When Samsung launched the Galaxy M30 last year, we were shocked to see how successful the company had been in pricing the phone. The M30s instantly made the Galaxy A50 too expensive, and rightly so: with the exception of the integrated fingerprint sensor and a more aesthetic design, the Galaxy A50 was pretty much the same phone as the M30s, only with a considerably smaller battery.
Samsung could simply have let the 6000mAh battery on the M30 be the highlight, but it didn’t. The Galaxy M30s had the new Exynos 9611 processor under the hood, a 48MP triple camera configuration on the back and a beautiful 6.4-inch Super AMOLED panel on the front. In fact, Samsung told us when launching the Galaxy M31 that the camera, battery life and display are the most important factors for young people these days, and these are the parameters on which he focused on the design of the Galaxy M31.
However, as the battery life and display quality of the M30 were rather excellent for the asking price, Samsung focused on the camera experience with the Galaxy M31. There’s a 64MP camera on the back with a macro camera, in addition to an ultra-wide camera and a depth sensor, while the front camera has been upgraded to a sensor 32MP. Does the M31 have what it takes to be the amazing value proposition that the Galaxy M30 was last year? Let’s find out!
Galaxy M31 design and display
The Galaxy M31 has a polycarbonate body which is pretty much the same as the Galaxy M30. Since there is a 6000mAh battery inside, the M31 is heavy, but not so heavy that it would turn you off. However, the phone doesn’t seem very premium to hold, and it might not appeal to everyone despite the rather affordable price. The design is quite utilitarian, in short, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your preferences.
At the rear, the configuration of the quad camera is housed inside a rectangular window in the upper left corner, with the words “64 megapixels” mentioned next to the LED flash. It may seem cheap to some, but in my opinion, the font used for the text makes it quite elegant. There’s also a capacitive fingerprint sensor next to the cameras, which I think is still the best solution for fingerprint recognition on phones.
The Galaxy M31 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Infinity-U screen is great for this segment of the smartphone market. It has wide viewing angles, vivid colors, deep blacks and very good brightness levels that only fall under the harshest sun. However, since it is the same panel as that of the Galaxy M30, the glasses are rather large for a 2020 smartphone. The lower bezel in particular is an eyesore, even if I suppose that we cannot complain considering the price of the M31.
The Galaxy M31 has a headphone jack, for those wondering. But you will have to buy your own headphones, as there are no headphones in the box. There is no case either: all you get is a USB-C cable and a 15W Samsung fast charger, which was also the case (no pun intended) with the Galaxy M30s. You will need a case, however, if you want to keep the phone in immaculate condition, as the back panel picks up scratches very easily.
Galaxy M31 camera
The M31 is Samsung’s cheapest phone with a 64-megapixel rear camera, and using pixel binning, it takes 16-megapixel photos in automatic mode. And the daytime performance is pretty good. There are a lot of details in the photos and a good dynamic range. The same goes for video recording. The M31 is also the cheapest Samsung phone to record 4K videos (at 30 fps), and apart from a lack of stabilization, the videos captured in broad daylight look pretty good.
It’s the night performance where the M31 drops the ball. First of all, the phone is just too shaken even when you hold it with both hands, and with one hand, good luck with getting a perfectly clear picture. If you manage it, you get enough detail and little noise when there is good artificial lighting around. In the dark, things are not so rosy. Samsung markets the M31 as having an incredible Night mode of the camera, but this Night mode is not really great.
First of all, the photos in Night mode are considerably cropped, so you see much less in the frame compared to standard photos. Second, photos in night mode have a watercolor paint effect and their details are often smudged when it should be the other way around. Finally, some scenes do not show a noticeable difference when captured in Night mode. Night mode is great for brightening up a scene when it’s too dark, but otherwise it doesn’t really work as well as Samsung would have it think.
Here are some photos captured in both automatic and night mode:
The M31’s ultra-wide camera is an 8-megapixel sensor like the M30’s ultra-wide camera. It is useful to capture a larger scene, but do not expect to see fine details when you zoom in, especially at night. As for the 5MP macro camera, it’s great if you like taking close-up pictures, although it’s often difficult to understand exactly when the object is in focus, which results in some blurry shots.
Here are some examples of rear cameras, including ultra-wide and macro photos.
For selfies, the Galaxy M31 has a 32MP camera and manages to take pleasant photos outdoors. By default, you get 8MP photos, but you can switch to 32MP mode if you want to see more details in your selfies. At night, the details are lost, whether it’s an 8MP photo or a 32MP photo, and you can also expect camera shake if you don’t hold the phone steady using all the will you can muster .
In case you were wondering, you can also capture 4K videos with the front camera. Other 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 examples below). You can also capture slow motion and standard slow motion videos and create AR emoticons. Standard modes like Hyperlapse and Panorama are also present.
Galaxy M31’s Performances
The Galaxy M31 is powered by the same Exynos 9611 chipset that you will find on the Galaxy M30, Galaxy A50 and Galaxy A51. It’s the processor choice for Samsung’s budget and lower mid-range phones, and all I can say is that it gets the job done everyday. The M31 works fine until you try to switch apps and navigate the user interface too quickly. Applications generally launch quickly, and since there is 6 GB of RAM on the 64 GB and 128 GB storage variants, multitasking is generally not a problem.
Game performance is pretty good in titles like Call of Duty and PUBG, at least to the default graphics settings. The phone may stutter here and there when you load a game and start playing, but these stuttering do not appear after the first or the first two minutes. There were also no operational issues with the ultra frame rate setting in PUBG, and Asphalt 9 and modern Fight 5 also work well. This is something I also noticed on the Galaxy A50 and M30 – the Exynos 9610/9611 is not ideal for the general user interface, but its Mali-G72 MP3 GPU handles game titles very well popular.
Galaxy M31 software
Like all the other Galaxy phones that Samsung launched in 2020, the Galaxy M31 runs on Android 10 with One UI 2.0. Well, it is running 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 Galaxy M30 with the Android 10 update. You don’t get features like the DVR integrated screen or even something as basic as the secure folder. Samsung Pay and Samsung Pay Mini are also not supported. Bixby is also completely absent, with the exception of Bixby Vision in the camera app.
And when I insisted to Samsung about the reasons why the M series runs One UI Core, even if devices like the M30 and M31 have the same processor as the Galaxy A51, which receive the One UI 2.0 standard (but not with all the features), I was told that the company designs each phone according to the target market. But that doesn’t explain why things like Samsung Pay Mini and Secure Folder aren’t part of the package, and I can only assume that Samsung wants to keep some features exclusive to more expensive phones.
Since the Galaxy M31 is running Android 10 out of the box, it will receive an update to Android 11 and Android 12 at some point. Android 11 could arrive quickly – the Galaxy M20 and M30 received the Android 10 update before the Galaxy Note 10, after all. Security updates are likely to occur once every three months for the first two years, and whenever necessary from the third year.
Galaxy M31 battery life
With a 6000mAh battery under the hood, it’s no wonder the Galaxy M31 can last a very long time on a single charge. I always have a full day of battery life with intensive use, and with light to not too heavy use, you won’t have to charge it until late at night the next day, at least if you stick mainly Wi-Fi. Switching to LTE naturally shortens battery life, but you can still enjoy it all day long with fairly intensive use.
The M31 supports 15W fast charging. With such a large battery, faster charging speeds don’t matter, and given the price level that Samsung is targeting with the M series, we probably won’t see the specs for quick charge change anytime soon. Still, it would be nice to have, since a full charge from 0 takes about two and a half hours. An hour of charging brings the charge to around 30%, although this 30% lasts a long time.
Galaxy M31 audio and call quality
The M31 has a single bottom-trigger speaker that gets the job done if you’re in a small room, but is too quiet to hear even at full volume otherwise. It’s the same story with all budget Galaxy phones, and the M31 does nothing to change that. Like the M30 speaker, the M31 does not distort at the highest volume, which is a plus. It could just do with a little more depth in the low frequencies (bass).
For wired audio, you will have to opt for a third-party product because no headset is supplied with the phone. When used with headphones from other budget / mid-range smartphones, the M31 produces a very heavy sound at high frequencies (treble) but lacks punch at low frequencies. Regarding call quality, I did not notice any issues with either of the two SIM cards I was using, except for the fact that the earpiece and speaker are quieter and make it difficult to hear what the person says at the other end. .
Galaxy M31 verdict
The Galaxy M31 is more or less a Galaxy M30 with a macro camera, a higher resolution main camera, more RAM on the basic variant and more recent software. And the basic variant of the Galaxy M30, priced at Rs 12,999, is the best choice if you are on an extremely tight budget. If you have Rs 14,999, the Galaxy M31 offers excellent value for money. It would have been nice to see more feature-rich software, better quality 64MP rear camera in low light, and perhaps an Infinity-O screen with smaller glasses, but for the asking price, these are all tips that shouldn’t affect your decision to pick up the phone.
Benefits | The inconvenients |
Excellent Super AMOLED display | Some stuttering and delays in general navigation |
Incredible battery life | Cameras do not work well in low light conditions |
Cameras work well in daylight, support for 4K video recording | Barebones software, no screen recorder, Samsung Pay or Bixby |
Android 10 with a ready-to-use 2.0 user interface | Plastic back easily picks up scratches |
Good performance in games and most everyday tasks | Smaller glasses would have been nice |
6 GB of RAM as standard | |