Samsung Galaxy M31 Design
At first sight Samsung Galaxy M30S And Galaxy M31 It is difficult to differentiate between. Both smartphones have a 6.4-inch display with waterdrop style notch, which Samsung calls Infinity-U display. Its bezels are not thin, but it cannot be expected more than the price. Like other M-Series smartphones Samsung Has built the body of Galaxy M31 using plastic. The earpiece is quite thin and is set in the frame just above the display.
Galaxy M31 feels comfortable to hold in hand. Its side is slightly curved, making the phone grip good. Samsung has given power and volume buttons on the right side of the device. The thumb access to the power button is easy to make, but the volume button could have been set better. There is a sim tray on the left which was not closing well in our review unit. The Galaxy M31 has 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and speaker all the options set below. Its upper side is only secondary microphone.
When you look at the Galaxy M31 from the back, you will definitely see some changes. The camera module is similar to the Galaxy M30, but now it comes with an additional fourth camera. The module is accompanied by a fingerprint scanner. After holding the smartphone in hand, the finger reaches this fingerprint comfortably.
Samsung Galaxy M31 has a large 6,000 mAh battery and weighs 191 grams. Having a large battery definitely makes the device feel heavy. Samsung has also given a 15W charger in the box, which charge the battery a little early. The company has introduced Galaxy M31 in two colors – Ocean Blue and Space Black. We had space black variants for reviews, which very easily holds the fingers.
Samsung Galaxy M31 Specifications, Features
The specification of Galaxy A31 is largely the same as the Galaxy M30. The smartphone comes with a 6.4-inch AMOLED display, whose resolution is full-HD+. It also has a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection, which protects the Galaxy phone from scratches. The display has good viewing angles and it also performs well in the light outside.
Samsung has also retained the Exynos 9611 chipset included in the Galaxy M30s in this phone. It is an octa-core processor, with four ARM Cortex-A73 core, which has a maximum clock speed of 2.3 GHz and four cortex-A53 core, with a maximum clock speed of 1.7 GHz. It has a Mali-G72 GPU for graphics. You get options for 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage variants and 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variants in the phone. The price of these two is Rs 15,999 and Rs 16,999 respectively. However, Samsung is offering a discount of Rs 1,000 for some time in this phone, after which their price is Rs 14,999 and Rs 15,999 respectively. At present, the validity of this offer has not been informed.
The Galaxy M31 has two Nano-SIM slots and includes 4G as well as VoLTE support. It also supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Its storage can be increased to 512 GB via microSD card.
Talking about the software, the phone has a One UI 2.0 based on Android 10. The software is exactly the same as we have seen in the recently launched Galaxy S10 Light and Galaxy Note 10 Lite. We also find some unwanted apps Galaxy M31. Apart from Google apps on the smartphone, Netflix, Facebook, Candy Crush Saga and Samsung Max had already come to install. Samsung also has its own apps in the phone. These include My Galaxy and Samsung Shop. We found that My Galaxy is a disturbing app, as it sends many notifications throughout the day.
We will advise you to be careful when setuping the device. At the time of the setup, Samsung seeks some permission from you. Here you have to take some care, 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 leave.
The Galaxy M31 also provides Android 10 features such as dark mode and focus mode, which can be enabled very easily through the notification shed. Dolby Atmos is also available, but it only works with earphones. Digital welling and parental control are also present on the device. Apart from this, Galaxy M31 also consists of common gestures like double tap to wake, gesture screenshot.
Samsung Galaxy M31 Performance and Battery Life
Samsung has given 6 GB RAM in Galaxy M31, which is very useful while doing multitasking. We did not find any type of leg while using the smartphone. The device loads the apps very fast, but the big apps take some time. Due to excess RAM, multitasking in Galaxy M31 is quite easy.
The fingerprint scanner unlocks the smartphone rapidly and the selfie camera also identifies the face easily and accuracy. We enjoyed watching the content on the AMOLED display. With the widewine L1 support, you can stream full-HD content in it comfortably.
We also played PUBG mobile game on Galaxy M31 and went into high-grafts settings with HD resolution by game default. There was no problem playing games in these settings. After playing for 20 minutes, we saw a drop of four percent in the battery. Apart from this, there was a slight warmth 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 for 22 hours, 31 minutes. With our use, the battery lasted for two days without any problem. If a strong battery life is important for you, the Galaxy M31 will not definitely disappoint you.
Samsung Galaxy M31 Cameras
The Galaxy M31 has a quad-camera setup at the back and a 32-megapixel selfie camera in front. The back camera setup of Galaxy M31 has a 64-megapixel primary camera sensor, which comes with f/1.8 aperture. This camera takes a 16-megapixel bin shot by default, but you can easily switch to the entire resolution. The setup also has an 8-megapixel ultra-wind-angle camera lens with a 123 degree field of view, which is aperture 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 it is also easy to reach all the features involved. There is an option to switch between primary and wide-angle cameras. The scene optimizer is capable of detecting sequences and setting the camera accordingly.
We found that the Galaxy M31 easily locks the focus on the object. The pictures came out well in it and there is no lack of detailing in it. The smartphone enables HDR when required. It is easy to switch to wide-angle-camera and you can capture more than standard in the camera frame through it. Although the pictures taken from this look good, but there is a lack of details in them. Wide-angle shots also show a circular effect on the edges.
The Galaxy M31 closely separates the subject and background during the close-up shooting and gives an effect of natural blur. However, we realized that bright colors appear more bright in it. Macro camera also takes good shots, but the quality of the camera gets spoiled in low light inside the house.
Portrait shots are good and the camera app gives you the option to set Blur Effects before taking the shot. The age detection of the camera is also very good and the Galaxy M 31 works good to separate the object from the background.
Galaxy M31 takes longer to lock the focus in low light, so you have to keep the phone stable while taking shots. The photos taken in low light look good, but you will see the grain (donation) effect in the picture when zoom is zoom. However, this effect can be reduced slightly through night mode.
The selfie taken with Galaxy M31 is also good. Although it performs well in sufficient light, the quality falls completely in low light and a grain effect is also seen in selfie.
Video recording can be done in 4K resolution through both main rear camera and selfie shooter. Galaxy M31 gives good recording output during the day. However we found that the footage comes a bit unstable. It has a super stedy mode that uses wide-angle-camera and reduces vibrations slightly. We found a quite a stable output using this mode, but the video saw lack of details. If you make videos in 4K, you will not get any kind of stabilization feature.
Verdict
Samsung has seen good success with Galaxy M30s, this may be a reason that the company did not make much major changes in this phone. The company upgraded the RAM to the phone and added a quad rear camera setup by adding an additional back camera. Apart from this, it gave preloaded Android 10. The Galaxy M31 cannot be felt completely like a new device. This can be largely seen like a small update of Galaxy M30S.
The Exynos 9611 chipset included in the phone is a competent processor, but if this phone had a more powerful processor to increase the competition, we would have been more happy. Certainly some upgrade makes this phone a little better, but it cannot be called a big upgrade than the previous smartphone.
The strong battery backup of the phone is still the main attraction of this series. In a charge, the phone can be easily run for two days, which can not easily do competitive phones at this price. Redmi Note 8 Pro And Realme X2 Still give you a very powerful hardware by the price, but if you do not care about the benchmark score and just want a device that covers the needs comfortably and comes with a tremendous battery, then Galaxy M31 is a good option for you.