Samsung Galaxy M31 Review

The Samsung Galaxy M series has gained a lot of popularity for its affordable prices and good hardware. Samsung has managed to reduce prices by selling all the models of this series online, reducing distribution costs. The Samsung Galaxy M30, which comes in the sub-15,000 segment, is one of the smartphones that carried forward the success of this series and this may be the reason why the company later introduced an improved version of this phone as the Galaxy M30s. Now the company has launched a new upgraded version of both these phones in the market named Galaxy M31, which comes with some upgrades compared to both its previous versions. In this phone you get a quad-camera setup. However, the processor and battery capacity have not been changed. Will this latest Galaxy phone be enough to keep the Galaxy-M series competitive in the market? We have reviewed the Galaxy M31 to find out. You too know.

Samsung Galaxy M31 design

At first glance, it is difficult to differentiate between the Samsung Galaxy M30s and Galaxy M31. Both smartphones have a 6.4-inch display with a waterdrop style notch, which Samsung calls Infinity-U display. Its bezels are not thin, but considering the price, one cannot expect much more than this. Like other M-series smartphones, Samsung has built the body of the Galaxy M31 using plastic. The earpiece is quite thin and is set in the frame just above the display.

The Galaxy M31 feels comfortable to hold in the hand. Its sides are slightly curved, which makes the phone grip better. Samsung has placed the power and volume buttons on the right side of the device. The power button is easy to reach with the thumb, but the volume buttons could have been set in a better place. There is a SIM tray on the left side which was not closing properly in our review unit. The 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and speaker options in the Galaxy M31 are all set at the bottom. Only the secondary microphone is given on its top side.

When you look at the Galaxy M31 from the back, you will definitely notice some changes. The camera module is similar to the Galaxy M30, but now it comes with an additional fourth camera. There is a fingerprint scanner next to the module. This fingerprint is easily accessible when the finger is holding the smartphone in hand.

The Samsung Galaxy M31 has a large 6,000mAh battery and weighs 191 grams. The large battery definitely makes the device feel heavy. Samsung has also provided a 15W charger in the box, which charges the battery a little faster than a standard charger. The company has launched the Galaxy M31 in two colors – Ocean Blue and Space Black. We had the Space Black variant for review, which picks up fingerprints very easily.

Samsung Galaxy M31 specifications, features

The specifications of the Galaxy A31 are quite similar to those of the Galaxy M30. The smartphone comes with a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a full-HD+ resolution. It also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection, which protects the Galaxy phone from scratches. The display has good viewing angles and performs well even in outdoor light.

Samsung has retained the Exynos 9611 chipset included in the Galaxy M30s in this phone as well. It is an octa-core processor, with four ARM Cortex-A73 cores with a maximum clock speed of 2.3 GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores with a maximum clock speed of 1.7 GHz. For graphics, it has a Mali-G72 GPU. You get the option of 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage variant and 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant in the phone. Both of these are priced at Rs 15,999 and Rs 16,999 respectively. However, Samsung is offering a discount of Rs 1,000 on this phone for some time, after which their price becomes Rs 14,999 and Rs 15,999 respectively. At present, the validity of this offer has not been given.

The Galaxy M31 has two nano-SIM slots and includes support for 4G as well as VoLTE. It also supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Its storage can be expanded up to 512 GB via microSD card.

Talking about the software, the phone has One UI 2.0 based on Android 10. The software is exactly the same as what we have seen in the recently launched Galaxy S10 Lite and Galaxy Note 10 Lite. We also found some unwanted apps on the Galaxy M31. Apart from Google apps, Netflix, Facebook, Candy Crush Saga and Samsung Max came pre-installed on the smartphone. The phone also has Samsung’s own apps. These include My Galaxy and Samsung Shop. We found My Galaxy to be an annoying app as it sends many notifications throughout the day.

We would advise you to be careful while setting up the device. During setup, Samsung asks you for some permissions. You have to be a little careful here, because according to these permissions, Samsung will also send you marketing notifications. In the setup process, you will also be given the option to install some apps, which we would suggest to skip.

The Galaxy M31 also gets Android 10 features like Dark Mode and Focus Mode, which can be enabled very easily through the notification shade. Dolby Atmos is also available, but it only works with earphones. Digital Wellbeing and parental controls are also present on the device. Apart from this, common gestures like double tap to wake, gesture screenshot are also available in the Galaxy M31.

Samsung Galaxy M31 performance and battery life

Samsung has given 6GB of RAM in the Galaxy M31, which is quite useful while multitasking. We did not find any kind of lag while using the smartphone. The device loads apps quite fast, but large apps take a little time. Due to the large RAM, multitasking is quite easy in the Galaxy M31.

The fingerprint scanner unlocks the smartphone quickly and the selfie camera also recognizes faces easily and accurately. We enjoyed watching content on the AMOLED display. With Widevine L1 support, you can easily stream full-HD content.

We also played PUBG Mobile game on Galaxy M31 and the game ran in high-graphics settings with HD resolution by default. There was no problem in playing the game in these settings. After playing for 20 minutes, we noticed a four percent drop in battery. Apart from this, there was a slight heating in the device, but it was not much. The big battery will give you a chance to play for a long time. In our HD video loop test, this phone lasted 22 hours, 31 minutes. With our usage, the battery lasted two days without any problem. If strong battery life is important to you, then Galaxy M31 will definitely not disappoint you.

Samsung Galaxy M31 cameras

The Galaxy M31 has a quad-camera setup at the back and a 32-megapixel selfie camera at the front. The Galaxy M31’s back camera setup includes a 64-megapixel primary camera sensor that comes with an f/1.8 aperture. This camera takes 16-megapixel bin shots by default, but you can easily switch to the full resolution. The setup also includes an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera lens with a 123-degree field of view that has an aperture of f/2.2. The other two cameras come with a 5-megapixel depth sensor and a 5-megapixel macro lens. Samsung’s camera app is the same as before. It is easy to use and all the features included are also easy to access. There is an option to switch between the primary and wide-angle cameras. The scene optimizer is able to detect scenes and set the camera accordingly.

We found that the Galaxy M31 locks focus on objects with ease. Photos taken with it turned out well and there is no lack of detail. The smartphone enables HDR when required. Switching to the wide-angle camera is easy and lets you capture a larger area in the camera frame than the standard one. Although the photos taken with it look good, they lack detail when zoomed in. Wide-angle shots also show a rounded effect at the edges.

The Galaxy M31 separates the subject and background well when shooting close-ups and gives a natural blur effect. However, we felt that bright colours appear brighter. The macro camera also takes good shots, but the camera quality deteriorates in low light indoors.

Portrait shots come out well and the camera app gives you the option to set the blur effect before taking a shot. The edge detection of the camera is also very good and the Galaxy M31 does a good job of separating objects from the background.

In low light, the Galaxy M31 takes longer to lock focus, so you have to keep the phone steady while taking shots. Photos taken in low light look good, but you will notice a grain effect in the picture when you zoom in. However, this effect can be reduced a bit using the Night mode.

Selfies taken with the Galaxy M31 are also good. Although it performs well in adequate light, the quality drops drastically in low light and the grain effect is visible in selfies as well.

Video recording can be done in 4K resolution using both the main rear camera and the selfie shooter. During the day, the Galaxy M31 delivers good recording output. However, we found the footage to be a bit shaky. There is a Super Steady mode that uses the wide-angle-camera and reduces shakes a bit. We got a fairly steady output using this mode, but the videos lacked detail. You won’t get any kind of stabilisation feature if you shoot videos in 4K.

Verdict

Samsung has seen good success with the Galaxy M30s, which may be one reason why the company did not make any major changes to this phone. The company upgraded the RAM in the phone compared to before and added an additional back camera to the quad rear camera setup. Apart from this, it gave preloaded Android 10. The Galaxy M31 cannot be felt like a completely new device. It can largely be seen as a small update of the Galaxy M30s.

The Exynos 9611 chipset is a capable processor, but we would have been happier if this phone had a more powerful processor to take on the competition. Sure, some upgrades make this phone a little better, but it cannot be called a major upgrade over the previous smartphone.

The phone’s strong battery backup is still the highlight of this series. The phone can easily last two days on a single charge, which is something that competitors in this price range simply can’t do. The Redmi Note 8 Pro and Realme X2 still give you extremely powerful hardware for the price, but if you don’t care about benchmark scores and just want a device that covers basic needs comfortably and comes with a great battery, then the Galaxy M31 is a good option for you.