s flagship brethren. Fingerprint sensor being a hardware sensor, I like the speed the phone unlocks, and it’s quite accurate. Super-fast, and you will understand if you’re coming from an in display fingerprint sensor. Clickness is present, so you know you’ve pressed the button. Set fingerprints on the other hand too how you would generally hold the phone, so that it can unlock that way too. You cannot unlock the phone easily while it’s on a table, but it’s fast when you pick it up. Face unlock is also present, which is fine, not very secure. I would suggest the fingerprint sensor for more security.
NFC is also present, which is rare in mid-range phones. Dolby sound, which is software-based enhancements, it’s there if you need it.
Processor is the Snapdragon 730G, and I have the 8Gb RAM, 128gb storage which costs around 2k more than the 6gb version. Both versions come with 128 GB UFS-2.1 storage, only the RAM size changes which are LPDDR4X. I picked up the m51 specifically for the snapdragon 730G, as I don’t like the performance and battery life that Exynos provides.
The phone uses One UI 2.1 which I’ve become quite used to on all my Samsung devices. It’s polished, the animations are fast and fluid and there are a lot of features which have become indispensable tools for me. Samsung have their own software preinstalled, with some apps like Netflix also available out of the box.
We have a hole punch or infinity O camera notch top and center on the front display, it’s 32 megapixel with a f2.0 aperture and 26mm wide. 16 mm is the sweet spot, let’s see how good 26 mm is.
The rear shooter or shooter’s are
64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide) imx 682 sensor, with PDAF which is fast.
12 MP, f/2.2, 123˚ (ultrawide) which is quite wide
5 MP, f/2.4, (macro), which is nice as I don’t need a macro lens to get macro shots. Even my s20 plus does not have this
And the last one 5 MP, f/2.4, (depth) which is used for depth detection, mostly to be used in portrait photos.
The 64 megapixel mode is surprisingly hidden under the aspect ration option, select it from there and you can shoot in 64 megapixels else it is always 16 megapixels.
Same for the 32 megapixel front camera.
The rear cameras are respectable, the pictures come out really crisp and the colour saturation is quite nice, which is also due to the quality of the display provided. Everything looks nice on this display. But the camera is top notch, dare I say flagship grade. I will have to test more which I will update in a future video.
Video recording can go all the way up to 4k 30fps and the front camera can go only upto 1080p 30.
Quality is great but there’s no OIS or optical image stabilization.
The camera software is feature rich too, with some newer features like single take also available on the m51 which is a necessity when you have kids, as they keep running around. Single take takes multiple photos and video which helps you get the right shot. Super slow motion, portrait mode, hyper lapse the works.
Having a Snapdragon processor, we have support for Camera 2 api, so will support Gcam or google camera app.
This phone camera has the most important features necessary for everyday use and more.
With HDR and Widevine L1 CDM support streaming apps like Netflix take advantage of it and the colours pop, and the videos look beautiful.
Speakers are fine, they’re loud but not stereo which should have been possible looking at the size of the phone. They are fine, calls and streaming video sound good, but could have been louder.
Another surprising feature is the 3.5 mm jack, which is present on this device, so those who have been dejected with the loss of the 3.5mm jack on their usb-c phones this is one that has it, and it also has FM radio using a headset. This is cool if you need it.
It has multiple microphones for noise reduction, and let’s check out the quality of the mic’s on the Galaxy M51.
Connectivity wise we have Dual 4g VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling, Bluetooth 5.0 whatever you need it’s present on this phone.
And now for the star of the show the battery.
Battery is 7000 mAh, and thank god it has a 25-watt charger, else it would have taken forever to charge. It takes around 2 hours to top-up the battery from 0.
Life is estimated to be around 2 days for light use, which is the basic selling point of the M series, or monster battery. I will have to test this out.
This phone is great for gaming, especially on the go.
And we also have reverse charging where the phone acts like a powerbank. If you want to help your friends out with a quick power top-up from your phone with a 7000 mAh battery, you can do that. Works great.
So my thoughts, I chose this phone specifically due to the feature set available, it has everything I need, great display, long battery life, good cameras, great performance especially with a snapdragon 730g processor. This might even be better than my flagship s20 plus in terms of overall value.
But there will be some features missing such as water resistance, it is splash resistant but not waterproof, no wireless charging. The haptic motor also sounds and feels quite different which is what we pay for in the premium variants, I guess. At this price point I feel it’s a great all-round phone. The snapdragon 730g is not the best snapdragon processor available and other brands have phones at a lower price with the same processor, but if you want a Samsung phone this is one of the best options available at present, at this price point.
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